Mister Hatoyama's Neighborhood
KQED's Los Angeles Bureau Chief and frequent Climate Watch contributor Rob Schmitz is spending six weeks in Japan, as part of the Abe Fellowship for Journalists. In the weeks to come he'll file a series of special reports on Japan's extraordinary strides in energy efficiency–and what we might learn from them.
Yesterday Japan held a national election. My neighbor won it. Well, technically, his party won it, but it’s assumed that my neighbor, who heads the Democratic Party of Japan, will become Prime Minister within a couple of weeks when the party formally elects him.
A peek outside my door yesterday revealed media vans and limos outside the house of my new neighbor and Japan's new prime minister-elect, Yukio Hatoyama.
My neighbor is Yukio Hatoyama. He lives in a large house across the street from the apartment I’m renting here in the tony Tokyo suburb of Denenchofu. Yesterday morning an elderly police officer knocked on my door clutching a map, explaining to me in slow, metered Japanese that his men would be establishing a perimeter around our neighborhood to keep out protesters, non-credentialed journalists, and anyone interested in engaging in general tomfoolery near the Hatoyama residence (an English-speaking neighbor helped translate). I mustered the only Japanese response I knew (“Arigato!”), not having sufficient language skills to explain that I, in fact, was one of those "non-credentialed journalists." He smiled, bowed, and moved on to the next residence.
As early results on the afternoon television news began to confirm that Hatoyama’s party was on the path to victory, my neighborhood, which was virtually silent for my first few days here, started buzzing with activity. Police officers on foot patrol, random passers-by who somehow got past the perimeter stopping in front of Hatoyama’s house to stand and stare before being ushered away, and members of the "credentialed" Japanese press sitting on the curb in the rain, quietly watched over by the around-the-clock security presence in front of Hatoyama’s home. My wife and I are thinking of baking our neighbor a cake as a congratulations gift–if we could just get by security.
Apart from the amazing coincidence that the apartment I rented happened to be located across the street from the incoming prime minister, my new neighbor has a lot of work ahead of him. Japan is suffering its worst unemployment ever, and many here are fed up with the Liberal Democratic Party, which, despite its name, is the conservative party that has ruled Japan for 50 years.
View of Hatoyama's house from my living room. "May I borrow a cup of sugar, Hatoyama-san...and perhaps an interview?"
Hatoyama has promised the Japanese more social welfare programs and fewer incentives to big Japanese business but some experts wonder if it’s a good idea to tinker with a system that’s helped Japan become one of the world’s biggest success stories.
Hatoyama has a strong California connection: His doctorate in engineering is from Stanford University, where he met his wife. He speaks English well–well enough to have written a provocative Op-Ed in the New York Times this past weekend; a timely critique of U.S.-led globalism and unbridled capitalism, and a call for Japan to retreat from this system, to a more regional and sustainable economic framework.
More to the purpose of my reporting here, Hatoyama has pledged to make Japan a more prominent world leader in battling climate change. He’s pledged to cut the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by 25% from 1990 levels by 2020, and has promised to generate more jobs for Japanese workers by helping develop the clean-tech industry here.
He also heavily favors on a bigger reliance on nuclear power for Japan; a stance that is not as controversial as you may think in this country. In recent polls, the majority of Japanese respondents say they’re open to a larger reliance on nuclear power. In a country that imports all of its fossil fuels, nuclear power means more energy security and fewer greenhouse gas emissions. On the other hand, it heightens the thorny debate of what to do with radioactive waste–a debate that, despite poll numbers, is of big concern to many Japanese. With all these issues to tackle, it’s likely that my neighbor won’t be spending too much time at home in the coming weeks. Maybe I should offer to house-sit.
How a Data-Gathering Ocean Robot was Born
Thayer Walker is a San Francisco-based freelance writer, who first reported on development of the Wave Glider for The New York Times. His radio segment for Climate Watch, was produced by Nathanael Johnson and is scheduled to air Monday, 8/31 on KQED's The California Report.
Red Flash in the Sunset
By Thayer Walker
A Silicon Valley engineering firm called Liquid Robotics recently launched a new device called a Wave Glider off the California coast. It's the latest and perhaps, the most ingenious design in the growing network of "autonomous ocean samplers," which is to say sea-going science robots. The glider is a sensor-carrying platform powered entirely by wave energy and it has the potential to collect an enormous amount of data about the ocean, which in turn will give scientists a better understanding of climate change.
"Red Flash" at sea. Photo: Liquid Robotics
Jim Bellingham, Chief Technologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, calls the device a “transformational development” in the field of ocean science and technology, but when the inventors came up with the idea they weren’t trying to revolutionize marine studies, they were trying to eavesdrop on humpback whales.
In 2005, Joe Rizzi, the chairman of Liquid Robotics, wanted to listen to the song of humpback whales off the coast of his home in Puako, Hawaii. He anchored a hydrophone near the shore, but instead of picking up whale song he heard the sound of frying bacon. Snapping shrimp, a small crustacean that uses its powerful claw to generate sound blasts that stuns its prey, had drowned out the call of the whales.
When Rizzi moved the hydrophones into deeper water he captured clear whale sounds, but kept losing the moored devices to rough seas. “The difficulty,” says Rizzi “was holding a hydrophone anchored in 600 feet of water during winter storms.” Rizzi realized that to keep a hydrophone stationary, he would need a powered device. “You’re not going to do that with a battery and a motor and a solar panel,” he explains. “The amount of power to hold station in a 60 mile per hour wind and 10 foot waves is thousands of watts. We recognized that it’s an energy problem.”
Rizzi presented the problem to Liquid Robotics CEO Roger Hine, who quickly came up with a design, and the Wave Glider was born. “We weren’t sitting around thinking this thing would have a lot of scientific uses,” says Rizzi, “but as it turns out, there are a lot more uses for this device than just listening to whales.”
The Wave Glider's passive propulsion system harnesses the up-and-down motion of sea swells for locomotion. Diagram: Liquid Robotics
Stanford Studies Clean Coal Tech for China
China, the world's largest emitter of CO2, is the focus of a new $2 million investment in clean coal technology research by Stanford's Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP).
The project will fund research into large-scale carbon sequestration in underground geological formations. China relies heavily on coal for electricity generation and in 2006 was reported to be building the equivalent of one new coal-fired power plant every week.
"China is growing so rapidly, and if they're going to be able to lower their emissions, they are going to need a whole suite of technologies," said Sally Benson, director of GCEP. "They are doing a lot with solar technologies and energy efficiency but China is not abandoning coal. So, we're looking for ways they can reduce their emissions from coal."
The three-year project is an international collaboration among the University of Southern California (USC), Peking University (PKU) and China University of Geosciences at Wuhan (CUG). It will focus on the technical aspects of stashing carbon in saline aquifers, such as chemical reactions between the rock and carbon and understanding what portions of the aquifers can actually be filled up. The research will involve 39 scientists and students, and will integrate geological modeling, reservoir simulation and laboratory experiments. The results may shed needed light on China's overall carbon storage potential.
"Saline aquifers have been shown to have the biggest storage capacity across the world," said Benson, "and China has a tremendous need."
China's not the only country with a tremendous need. As the second largest emitter of CO2 (and still bigger than China per capita), the United States has yet to deploy large-scale CCS. Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Energy announced $27.6 million in new funding for 19 projects exploring potential carbon storage technologies.
Unlocking the Grid
Sarah Kass was the program producer for Unlocking the Grid, a collaboration between Climate Watch and KQED's Quest program, which airs tonight at 7:30 on KQED Channel 9.
Wind Power: A Personal Perspective
By Sarah Kass
Last summer I visited the Netherlands, the original home of the windmill. Surprisingly, I saw hardly any of the quaint structures we associate with Dutch wind power. One hundred years ago Holland had about 10,000 wooden windmills dotting its landscape. Today, barely 10% remain. What I saw instead were high-tech wind turbines, white and spare and gracefully generating electricity with wind from the North Sea.
Many view these modern-day towers as an eyesore, but I see them as a sign of hope. Like giant flowers across a landscape, they symbolize for me a clean energy future. But wind power–and solar–have a handicap that fuels doubts that renewables will ever be more than a small percentage of U.S. power. These energy sources can't be counted on when night falls or the wind subsides. Their inconsistent nature poses a problem for a world with an enormous appetite for electricity. If only excess power could be stored on a grand scale, it might solve many of our energy problems.
It isn’t that electrical energy isn't currently storable, but as Andrew Tang, Senior Director of PG&E’s Smart Meter program points out, the current generation of batteries can’t store electricity at a price that’s cost-effective. But both he and Steve Berberich from California System Operators were optimistic about future storage possibilities. Tang described an experimental project that uses a sodium sulfur battery the size of an 18-wheeler trailer. The battery would be located next to a substation or somewhere in the network, and its stored power would be used during times of peak demand. He also talked about the future of plug-in electric cars, whose batteries could both store energy and in theory, put it back onto the grid when the car’s not in use.
Berberich envisioned several possibilities for storing excess power. He proposed converting it to hydrogen, which could be burned in a gas plant or could be used in a fuel cell. And he suggested using power to compress air, which could be injected into the ground and called upon when the wind’s not blowing and the sun’s not shining.
Whatever the final solution to storage, you can guarantee it will be a game changer in the renewable power industry. No longer will wind and solar be looked upon as unreliable. Hopefully this missing puzzle piece will go a long way toward helping us detach from our dependence on fossil fuels. But we’ll still be left with the challenge of getting all that clean, green energy onto the power grid. And you can be sure that environmental concerns, zoning, aesthetics, and cost will undoubtedly be cantankerous issues for years to come.
Watch the TV show online, and view exclusive web-only videos on energy-saving technologies for the home on Climate Watch's Smart Grid special series page.
Do We Need Nuclear?
This is an updated re-post from August 24th, when my radio feature first aired on KQED's Quest series. That report repeats on this week's magazine edition of The California Report.
More people appear to be saying "yes" these days, even if grudgingly. The question is: Is it too late?
The Public Policy Institute of California has been tracking public support for expanded nuclear power over the past several years. Survey participants are offered a menu of four potential energy options, one at a time.
The question posed is: "Thinking about the country as a whole, to address the country’s energy needs and reduce dependence on foreign oil sources, do you favor or oppose the following proposals?" Then the four options are offered, including: "How about building more nuclear power plants at this time"
As recently as 2002, adults surveyed in California opposed the idea by a margin of 59% to 33%. But that gap has been closing steadily in the years since and by this July, Californians were split just about down the middle on the question, with 46% in favor and 48% opposed. The poll has a margin of error of about 2%, making it a virtual tie.
When you dig into the numbers a little deeper, some demographic preferences emerge. Support increases with both age and education. Californians 55 and older support more nuclear by a wide margin (58% to 36%) as do college graduates (50%-43%).
Many people use cost as an argument against nuclear but just as the PPIC was phoning around for opinions on the matter, the Palo Alto-based Electric Power Research Institute was finishing up its own report, concluding that trying to reach greenhouse gas reduction goals without baseload technologies like nuclear power, could end up costing much more.
Dan Kammen, who runs an energy lab at U.C. Berkeley, would appear to agree. He said in a recent interview for Climate Watch that "Without knowing exactly where things will come down on nuclear, I think that it absolutely has to be part of the equation in a way that it has not been in the past. Energy costs from fossil fuels are rising at almost 5% a year now, and the damage we are doing and are going to do more of, if we don’t stop our fossil fuel expansion, in terms of greenhouse warming, is so large an issue that these technologies have to be back on the table.
Is the road back to nuclear a dead end? Cooling towers at the decommissioned Rancho Seco nuclear power plant.
But there are serious doubts whether the nation–let alone the state–is in a position to embrace nuclear as it did in the 1960s. Kammen is also a professor of nuclear engineering, and noted with some alarm the rate at which the industry is "graying." Now in his mid-forties, he told me that when he attends technical meetings for nuclear engineers, he's often "the youngest guy in the room–by 20 years." Since the U.S. more or less abandoned its nuclear hopes following the Three Mile Island debacle, the nation has ceded most of its nuclear industrial capacity to other nations, and few young people have chosen to enter the field.
Reports from new projects around the world have not been encouraging of late. Finland is struggling mightily to get its newest reactor up and running. This goes directly to doubts expressed by Kammen and others, that the industry can cowboy up fast enough for nuclear to play a meaningful role in meeting CO2 reduction targets.
The effective ban on new nuclear plants that California has had in place since 1976 could be reconsidered. But ultimately electric utilities will have to want it and I sense a certain "nuclear fatigue" in that arena.
Managers at the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) shut down its only reactor in 1989, after a thumbs-down referendum. When I called to ask for an interview on the prospects for a nuclear revival, they declined. They didn't even want to talk about it. Managers at PG&E, whose twin reactors at Diablo Canyon produce nearly a quarter of the utility's output, still claim an interest in nuclear. But when I asked CEO Peter Darbee about it recently, he said he had the sense that most people in California would prefer to look elsewhere for energy solutions.
Of course, that was before the latest PPIC poll.
Former Climate Watch intern Amanda Dyer prepared an interactive "atomic timeline," marking off some of the milestones in nuclear power history in the U.S. Use your cursor to move around the timeline.
A Climate Reporter's Candy Store
I'm spending the week in Boulder, CO, attending a series of lectures and discussions at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The center is a hub for climate modeling using some of the world's most advanced computers–but scientists here are working on a dizzying array of projects, from "wind prospecting" models for siting utility-scale wind farms in Colorado, to tracking the ozone drift from California wildfires, to studying the relationship between weather and meningitis in Sub-Saharan Africa.
With the Flatiron Mountains as a backdrop, architect I. M. Pei used the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings as inspiration for the NCAR headquarters building, in Boulder. Photo: Craig Miller
While NCAR works closely with NOAA (which also has a major research center in town), it is not part of it. NCAR is funded by the National Science Foundation and managed by something called the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), a consortium of about 75 North American universities, as well as major institutions abroad.
About 400 scientists work under the NCAR umbrella, including Kevin Trenberth, a leading authority on the link between El Nino and global climate. Right before hopping a plane for Australia this week, Trenberth, head of NCAR's Climate Analysis Section, reaffirmed what NOAA and others have been saying; that we may be in for a significant El Nino event this fall and winter.
"There are good signs below the surface of the ocean in the tropical Pacific that this is the real deal," said Trenberth. He echoed some of the optimism expressed by many Californians that the result could be an overdue dousing after three years of accumulating drought conditions. "The odds are, if it's a good El Nino," said Trenberth, "that there is more likelihood of a southerly storm track that'll bring a lot of weather systems into southern California in particular. It's not always clear what happens in northern California but the odds are that there's a much more active southern storm track right across the U.S. and in particular in California."
The IBM Bluefire 76-teraflop computer, centerpiece of NCAR's supercomputing center. Photo: Craig Miller
NCAR scientists continue to refine their climate models, which have been downloaded by more than 10,000 scientists around the world. UCAR invests $20-to-$30 million every four years in it's Computational & Information Systems Lab (CISL), to maintain it's state-of-the-art status. CISL chief Rich Loft says it's probably the most advanced supercomputing center devoted largely to climate analysis.
Even so, NCAR is busy building a bigger, faster one–but not here. The new supercomputer, which may be ready by 2012, will be sited near Cheyenne, Wyoming, mostly to take advantage of the cheap, abundant electric power in that area. Loft and NCAR Director Eric Barron both concede the paradox that the most advanced computer assault on global warming is itself a huge gobbler of electricity, much of which comes from coal-fired power plants. The Wyoming facility will suck down 4.5 megawatts of power. Barron says at least there's a major wind farm "right next door."
The center's carbon footprint is probably also swollen slightly by its own air force. NCAR operates two aircraft packed with advanced instrumentation; a hulking C-130 Hercules and a sleek, high-altitude Gulfstream V. Sadly, no rides were offered this week.
Plugged In, in Long Beach
Rob Schmitz heads KQED's Los Angeles Bureau and is a frequent contributor to Climate Watch.
A Chevy that gets 230 miles to the gallon. A Hummer that gets 100.
Plug-in 2009, the 2nd annual industry conference in Long Beach, was wall-to-wall with such apparent oxymora. Just roving around the exhibition floor on Tuesday, I got the sense that our electric vehicle future is closer than I had originally suspected. I spoke to conference-goers who are already investing millions in what is assured to be an enormous infrastructure that’ll be built around these new cars.
Electric vehicle charging stations from Campbell-based Coulomb Technologies. Photo: Rob Schmitz
I met Tom Tormey, Vice President of Technology at the Silicon Valley-based Coulomb Technologies. He raised a lot of important questions about where we’d charge these vehicles when we’re not at home. Of course, the answer came in the form of something he could sell you: car-charging stations. His company manufactures automated posts where you can use a credit card to charge up your car when you’re away from home or at work. He’s already sold dozens of these to cities across Europe. The stations will even help calculate taxes for the government through a network that hooks up to Coulomb’s servers here in California: a potentially big business for an electric future.
Speaking of big, check out the electric Hummer. If you thought this beast was nearing extinction (with the sale of Hummer to the Chinese and all), think again. With a new electric version that allegedly gets a 100 miles to the gallon, you may continue to see this American icon on our freeways.
Jim Spellman of Raser Technologies, standing in front of the 100-mpg electric Hummer. Photo: Rob Schmitz
Jim Spellman of Raser Technologies showed off the Hummer to me, complete with his company’s power train and electric generation system. He says they took it out for a test drive a few weeks ago and it ran 50 miles on electric power with 30% of the battery left to go.
With momentum building among the plug-in players, it's not surprising that Mike Howard of the Electric Power Research Institute predicts there will be 16 million electric vehicles on the nation’s roads by 2030.
Delta Dawn
Scientists and policy wonks seem to be in general agreement on this: that it's time to close out the current management epoch on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and begin anew. There's less accord on how to proceed.
Photo: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Policy makers have assembled "blue ribbon" panels to study the options and make recommendations. Volumes of studies and proposals line the shelves in Sacramento and elsewhere.
Last week a new idea surfaced for moving water through the Delta: Instead of channeling around it, tunnel under it.
This week the non-partisan Public Policy Institute of California released its recommendations for a mechanism to fund the enormous fixes that will be required: Those who benefit pay (ecologists use the term "ecosystem services" for all those bennies we get from natural resources and tend to take for granted).
Whatever the outcome, one thing seems inevitable, with or without human intervention. Driven by warming ocean temperatures, rising sea levels will continue to push saltwater farther upstream, changing the Delta's character and the "services" it provides.
Recently a team of students at U.C. Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism produced a Flash presentation on some of the issues raised by advancing salt in the Delta. The multimedia report: Delicate Balance was produced for Climate Watch by Amanda Dyer, Martin Ricard and Jeremy Whitaker. We're grateful to them for their time and creativity.
Not With a Bang, But…
This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but with a whimper. –T.S. Eliot
With the President headed for Mexico for a two-day summit, I was struck last week by the juxtaposition of two headlines that jumped out of a daily environmental news digest.
One headline read: "MEXICO AIMS TO BRING CO2 CUT PLAN TO CLIMATE TALKS." The other, just above it, referring to similar efforts in this country, read: "CLIMATE BILL MAY FALL BY THE WAYSIDE."
"With the fight over health care reform absorbing all the bandwidth on Capitol Hill," Lisa Lerer wrote for Politico, "Democrats fear a major climate change bill may be left on the cutting-room floor this year."
Granted, Mexico's contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions is reportedly about 2%, or a tenth of the U.S. contribution, so one might argue that there's a lesser job to do there. But with less than four months remaining before the next major U.N. climate conference, it raises the grim prospect that while other nations press on, the U.S. could arrive in Copenhagen empty-handed, which is to say without meaningful carbon legislation to show.
At the same time last week, the 16-nation Pacific Islands Forum called for a 50/50 commitment from developed nations; a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Many of those island nations are on the hot seat as rising seas levels could make them among the first to lose substantial real estate before the end of this century.
At his first climate summit for governors last fall, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger introduced a video from then President-elect Obama, in which he promised that his presidency would "mark a new chapter in America's leadership on climate change."
Praising the governors in attendance for their own climate initiatives, the newly elected President declared that "Too often Washington has failed to show the same kind of leadership. That will change when I take office."
Of course "Washington" includes Congress, which is still dithering over the major carbon emissions bill championed by the new President. It squeaked through the House by nine votes and now looms as a 1,400-page pig that the Senate python will attempt to digest or regurgitate. Either way, what comes out is unlikely to closely resemble what went in.
Meanwhile the whole cap-and-trade concept has been coming under increasing scrutiny and skepticism. Last month, when the non-partisan Public Policy Institute of California polled Californians on the subject, more respondents favored an out-and-out carbon tax than cap-and-trade (56% to 49%). The Western Climate Initiative, a regional cap-and-trade pact that is a keystone of California's climate strategy, AB 32, remains in limbo while western legislatures wait on Congress.
So when the Governor convenes his second climate summit in L.A. next month, billed optimistically as "The Road to Copenhagen," he and his fellow "subnational leaders" (Wisconsin, Michigan & Connecticut governors are currently signed up) may find that the ball is still in their court. According to a news release from the Governor's office, "climate leaders from around the world will come together and collaborate on efforts to further the global fight against climate change."
They'll do it with the same question on the table as last year: Can they count on Washington to take up the reins?
Plan Moves Climate Adaptation to Front Burner
A one-fifth reduction in per capita water use by 2020 is among the goals outlined in a new state report on adapting to climate change.
Released by the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) as a "discussion draft," the 2009 California Climate Adaptation Strategy is being billed as the nation's first comprehensive game plan for adaptation to climate change.
Photo: Reed Galin
Most of the state's high-profile climate initiatives (and battles) have been about mitigation; how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to slow down warming. This report swings the spotlight over to adaptation; what needs to be done to accommodate the climate change effects that are already "in the pipeline."
While the California's centerpiece climate law was passed three years ago, this week's CNRA report concedes that "adaptation is a relatively new concept in California policy." The 161-page white paper comes in response to an executive order from the Governor last fall, calling for a statewide adaptation strategy.
The draft divides the strategy into seven "sectors:" Public health, biodiversity and habitat, ocean and coastal resources, water, agriculture, and forestry.
Tony Brunello, Deputy Secretary for Climate Change and Energy at CNRA, says "This is the first report that really looks at how climate change is going to impact the state and what we need to do about it."
But Brunello stopped short of conceding that mitigation is a lost cause. "You only have half a deck if you're only focused on mitigation," he said. "You need to focus on both mitigation and adaptation to truly be prepared."
Some strategies attack both. Brunello points to water conservation measures, which save both water and energy (20% of the energy used in the state is deployed moving water around).
The plan is designed to work in consort with the California Air Resources Board's implementation plan for AB-32, the state's multifaceted attack on greenhouse gas emissions. CNRA says one of its goals is to "enhance" existing efforts, rather than create new programs and offices that need funding.
CNRA also promises to use the "best available science in identifying climate change risks and adaptation strategies." Andrew Revkin has a useful overview of the mounting challenges to climate scientists, published this week in the New York Times.
One planned product from the adaptation plan is an interactive website devoted to climate adaptation, with maps and data to assist local planners. CNRA hopes to have that in place by early next year. The draft plan now enters a 45-day period for public comment.
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