Pollution Free Cities: Renewable Energy

Showing posts with label Renewable Energy. Show all posts

Thursday, September 15, 2016

Pathways for Carbon Free Energy for the World

100% Clean and Renewable Wind, Water, and Sunlight (WWS) All-Sector Energy Roadmaps for 139 Countries of the World (62 page pdf, Mark Z. Jacobson, Mark A. Delucchi, Zack A.F. Bauer, Savannah C. Goodman, William E. Chapman, Mary A. Cameron, Alphabetical: Cedric Bozonnat, Liat Chobadi, Jenny R. Erwin, Simone N. Fobi, Owen K. Goldstrom, Sophie H. Harrison, Ted M. Kwasnik, Jonathan Lo, Jingyi Liu, Chun J. Yi, Sean B. Morris, Kevin R. Moy, Patrick L. O’Neill, Stephanie Redfern, Robin Schucker, Mike A. Sontag, Jingfan Wang, Eric Weiner, Alex S. Yachanin, Stanford University, Apr. 24, 2016)

Also discussed here: Clean Energy Could Fuel Most Countries by 2050, Study Shows (Zahra Hirji, InsideClimate News, Niv. 27, 2015)

Today we review a draft report prepared for the 2015 UN Climate Conference in Paris that provides an analysis of the ways that renewable energy source could be applied in 139 countries to replace the carbon sources currently used. Currently, only 3.8% of the power capacity is installed to reach 100% clean energy worldwide. In Canada, as an example, a power load of 412.1 gigawatts is required by 2050 under a business as usual scenario . Under a clean energy scenario, however, the country would need only 240.2 gigawatts of power. Most of the energy would come from onshore and offshore wind (58%), utility-scale and rooftop solar (21%), hydropower (16.5 %) and a mix of other sources, including geothermal (2%) and wave energy. The avoided health costs would be $107.6B per year which represents 4% of GDP or 9,598 air pollution deaths avoided every year. The estimated total electricity, health and climate cost savings of this transition would amount to about $8,887 per Canadian per year (in 2013 dollars).

Key Quotes:

“The main barriers to overhauling the global energy system "are social and political…They aren't technical or economic,"

“The paper, which will likely be submitted to scientific journals for publication next year, offers detailed roadmaps showing how most countries can make the switch to run entirely on clean energy across all sectors, from electricity to transportation to agriculture, as early as 2050.”

“researchers determined how each country could meet its future energy demands using only renewable sources. Under this "wind, water and solar" scenario, every country's ideal renewable energy mix was calculated based on its existing energy infrastructure and available clean energy resources, such as sunlight and wind.”

“The price tag of greening the world's energy system is $100 trillion, or $2 million per megawatt, over the next 35 years.”

“As of 2014, only 3.8 percent of the power capacity needed for 100 percent clean energy worldwide had been installed. Norway, Paraguay and Iceland lead the transition because they have successfully tapped their vast hydropower or geothermal resources.”

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Do Wind Turbines Really Impact the Health of Nearby Residents?

English: Taken by Neutronic (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Wind turbines and idiopathic symptoms: The confounding effect of concurrent environmental exposures (Abstract, Victoria Blanes-Vidal, Joel Schwartz, Neurotoxicology and Teratology, Apr. 18, 2016)

Today we review research conducted in Denmark, the world’s leader in the use of wind turbines to generate electricity with over 39% of its power generated this way in 2014 and over 5,000 wind turbines located on or offshore. The purpose of the study was to assess the relationship between direct and indirect impacts on health of residents living near the turbines (mean distance to the closest turbine to a house was 2 km). Results indicate no significant relationship with turbine proximity and direct health effects, except for a significant indirect association with wind noise and annoyance, which is one of several “confounding” factors that may be caused other noise sources (such as nearby traffic or indoor odours resulting from less ventilation and fresh air with the windows closed to keep out the noise).

Key Quotes:

“In Denmark, the world leader in total wind capacity per capita, wind power provided a record of 39.1% of Denmark's electricity consumption in 2014.” “Overall there were 5122 active on- and offshore wind turbines in Denmark. Of these, about 4717 were onshore and about 405 were offshore. A total of 219 on-shore wind turbines were sited in the studied rural regions.”

"Whether or not wind turbines pose a risk to human health is a matter of heated debate. Personal reactions to other environmental exposures occurring in the same settings as wind turbines may be responsible of the reported symptoms”

“Symptoms reported by people who live in close proximity to wind turbines have been idiopathic symptoms, such as sleep disturbance, fatigue, nausea, dizziness, headache, and lack of concentration, as well as annoyance”

“After controlling for personal reactions to noise from sources different from wind turbines and agricultural odor exposure, we did not observe a significant relationship between residential proximity to wind turbines and symptoms and the parameter estimates were attenuated toward zero. Wind turbines-health associations can be confounded by personal reactions to other environmental co-exposures. Isolated associations reported in the literature may be due to confounding bias.”

“The minimum distance between a residence and the closest wind turbine was 167 m and the maximum distance was 8983 m, while the mean and median of the distances to the closest wind turbine were 2052 m and 1712 m, respectively. The maximum number of wind turbines within 1000 m of each residence”

“In our study we did find a significant association between residential proximity to wind turbines and wind turbine noise annoyance, but annoyance was not further associated with symptoms”

“Our study suggests that isolated associations between wind turbines exposures and health outcomes reported in the literature may be partly due to confounding bias”

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

How Will Europe Meet its 2030 Renewable Energy Goal?

Implementing the EU 2030 Climate and Energy Frame-work – a closer look at renewables and opportunities for an Energy Union (14 page pdf, Anne Held, Mario Ragwitz; Gustav Resch, Lukas Liebmann, Fabio Genoese, Intelligent Energy - Europe, ALTENER, Dec.8, 2014)

Today we review a discussion paper that examines the changes facing the EU in achieving a 27% increase in the share of renewable energies while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40 % before 2030, only 15 years away. Among the factors considered are the declining need for energy efficiencies or at least for financial renumeration as technology improves and matures, the need for states within the EU to consider implementing joint or regional plans to take advantage of and lessen negative impacts of border states.

Key Quotes:

“This framework includes binding targets for (i) domestically reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40% until 2030 compared to 1990 and for (ii) increasing the share of renewables to 27%. Finally, there is an indicative target to improve energy efficiency by at least 27% compared to “business-as-usual” projections of the future energy demand.”

“Assuming a share of 27% renewables in 2030, between 500 and 910 TWh of additional renewable energy will have to be deployed in the decade from 2020 and 2030, depending on the level of final energy demand… These are the net figures, which do not consider potentially needed replacements of older renewable energy “

“A stronger decline of energy demand corresponding to a 30% energy efficiency target would lead to the lower boundary, while moderate energy efficiency measures (leading to energy demand savings of 21% compared to baseline) combined with no dedicated support for biofuels beyond 2020 may lead to an increase of additional net deployment of renewables in the electricity sector when compared to the decade from 2010 to 2020. When considering gross instead of net figures, the difference between this and the upcoming decade is even more striking: the additional amount of renewable electricity between 2020 and 2030 would have to remain at least on the same level as in this decade but might also have to increase by up to 46%”

“the analysis indicates a strong decline in remuneration levels for renewables over the whole assessment period as a result of expected technological progress across all key renewable technologies. This positive trend is driven by cost reductions for onshore and offshore wind as well as solar photovoltaics, which are expected to be the dominant renewable energy technologies in the power sector beyond 2020.”

“.. instead of single EU member states pledging themselves to a national target, groups consisting of several EU member states could pledge themselves to a joint or regional target. This implies to gradually move beyond strictly national energy policies towards a more co-ordinated approach as part of a broader EU vision.”

“a common understanding on these cross-border effects enables the cooperating member states to design action plans and policies seeking to maximise beneficial cross-border effects and fairly share the burden of unfavourable ones across all affected parties.”

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

What are the Costs and Benefits of Renewable Energy?

The Net Benefits of Low and No-Carbon Electricity Technologies (38 page pdf, Charles R. Frank, Jr., Global Economy and Development Working Paper 73, Brookings Institute, May 2014)

Today we review a research paper that examined the costs and benefits of various non-carbon energy sources, as opposed to oil and gas alternatives, under a number of carbon tax scenarios. Several factors are clear: the benefit of a stable base power or capacity as seen in either natural gas or nuclear outweigh the much lower carbon emissions from solar and wind- to the point that with a $100 per ton carbon tax, nuclear is the favoured option over wind and solar at #4 and #5. If the carbon tax is lower, solar and wind benefits are much much lower than from the other fuel sources. The case for a higher carbon tax is clear if any hope of reducing carbon emissions is to be satisfied.

Key Quotes:

“It estimates the costs per megawatt per year for wind, solar, hydroelectric, nuclear, and gas combined cycle electricity plants”

“one of the main benefits of renewable energy plants is the energy cost avoided in the displacement of fossil fuel electricity production. Nuclear plants do have an energy cost. However, the energy cost of a nuclear plant is much lower than that of a fossil fuel electricity plant that it displaces.”

“Wind, solar, and hydroelectric plants without storage are inherently less reliable, not because they are mechanically more prone to forced outages, but because the availability of wind, sun or water is highly variable. …a wind plant with a 30 percent capacity factor can actually replace only less than a third of a coal plant with a 90 percent capacity factor“

“Nuclear plants have far and away the highest capacity cost. Gas combined cycle plants have far and away the lowest capacity cost” “[at $100 per ton carbon tax] A new nuclear plant becomes the most favored alternative. Wind and solar continue to rank fourth and fifth among all the alternatives, mainly because of the very high capacity cost and the very low capacity factors.”

Key Findings:

*reductions in carbon emissions are valued at $50 per metric ton and the price of natural gas is $16 per million Btu or less—nuclear, hydro, and natural gas combined cycle have far more net benefits than either wind or solar.
*low and no-carbon energy projects are most effective in avoiding emissions if a price for carbon is levied on fossil fuel energy suppliers. .. The price of carbon should be high enough to make production from gas-fired plants preferable to production from coal-fired plants..
*direct regulation of carbon dioxide emissions of new and existing coal-fired plants… can have some of the same effects as a carbon price in reducing coal plant emissions..a price levied on carbon dioxide emissions is likely to be a less costly way to achieve a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

“It is likely to be far less costly to achieve reductions in carbon dioxide emissions through an effective carbon trading system that allows the market to determine the most effective way to reduce emissions rather than through establishment of EPA standards for emissions.”

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

What Are the Life Cycle Pollution Impacts from Electric Cars?

Life cycle air quality impacts of conventional and alternative light-duty transportation in the United States (6 page pdf, Christopher W. Tessum, Jason D. Hill, and Julian D. Marshall, Proceedings f the Ntional Academy of the United States of America (PNAS), Dec. 15, 2014)

Also discussed here: Switching to vehicles powered by electricity from renewables could save lives (ScienceDaily, Dec. 15, 2014)

Today we review a paper that compares the amount of pollution (as PM2.5 and ozone) produced in generating power for electric powered vehicles compared with the use of conventional gasoline. Results indicate that the use of biofuels (such as ethanol from corn) increases health impacts from pollution by 80% while using renewable sources such as natural gas, wind, water or solar reduces the impact by 50% (noting that natural gas is a pollutant in terms of climate change). This study underlines the lack of benefits from biofuels in terms of pollution and health.

Key Quotes:

“Air pollution is the largest environmental health hazard in the U.S., in total killing more than 100,000 people per year. Air pollution increases rates of heart attack, stroke, and respiratory disease.”

“Our assessment of the life cycle air quality impacts on human health of 10 alternatives to conventional gasoline vehicles finds that electric vehicles (EVs) powered by electricity from natural gas or wind, water, or solar power are best for improving air quality, whereas vehicles powered by corn ethanol and EVs powered by coal are the worst.”

“powering vehicles with corn ethanol or with coal-based or “grid average” electricity increases monetized environmental health impacts by 80% or more relative to using conventional gasoline. Conversely, EVs powered by low-emitting electricity from natural gas, wind, water, or solar power reduce environmental health impacts by 50% or more”

“Their analysis included not only the pollution from vehicles, but also emissions generated during production of the fuels or electricity that power them. With ethanol, for example, air pollution is released from tractors on farms, from soils after fertilizers are applied, and to supply the energy for fermenting and distilling corn into ethanol.”

"Our work highlights the importance of looking at the full life cycle of energy production and use, not just at what comes out of tailpipes,"

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

A Plan to Reduce CO2 Emissions from USA by 40% by 2035

English: Worldwide Renewable energy, existing capacities, at end of 2008, from REN21.http://www.ren21.net/globalstatusreport/g2009.asp Total energy is from BP Statistical Review.http://www.bp.com/statisticalreview (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Green Growth - A U.S. Program for Controlling Climate Change and Expanding Job Opportunities (417 page pdf, Robert Pollin, Heidi Garrett-Peltier, James Heintz, and Bracken Hendricks, Center for American Progress, Sep. 2014)

Also discussed here: The Need for Jobs, and the Ecological Limits to Growth (Jeffrey M Doyle, Oct. 17, 2014)

Today we review a realistic short term plan for the USA that would comply with the IFCC objective to reduce world-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 40% from 2005 levels before 2035. It is based on making reductions in consumption of coal, oil, natural gas by 30-60% while assuming that the cost of renewable energy (hydro, wind, geothermal) will continue to decrease to the same levels as for carbon fuels by 2017. A carbon tax that would discourage carbon fuel use can produce public revenues of $ 200 B/year while avoiding economic impacts of $150 B/year if a 3 degree increase in earth temperature cannot be averted.

Key Quotes:

“The question for policymakers, and all other citizens, is no longer whether humans are changing our climate. The question now is, how we can stabilize an already changing climate in a way that promotes economic prosperity?”

"If a successful carbon tax or cap were implemented as part of this plan, it would also yield public revenues averaging $200 billion per year…if we were to assume that 75 percent of the revenues from a carbon cap or tax were returned directly to taxpayers, this would still leave roughly $50 billion per year to channel into supporting clean energy investments.

“A recent White House Council of Economic Advisors report found that a temperature increase of 3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels would increase economic damages by $150 billion, year after year in perpetuity. “

“as of 2012 roughly 80 percent of all renewable energy consumed in the United States came from either bioenergy or hydro power…the average cost for producing electricity from most clean renewable sources—including wind, hydro, geothermal, and clean bioenergy—will be at rough cost parity with most nonrenewable sources by 2017”

“Some things should grow a lot, like the clean energy sector. Other things should shrink, like the fossil fuel sector. The growth from massive investments in clean energy will lead to millions of jobs.”

“To meet the 20-year emissions-reduction target, the following energy and economic policies are required:

Reductions in fossil fuel consumption by approximately 60 percent for coal, 40 percent for oil, and 30 percent for natural gas
Reduction of overall U.S. energy consumption by approximately 30 percent relative to current levels
Raising overall U.S. energy production from low to zero emissions renewables by more than fourfold.
Reduction in oil imports to absorb most of the decline in U.S. oil consumption…
Transitional support”
No expansion of nuclear energy supply”

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

How Dangerous is it to Live Near a Wind Turbine?

English: Modern wind energy plant in rural scenery. Français : Une éolienne moderne dans un paysage rural. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Measuring electromagnetic fields (EMF) around wind turbines in Canada: is there a human health concern?(8 page pdf, Lindsay C McCallum, Melissa L Whitfield Aslund, Loren D Knopper, Glenn M Ferguson and Christopher A Ollson, Environmental Health, Feb. 15 ,2014)

Also discussed here: Electromagnetic fields and public health - Exposure to extremely low frequency fields(Backgrounder, World Health Organization, June 2007)

Today we review the first objective research into health hazards near wind turbines n Canada, based on extensive measurements of electromagnetic fields (EMF) near a wind farm in southwestern Ontario. Despite popular fears about the potential dangers, results indicate that the EMF near a wind turbine (3-4 mG) is much less than from a microwave oven (300 mG) or a electric shaver (600mG) and therefore does not constitute a significant health threat which is backed up by statements form the World Health Organization and Health Canada. Even the fields below high voltage (500 kV) power lines, another target of public health concerns, are small (16-46 mG) by comparison. This finding is important in dismissing arguments against windpower which could be a major replacement for carbon-powered electricity sources which play a large role in high air pollution levels.

Key Quotes:

“this study is the first to provide quantitative measurements of EMF around wind turbines in Canada.”

“The results suggest that there is nothing unique to wind farms with respect to EMF exposure; in fact, magnetic field levels in the vicinity of wind turbines were lower than those produced by many common household electrical devices and were well below any existing regulatory guidelines with respect to human health”

“the WHO has stated (based on approximately 25,000 articles published over the past 30 years) that the evidence related to childhood leukemia is not strong enough to be considered causal”

“there are no accepted biophysical mechanisms that would suggest that low-level exposures are involved in cancer development.” (WHO, 2007)

“human exposure to EMF from wind turbines is negligible in comparison to common household exposures. For example, typical magnetic field levels associated with common household appliances reported by the NIEHS at six inches from the source, include 40 mG for a refrigerator, 50 mG for a ceiling fan, 100 mG for a dishwasher, 300 mG for a microwave, 600 mG for an electric shaver and 700 mG for a hairdryer”

“Health Canada does not consider that any precautionary measures are needed regarding daily exposures to EMFs at ELFs. There is no conclusive evidence of any harm caused by exposures at levels found in Canadian homes and schools, including those located just outside the boundaries of power line corridors”

Friday, December 13, 2013

How will Future Ways to Produce Energy Impact Water Supply?

The Water Demand of Energy: Implications for Sustainable Energy Policy Development(14 page pdf, Saeed Hadian and Kaveh Madani, Sustainability, Nov. 5, 2013)

Today we review a paper that examines the type of sources needed to meet the 40% increase in global energy demand and what this implies in terms of a 37 to 66% increase in demand for fresh water. While the search for pollution-free cities in this blog has been on ways of reducing air pollution and usually concludes that non-polluting renewable energy sources are optimum, some of these sources (such as corn and ethanol) have a disproportionate demand for water - as high as 400 times higher than from conventional fossil energy sources. Some sources, such as solar energy, appear to have few if any negative impacts from energy generation but, if one looks at the water impact from the manufacture of photo-voltaic cells, the overall impact changes. The impact on water from fracking natural gas also needs scrutiny from this aspect. The paper being reviewed is based on a water footprint index made up of a blue, green and grey components, referring to the rainwater or surface water consumed during production or the water used for dilution to maintain water quality standards.

Shares of energy sources in world’s total energy supply (a) 2012; (b) 2035.

Key Quotes:

“global energy consumption is estimated to rise from 77 million BTU (81.2 GJ) per capita in 2012 to 91 million BTU (96 GJ) per capita in 2035, resulting in 40% increase in global energy use in the next two decades “

“ecological footprint exceeded biocapacity by 44% in 2006 and is estimated to exceed the biocapacity by 100% in 2030”

“In the U.S., the energy sector is expected to be the fastest growing water consuming sector, being responsible for 85% of the increase in domestic water consumption in the 2005–2030 period “

“Water footprint is a reliable measure for this purpose and represents the amount of freshwater used to produce one unit of energy from a given energy source:

blue water footprint, which is the volume of surface and ground water consumed in the energy production process;
green water footprint, which represents the volume of rainwater consumed during the production process (related to evapotranspiration and the rainwater incorporated in crop or wood);
gray water footprint, which represents the amount of freshwater required to dilute the pollutants such that the quality of water remains above given water quality standards. “

“governmental ethanol subsidies and mandates in the U.S. are aimed to increase the biofuel supply while the water footprint of this type of energy might be 70–400 times higher than the water footprint of conventional fossil energy sources. “

"the amount of water required for total energy production in the world will increase by 37%–66% during the next two decades, requiring extensive improvements in water use efficiency of the existing energy production technologies, especially renewables.”