Possible And Profitable Action On Climate Change: Danish Minister Praises Obama’s New Plan

Possible And Profitable Action On Climate Change: Danish Minister Praises Obama’s New Plan

By Martin Lidegaard, Guest Blogger on Jun 26, 2013 at 4:13 pm

President Obama’s Climate Action Plan is promising. Curbing global warming will demand serious action from all of us. Needless to say, US leadership makes a great difference. Denmark is a mouse compared to the US elephant, but our experience proves that the President’s Plan is indeed possible and can be profitable. Over the past 30 years, the Danish economy has grown steadily, while energy efficiency has kept our energy consumption at the same level in absolute terms.

Lower Greenhouse Gases In The Coal Sector

The US will impose regulations for new and existing coal-fired power plants. That is good news and absolutely critical if the world is to stay below a 2 degree Celsius rise in global temperature, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). IEA proposes limitations on inefficient coal-fired power plants. In Denmark we will phase out coal completely and move towards a fossil-free power and heating system by 2035. This means that no new coal plants will be built and existing capacity is being retrofitted to biomass and other sources.

More Renewable Energy In The Mix

The US will use federal lands for renewable energy aiming for an additional 10,000 MW by 2020. That is good news as well. Denmark has long had wind as a major part of the power mix and with the recent national Energy Agreement half of our electricity consumption will be supplied by wind in 2020 while we still have electricity prices – excl. VAT and energy tax but incl. Public Service Obligations (PSO) for supporting renewables – below the European average. Wind power is a good long term investment because the marginal price pr kWh is next to nothing once the turbines are up and the blades are spinning. With a free power market wind is actually driving down power prices. And renewable energy delivers local jobs and economic growth.

Throw It Out And It Powers Your Home: Puerto Rico Turns To Garbage For Renewable Energy

Throw It Out And It Powers Your Home: Puerto Rico Turns To Garbage For Renewable Energy

By Matt Kasper, Guest Blogger on Jun 13, 2013 at 4:16 pm

Puerto Ricans will soon be turning their trash into renewable energy. On Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency announced its final approval of an air permit for a 77 megawatt EfW plant, owned by Energy Answers International, a first for the U.S. island territory.

The $650 million facility, which will be built in three years in the town of Arecibo, will create thousands of direct and indirect induced jobs, and turn more than 2,100 tons of garbage a day into renewable electricity for more than 76,000 homes on the island. Creating domestic renewable energy is a major necessity since Puerto Rico’selectricity is overwhelmingly derived from imported petroleum, natural gas, and coal.

75 Years Ago A Steam Engineer Showed Global Warming Was Happening

April 23 News: 75 Years Ago A Steam Engineer Showed Global Warming Was Happening

By Ryan Koronowski on Apr 23, 2013 at 9:35 am

75 years ago this month, a steam engineer in England named Guy Stewart Callendar used his avid interest in meteorology to publish a landmark study in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Societylinking fossil fuel burning to global warming. Two modern climatologists have published a paper in the same journal checking — with modern techniques and measurements — just how accurate Callendar was. [Guardian]

Dr. Ed Hawkins and Prof. Phil Jones write:

In hindsight, Callendar’s contribution was fundamental. He is still relatively unknown, but in terms of the history of climate science, his paper is a classic. He was the first scientist to discover that the planet had warmed by collating temperature measurements from around the globe, and suggested that this warming was partly related to man-made carbon dioxide emissions.