CleanTechnica

Now that Cap and Trade is a possibility, there is a rising clamor for a carbon tax instead, from conservative thinktanks like the American Enterprise Institute, outlets like The Washington Times and even directly from Exxon itself. Yet when first introduced by Al Gore, in 1993, the carbon tax was anathema to the fossil industry. What makes a carbon tax now less of a threat than Cap and Trade? It’s the Cap.

The key difference between Cap and Trade and a carbon tax is that a carbon tax controls just the cost of pollution - only a cap limits the quantity.

The “Cap” limits emissions by fossil companies

The Cap in Cap and Trade is the only mechanism for ensuring a total limit to carbon emissions. A Cap is set for the fossil industries as a whole. The Cap on emissions at point-of-entry sources (oil pipelines, coal fields and coal-fired power stations) in the current Cap and Trade bill limits total carbon.
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While carbon capture and sequestration technology remains controversial, studies to delve deeper into it are ongoing in hopes of presenting one way to alleviate emission levels. A team from MIT has been studying a carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technique called pressurized oxy-fuel combustion. This process converts the carbon dioxide emissions of a power plant into a pressurized liquid stream meant to be pumped underground. Team leader Ahmed Ghoniem of MIT claims that his team is the only one conducting an academic study of “pressurized combustion system for carbon dioxide capture.”

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Air travel is a major contributor to climate change. Offsets are a small part of a larger solution.

Today at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) we are launching the Climate Passport program allowing travelers to offset the impact of their air travel through an airport kiosk. This will be the world’s first airport kiosk—giving people the opportunity to calculate the environmental impact of their flights and purchase carbon offsets to address that impact while at the airport. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a resource we’ll have plenty of as ever wider swathes of our forests get decimated by pests like the Pine Bark Beetle. Dead trees. In an adaptation eerily reminiscent of Thomas Edison’s dictum We live like squatters, not as if we owned the property” a university has invented a technology to harvest one of the horrific effects of climate change.

The University of Georgia Research Foundation has developed an innovative way to turn dead trees into a liquid fuel and has licensed it to Tolero Energy in California. We could be driving on our dead forests as soon as 2010.

The technology represents a leap forward for the biofuels industry. Not only does the resulting biofuel need no additional refinement before blending with diesel fuel, but it is a naturally very low-sulphur biofuel.

And it would prevent additional CO2 from being released if the forest was left to decay.

But the biggest leap is in thinking of using a non-food source (at least for us humans) of biomass that we will have an ever increasing abundance of, as our climate gets worse and worse. And it doesn’t take scarce water resources to grow. Quite the contrary. Droughts and rising temperatures are all it needs.

Dead trees are one of the major sources of waste biomass, says Tolero CEO Chris Churchill.

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Australia has passed the US as the new world leader in CO2 emissions per capita. That is not the only climate change problem in Australia, though.
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The United Nations stated a couple weeks ago that developed (rich) countries need to provide developing countries with about $500-600 billion a year to control global warming. This was a big increase from other predictions.

Big portions of these funds need to go to India, a large developing country that includes about one sixth of the world’s population. A new study shows what is needed to significantly cut growth in greenhouse gases in this top country.

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Looks like even Swing State voters are now lining up with environmentalists in support of renewable energy.

Two polls last month found public support remains very strong for legislation to help us move towards renewable energy and climate protection.

A Washington Post poll in August among a random national sample of 1,001 adults found that solar and wind power enjoy near-universal support; 9 in 10 people support funding further development. More than 8 in 10 favor requirements for greater fuel efficiency. Broad majorities also favor requiring increased energy conservation from businesses and consumers.

In a second poll in 16 battleground states; a Center For American Progress poll also found surprisingly strong support for renewable energy legislation, even in swing states among likely registered voters.
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The Waxman-Markey Climate Bill uses Cap and Trade to get our current 6 billion tons of CO2 a year down to just over 5 billion tons a year by 2020 (20% by 2020) and continuing down further by 2050.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the auction proceeds of the current Cap and Trade bill would increase Federal revenues by about $846 billion by 2019.

That would more than fund the $821 billion in renewable energy spending that it will take (per the CBO) to reduce the national carbon footprint by almost a billion tons a year on deadline, and would leave $25 billion in the bank for additional renewable energy projects.

This revenue would fund programs that reduce carbon emissions and that cut the cost to individuals and businesses. Some examples over the jump:
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Many commuters have GPS installed in their cars, or have purchased portable devices to try to get them where they’re going. A recent study by NAVTEQ, a data provider for navigation systems has demonstrated that using a GPS device can not only save drivers time spent in traffic, it can also reduce emissions from vehicles by up to 21%.

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Since the Renewable Portfolio Standard began in 2002, the California Public Utilities Commission has now approved contracts for more than 8,600 megawatts of new renewable energy, nearly all of it solar, signed with the state’s largest utilities. Most of the state’s renewable energy already on the grid till now has been wind power.
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