Giant Ice Island Off Greenland Breaks

Giant Ice Island Off Greenland Breaks
By: msnbc.com

August 6,2010


Floating ice sheet is four times the size of Manhattan, scientists say.

Greenland's Petermann Glacier, shown in 2009, lost about one-quarter of its 43-mile-long floating ice-shelf on Aug. 5, 2010.

An ice island four times the size of Manhattan broke off from one of Greenland's two main glaciers, scientists said Friday, in the biggest such event in the Arctic in nearly 50 years.

The new ice island, which broke off on Thursday, will enter a remote place called the Nares Strait, about 620 miles south of the North Pole between Greenland and Canada.

The ice island has an area of 100 square miles and a thickness up to half the height of the Empire State Building, said Andreas Muenchow, professor of ocean science and engineering at the University of Delaware.

Muenchow said he had expected an ice chunk to break off from the Petermann Glacier, one of the two largest remaining ones in Greenland, because it had been growing in size for seven or eight years. But he did not expect it to be so large.

"The freshwater stored in this ice island could keep the Delaware or Hudson Rivers flowing for more than two years," said Muenchow, whose research in the area is supported by the National Science Foundation.

"It could also keep all U.S. public tap water flowing for 120 days."

Global warming?

He said it was hard to judge whether the event occurred due to global warming because records on the sea water around the glacier have only been kept since 2003. The flow of sea water below the glaciers is one of the main causes of ice calvings off Greenland.

"Nobody can claim this was caused by global warming. On the other hand nobody can claim that it wasn't," Muenchow said.

Scientists have said the first six months of 2010 have been the hottest globally on record. The El Nino weather pattern has contributed to higher temperatures, but many scientists say elevated levels of man-made greenhouse gases are pushing temperatures higher.

The initial discovery of the calving was made by Trudy Wohlleben of the Canadian Ice Service.

The ice island could fuse to land, break up into smaller pieces, or slowly move south where it could block shipping, Muenchow said.

The last time such a large ice island formed was in 1962 when the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf calved an island. Smaller pieces of that chunk became lodged between real islands inside Nares Strait.

In July, a chunk of ice the size of Manhattan fell off of Greenland's Jakobshavn Isbrae glacier.

In Search of The Perfect Bottle

In search of the perfect (Coke) bottle

By: Marc Gunther

Since joining The Coca-Cola Co. in 1997, Scott Vitters has gone to work most days with one question on his mind:

“How do we get to our vision of a 100% renewable, 100% recyclable bottle?”

It’s a simple question, with anything but a simple answer—getting to a renewable, zero-waste bottle requires technology breakthroughs, favorable economics that will drive recycling, changes in human behavior and supporting policy from governments around the country, if not around the world.

This winter, though, Coca-Cola is taking a meaningful step towards its goal with the introduction of what it calls a PlantBottle – a bottle made of PET plastic, 30% of which is sourced from Brazilian sugar cane and molasses. That puts Coke on the road to 100% renewable.

PET, meanwhile, is 100% recyclable—although actual recycling rates are far lower. It’s a start.

“It’s incredibly exciting for us to be able to see a route forward to zero waste,” says Vitters, who is head of global sustainable packaging for Coca-Cola.

Scott and I met in Coca-Cola’s Washington office, where we enjoyed turkey sandwiches and Coke beverages. (Diet Coke for me, Honest Tea organic mango green tea for him.) Scott is 36 and a self-styled environmental geek, though he’s not an engineer. He’s got a degree is in political science from Franklin & Marshall, which should come in handy because his job is largely about mustering support for the company’s efforts to remake packaging. Most Coke products, remember, are made by independent bottlers, while recycling systems are run mostly by private companies and shaped by a mishmash of state and local government rules. So his work is mostly about persuading people to change.

While other beverage companies have labored for years to lower the environmental impact of their packages—my friend Ben Packard has toiled for a decade or so to come up with a recyclable paper cup for Starbucks—Coca-Cola has done more than most. The company light-weighted its bottles, built the world’s largest bottle-to-bottle PET recycling plant in South Carolina with bottler Coca-Cola Enterprises, and invested in RecycleBank, an innovative startup that rewards consumers who recycle more of their household trash.

Producing a renewable, recyclable bottle is hard because you have to consider the entire lifetime of the product—where it comes from and where it goes, as well as its cost and performance. Right now, most PET bottles come from petrochemicals and more than 60% end up in landfills, a literal waste.

Some people want to get away from PET. Packaging made from a material called PLA (and marketed under the trade name Ingeo) comes from plants and it can be composted. But PLA bottles don’t hold carbonation and they can’t be blended easily into the existing plastic recycling stream.

So Coca-Cola has been trying to “green” PET.

PET “works for sparkling and still beverages,” Vitters says. “It’s extremely efficient. And we’ve built a whole infrastructure for PET over the years.”

The company’s scientists have figured out how to make monoethylene glycol, which makes up 30% of PET, from sugar cane and other plants. Now they are trying to find economical ways to make terephthalic acid, which makes up the other 70% of PET, from plant material as well.

“We see the potential of a carbon neutral bottle,” Vitters says.

Of course, it’s a long way from here to there. Right now, Coca Cola uses raw materials from Brazil to make bottles that first be introduced in Denmark (for the Copenhagen climate talks), Vancouver (for the 2010 Winter Olympics) and select U.S. markets including Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. You can see the marketing gurus at work. Future launches are expected in Brazil, Japan and Mexico.

“We don’t have an optimized supply chain today,” Vitters admits, “but we wanted to get moving.”

Eventually, Coca-Cola would like to use non-food, plant-based waste, such as wood chips or wheat stalks, to produce recyclable PET bottles.

That leaves the other end of the life cycle–disposing of bottles. Until the company, its consumers and recyclers can find ways to get more bottles into the recycling stream and keep them out of the trash, a carbon-neutral package will remain a dream. Changing the makeup of the bottles may prove easier than getting Americans to throw less stuff away. I say Americans because in poor countries, glass and plastic bottle recycling rates are much higher for what should be obvious reasons.

A video about the Plant Bottle: http://video.thecoca-colacompany.com/presscenter/avcenter/view/sustainability/plantbottle

My takeaway: Coca-Cola’s packaging work is impressive. As the world’s largest beverage company, Coke has impact. Others will follow.

My wish: That Coca-Cola, which delivers nearly 1.6 billion servings a day, will make what’s inside its bottle healthier and more sustainable, too.

The Value of Real-Time Wind Forecasting

The Value of Real-Time Wind Forecasting


July 22nd, 2010
By: Matter Network

The rapid growth of wind power is offering new challenges for transmission grid operators throughout the world, especially in the U.S. As wind power levels comprise an ever larger portion of utility supply portfolios, rapid changes in the speed and direction of wind resources often cause wind farms to deviate significantly from scheduled deliveries. When this happens, grid operators must tap into volatile spot market to keep the transmission grid in balance.

The value of spot market purchases required to balance the grid can cost from -$100/Megawatt hour (MWh) (during times of oversupply) up to $6,000/MWh (during times of supply shortages), depending upon wholesale supply conditions. Near real-time forecasting data for wind could be worth millions of dollars – both earned and saved. So far, few of the handful of firms that provide wind resource assessment and forecasting have developed a coherent business strategy to tap this emerging market for their products and services.

When compared to simple reliance upon climatology, an advanced forecasting system will reduce short-term forecasting errors by 40 to 60 percent. The bar chart below illustrates the magnitude of potential revenue losses, which can reach almost $4/MWh.

The error rate in day-ahead wind forecasts for any single wind farm is between 12 percent and 20 percent. But if these forecasts are aggregated across an entire region, error rates drop to roughly 5 percent. Even that level of error carries large financial impacts.

In Europe, where wind penetration is greatest, the costs of the variability of wind have largely been socialized. Therefore grid operators have not had as strong of an incentive to keep track of near real-time wind data.

In the U.S., forecast markets vary considerably by region. The Midwest Independent System Operator (MISO) appears to be developing the most advanced market for wind forecasting services, as it changes its market rules to fully integrate wind into its scheduling markets. The new market redesign will include a “dispatchable intermittent” category where any wind farm would be treated virtually the same as traditional generation, with only one special provision. Instead of dispatching wind at the amount that generators offered into the market, MISO will dispatch these resources up to the maximum MW output figures provided by a real-time forecasting system.

Current best bets for near-term are “nodal markets” where spot prices are segmented according to different transmission line nodes. In these nodal markets, generation units are typically committed to provide power every 15 minutes; power is dispatched every five minutes, offering multiple opportunities to buy and sell. To date, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), MISO, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland (PJM) ISO and now ERCOT are all in varying degrees of nodal market development. To give a sense of scale, the Texas transmission market will feature 4,000 different nodes.

How Net Metering Leads to Low Energy Bills

How Net Metering Leads to Low Energy Bills


Published on May 8th, 2010
By Chris Hale

Why solar and wind energy makes sense from a financial perspective. It is a sound investment that will provide you at least a 10 percent return on your initial investment for the next 30 years. Now the question is, “How do you make money on wind and solar?

The answer is that it saves you money through a program called net metering.

To start off this explanation, it is good to review your utility bill. Your utility bill has in it many line items for supply and delivery broken out into many different costs per kilowatthour (kwh). Kilowatt-hours are measurements of power used by you over a period of time, usually the billing cycle.

The simplest example is that if you leave the room and don’t turn off that lamp. Say that lamp has a 60-watt bulb and you don’t return to the room to turn it off for two hours. You have just used 120 watt-hours. We figure this out by taking the wattage of the bulb (60 watts) and multiplying it by the number of hours it was on (two hours):

60 watts X 2 Hours = 120 watt-hours

So what’s a kilowatt-hour? A kilowatt-hour is 1,000 watt hours.

Are you getting the drift? Your utility charges you by the kilowatt-hour.

Next question: How much am I paying for my electricity?

Answer: Figure out how much you are paying per kilowatt-hour. Take your total electrical portion of the bill (ignore the gas/oil portions), which usually says something to the effect of “total electricity costs,” and divide this number by the number of kilowatt-hours listed on the bill.

So for example, the bill says $100 and the number of kilowatt-hours used that month is 500, then you are paying $0.20 per kilowatt-hour:

$100 / 500 kilowatt-hours = $0.20/kilowatt-hour

Now that you know how much you are paying per kilowatt-hour, you can figure out how much you can save by using renewable energy. But first, let’s go over how renewable electricity saves you money. By installing a solar electric (photovoltaic) system on your roof or a wind turbine in your backyard, you are producing your own electricity. The electricity being produced is being used right away. If that lamp is on during the day, then your solar system is powering that lamp.

Any excess power that the system creates that is not being used will be sent back to the utility grid. In this case, your utility meter will (drum roll, please) spin backwards!

I cannot tell you how exciting it is to see the meter spin backwards. All these years, the utility meter is spinning forward, racking up all these charges that will be sent to you on your bill. Now, it is your turn to declare your independence, create your own power, send it back to the utility and watch the meter spin backwards.

Through this program called “net metering”, the utility commits to buying back the power you create at the same rate that it is charging you for the power. So during the day, your system produces power, sends the excess power back to the grid, and you receive credit for it. Then at night, or when the wind is not sufficient and the system is not producing power, your electricity will come from the utility grid.

You save money by producing your own power and receiving credit from your utility. As utility prices go up, you receive that much more money for power you produce.

To quote William Wallace in Braveheart, “Freedom!”

The Greenhouse Effect

The Greenhouse Effect

The "greenhouse effect" is the heating of the Earth due to the presence of greenhouse gases. It is named this way because of a similar effect produced by the glass panes of a greenhouse. Shorter-wavelength solar radiation from the sun passes through Earth's atmosphere, then is absorbed by the surface of the Earth, causing it to warm. Part of the absorbed energy is then reradiated back to the atmosphere as long wave infared radiation. Little of this long wave radiation escapes back into space; the radiation cannot pass through the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The greenhouse gases selectively transmit the infared waves, trapping some and allowing some to pass through into space. The greenhouse gases absorb these waves and reemits the waves downward, causing the lower atmosphere to warm.
 

PCBs, DDT, and PBDE’s Found in Marine Mammal Brains

PCBs, DDT, and PBDE’s Found in Marine Mammal Brains

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

A Woods Hole grad student, Eric Montie, now working at the University of Southern Florida’s Mann Lab for Marine Sensory Biology, has released the finding from a study he conducted on marine mammal brains, and the news is not good. It seems that human’s propensity to use the oceans as a dumping ground (as well as our ineptitude in realizing that dangerous chemicals don’t just go away when we no longer see them) has resulted in bio-accumulation of some nasty substances in marine mammals.

Yes, again with the flame retardants…

Eric Montie went to work with Environment Canada to “learn the painstaking techniques required to extract and to quantify more than 170 different pollutants and their metabolites.” He brought back the methods to Woods Hole and started analyzing the brains of 11 whales and dolphins and a grey seal. The animals came from around the Cape Cod area, and darned if you didn’t guess, some not-so-nice chemicals were present in the cerebrospinal fluid as well as the grey matter.

And yes, our dear friends DDT, an overly effective pesticide that has been banned around the world, but doesn’t seem to want to go away; PBDEs, or flame retardants which are only know being scrutinzed despite their ubiquity; and PCBs, again a banned chemical family that just doesn’t go away have all been found in the marine mammalian brain studied by Montie. In fact, the levels of PCBs in the seal were in the parts per million, which may seem small, but according to Montie, “you rarely find parts per million levels of anything in the brain.”

So what’s the big deal? Well, PCBs kind of trick a body into thinking that they are thyroid hormones and instead of healthy and needed thyroid hormones, the body gets PCBs. That can lead to all sorts of neurological issues and problems when it comes to brain development and can disrupt the sensory functions of mammals like dolphins, seals and whales that really depend on their sense of hearing to live.

Just how these chemicals might impact marine mammal health is something Montie plans to pursue. This summer, Montie, [David] Mann [the man behind the aforementioned Mann Lab], and Dr. Mandy Cook (from Portland University) will partner with scientists from NOAA to test the hearing in dolphins living near a Superfund site in Georgia and compare it to dolphins from locations where ambient concentrations of pollutants are significantly lower. Montie is also working with Frances Gulland, director of the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, CA, to examine how California sea lions’s exposure to PCBs may increase their sensitivity to domoic acid, a naturally produced marine neurotoxin associated with “red tides.”

EPA Rejects Big Coal's Greenhouse-Gas Appeal

EPA rejects Big Coal's greenhouse-gas appeal

Sunday, August 1, 2010

The Columbus Dispatch

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week gave a thumbs-down to a request by the Ohio Coal Association and industry groups in Texas and Virginia for the federal agency to reconsider its view that greenhouse-gas emissions damage the environment and cause health problems in people.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week gave a thumbs-down to a request by the Ohio Coal Association and industry groups in Texas and Virginia for the federal agency to reconsider its view that greenhouse-gas emissions damage the environment and cause health problems in people.

The industry groups had argued that the EPA had relied on inaccurate science when it made its finding in 2009. Because of that finding and a 2007 opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court, the EPA is required to issue regulations curbing greenhouse gases if Congress fails to act on its own.

The groups argued that hacked e-mails from scientists at the University of East Anglia in Great Britain had discredited findings by the EPA that greenhouse gases from fossil-burning fuels contributed to global warming.

But EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the agency finding "is based on years of science from the U.S. and around the world."