The Great American Algae Rush is in full swing.

Dozens of companies and hundreds of scientists are working hard to engineer algae to produce green — literally and figuratively — fuel.

The endeavor is at the crossroads of energy and science, and the trend is spreading worldwide.Why? Because some algae strains can produce 10 or more times more fuel per acre than the corn that is used to make ethanol, or the soybeans used to make biodiesel.

Better still, you can grow algae on arid land and in brackish water, which avoids competing with food production, unlike the corn and soybeans that coat much of the Midwest’s farmland.

Best of all: algae consume carbon dioxide, combating greenhouse gas emissions.

But a new profile of the industry in the New York Times demonstrates that this technology has its share of pitfalls.

For one, efforts to engineer and manipulate the organisms has environmentalists concerned because algae are the base of the marine food chain.

For example: Screw up and over-engineer a strain, and suddenly you have an organism that’s out of whack with the biosphere, stripping water of its oxygen and harming fish — and maybe humans — in the process.

Source: Simply Green

As recriminations fly post-Copenhagen, one writer offers a fly-on-the-wall account of how talks failed

Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful “deal” so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.

China’s strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world’s poor once again. And sure enough, the aid agencies, civil society movements and environmental groups all took the bait. The failure was “the inevitable result of rich countries refusing adequately and fairly to shoulder their overwhelming responsibility”, said Christian Aid. “Rich countries have bullied developing nations,” fumed Friends of the Earth International.

All very predictable, but the complete opposite of the truth. Even George Monbiot, writing in yesterday’s Guardian, made the mistake of singly blaming Obama. But I saw Obama fighting desperately to salvage a deal, and the Chinese delegate saying “no”, over and over again. Monbiot even approvingly quoted the Sudanese delegate Lumumba Di-Aping, who denounced the Copenhagen accord as “a suicide pact, an incineration pact, in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries”.

Sudan behaves at the talks as a puppet of China; one of a number of countries that relieves the Chinese delegation of having to fight its battles in open sessions. It was a perfect stitch-up. China gutted the deal behind the scenes, and then left its proxies to savage it in public.

Here’s what actually went on late last Friday night, as heads of state from two dozen countries met behind closed doors. Obama was at the table for several hours, sitting between Gordon Brown and the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi. The Danish prime minister chaired, and on his right sat Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the UN. Probably only about 50 or 60 people, including the heads of state, were in the room. I was attached to one of the delegations, whose head of state was also present for most of the time.

What I saw was profoundly shocking. The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country’s foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself. The diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal, as was the practical implication: several times during the session, the world’s most powerful heads of state were forced to wait around as the Chinese delegate went off to make telephone calls to his “superiors”.

Shifting the blame

To those who would blame Obama and rich countries in general, know this: it was China’s representative who insisted that industrialised country targets, previously agreed as an 80% cut by 2050, be taken out of the deal. “Why can’t we even mention our own targets?” demanded a furious Angela Merkel. Australia’s prime minister, Kevin Rudd, was annoyed enough to bang his microphone. Brazil’s representative too pointed out the illogicality of China’s position. Why should rich countries not announce even this unilateral cut? The Chinese delegate said no, and I watched, aghast, as Merkel threw up her hands in despair and conceded the point. Now we know why – because China bet, correctly, that Obama would get the blame for the Copenhagen accord’s lack of ambition.

China, backed at times by India, then proceeded to take out all the numbers that mattered. A 2020 peaking year in global emissions, essential to restrain temperatures to 2C, was removed and replaced by woolly language suggesting that emissions should peak “as soon as possible”. The long-term target, of global 50% cuts by 2050, was also excised. No one else, perhaps with the exceptions of India and Saudi Arabia, wanted this to happen. I am certain that had the Chinese not been in the room, we would have left Copenhagen with a deal that had environmentalists popping champagne corks popping in every corner of the world.

Strong position

So how did China manage to pull off this coup? First, it was in an extremely strong negotiating position. China didn’t need a deal. As one developing country foreign minister said to me: “The Athenians had nothing to offer to the Spartans.” On the other hand, western leaders in particular – but also presidents Lula of Brazil, Zuma of South Africa, Calderón of Mexico and many others – were desperate for a positive outcome. Obama needed a strong deal perhaps more than anyone. The US had confirmed the offer of $100bn to developing countries for adaptation, put serious cuts on the table for the first time (17% below 2005 levels by 2020), and was obviously prepared to up its offer.

Above all, Obama needed to be able to demonstrate to the Senate that he could deliver China in any global climate regulation framework, so conservative senators could not argue that US carbon cuts would further advantage Chinese industry. With midterm elections looming, Obama and his staff also knew that Copenhagen would be probably their only opportunity to go to climate change talks with a strong mandate. This further strengthened China’s negotiating hand, as did the complete lack of civil society political pressure on either China or India. Campaign groups never blame developing countries for failure; this is an iron rule that is never broken. The Indians, in particular, have become past masters at co-opting the language of equity (“equal rights to the atmosphere”) in the service of planetary suicide – and leftish campaigners and commentators are hoist with their own petard.

With the deal gutted, the heads of state session concluded with a final battle as the Chinese delegate insisted on removing the 1.5C target so beloved of the small island states and low-lying nations who have most to lose from rising seas. President Nasheed of the Maldives, supported by Brown, fought valiantly to save this crucial number. “How can you ask my country to go extinct?” demanded Nasheed. The Chinese delegate feigned great offence – and the number stayed, but surrounded by language which makes it all but meaningless. The deed was done.

China’s game

All this raises the question: what is China’s game? Why did China, in the words of a UK-based analyst who also spent hours in heads of state meetings, “not only reject targets for itself, but also refuse to allow any other country to take on binding targets?” The analyst, who has attended climate conferences for more than 15 years, concludes that China wants to weaken the climate regulation regime now “in order to avoid the risk that it might be called on to be more ambitious in a few years’ time”.

This does not mean China is not serious about global warming. It is strong in both the wind and solar industries. But China’s growth, and growing global political and economic dominance, is based largely on cheap coal. China knows it is becoming an uncontested superpower; indeed its newfound muscular confidence was on striking display in Copenhagen. Its coal-based economy doubles every decade, and its power increases commensurately. Its leadership will not alter this magic formula unless they absolutely have to.

Copenhagen was much worse than just another bad deal, because it illustrated a profound shift in global geopolitics. This is fast becoming China’s century, yet its leadership has displayed that multilateral environmental governance is not only not a priority, but is viewed as a hindrance to the new superpower’s freedom of action. I left Copenhagen more despondent than I have felt in a long time. After all the hope and all the hype, the mobilisation of thousands, a wave of optimism crashed against the rock of global power politics, fell back, and drained away.

Source: Guardian

To advocates of action on global warming, the Copenhagen summit represents the last, best chance to slow and eventually reverse the growth in greenhouse-gas emissions before climate change begins to spin out of control. To skeptics of climate change, many of whom will attend the conference, Copenhagen is the last defense of another kind — against the growing global momentum to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, an undertaking they think could cripple the international economy. Either way, it is likely to be the most important international environmental conference in history, its importance bolstered by President Barack Obama’s decision to appear at the end of the summit (initially he had planned to arrive at the start), when the most significant discussions occur and a deal might actually be made.

1. Will the U.S. lead? The U.S. delegation to climate summits under former President George W. Bush played the spoiler. Not only were American diplomats generally opposed to building a global consensus on reducing carbon emissions, they actively seemed to enjoy gumming up the works, walking out in the middle of negotiations during the Montreal summit in 2005, for instance, and nearly torpedoing the entire process two years ago in Bali.

2. Will China and India follow? Historically, the U.S. may be the world’s biggest carbon emitter — responsible for more than a quarter of the man-made CO2 in the atmosphere — but developing nations led by China and India will be responsible for the majority of future emissions. At the same time, those nations still have low per capita emissions, and under the Kyoto Protocol, they haven’t been required to take any verifiable actions to control emissions. Until recently, they haven’t shown much interest in doing so, but that may now be changing.

3. The two-step tango. Back in 2007 on the sunny Indonesian island of Bali, negotiators worked out the “Bali road map,” a series of steps toward a successor to the Kyoto Protocol that would guarantee a new global climate treaty by the 2009 conference in Copenhagen. Well, road map or not, the international community got a bit delayed — in part due to the fact that Obama has had less than a year to turn around U.S. climate policy — and no one expects an actual treaty to be negotiated and signed in Copenhagen.

4. Seeing REDD on deforestation. The loss of tropical forests plays a major role in climate change, contributing about 15% of global greenhouse gases, according to the most recent estimate. But deforestation has an environmental impact that goes beyond climate change — tropical forests are home to a wealth of diverse species, and when the trees are lost, wildlife follows.

5. Financing adaptation. Combating climate change isn’t just about reducing carbon emissions. Global warming is coming even if we do act fast, and developing nations will bear the brunt of the impact. That’s why another leg in the global treaty will address funding to help developing nations adapt to climate change — whether that means the building of seawalls, aid for agriculture during increasing droughts or the ability to better respond to natural disasters. “We need clarity on long-term finance for developing countries,” says de Boer.

As the talks begin in Copenhagen, there’s reason for climate-change advocates to feel optimistic — for the first time world leaders will be sitting down to focus solely on global warming — and reasons to worry that everything will collapse. The one thing we know is that this summit will help decide whether the world takes on climate change, or continues risking business as usual. “This is our last chance to avoid a dangerous 2°C of warming,” says Dan Lashof, the director of the Natural Resource Defense Council’s Climate Center. One way or another, now is the time to act.

Source: Time

Prosperity without Growth

‘The crisis doesn’t only make us free to imagine other models, another future, another world. It obliges us to do so.’ — President Nicolas Sarkozy, Paris, September 2009

Is more economic growth the solution? Will it deliver prosperity and well-being for a global population projected to reach nine billion?

In this explosive book, Tim Jackson – a top sustainability adviser to the UK government – makes a compelling case against continued economic growth in developed nations.

No one denies that development is essential for poorer nations. But in the advanced economies there is mounting evidence that ever-increasing consumption adds little to human happiness and may even impede it. More urgently, it is now clear that the ecosystems that sustain our economies are collapsing under the impacts of rising consumption. Unless we can radically lower the environmental impact of economic activity – and there is no evidence to suggest that we can – we will have to devise a path to prosperity that does not rely on continued growth.

Economic heresy? Or an opportunity to improve the sources of well-being, creativity and lasting prosperity that lie outside the realm of the market?

Tim Jackson provides a credible vision of how human society can flourish – within the ecological limits of a finite planet. Fulfilling this vision is simply the most urgent task of our times.

The growth debate

The book is a substantially revised and updated version of Jackson’s controversial study for the Sustainable Development Commission, an advisory body to the UK Government. Since the report was published in March 2009, President Sarkozy has asked world leaders to join a revolution in the measurement of economic progress, Sir Nicholas Stern has warned ‘at some point we would have to think about whether we want future growth’, and John Prescott has called the current economic growth model ‘immoral’.

Source: Earth Scan

Perhaps the most significant limit to future energy supplies is the “net energy” factor—the requirement that energy systems yield more energy than is invested in their construction and operation.

THIS REPORT IS INTENDED as a non-technical examination of a basic question: Can any combination of known energy sources successfully supply society’s energy needs at least up to the year 2100? In the end, we are left with the disturbing conclusion that all known energy sources are subject to strict limits of one kind or another. Conventional energy sources such as oil, gas, coal, and nuclear are either at or nearing the limits of their ability to grow in annual supply, and will dwindle as the decades proceed—but in any case they are unacceptably hazardous to the environment. And contrary to the hopes of many, there is no clear practical scenario by which we can replace the energy from today’s conventional sources with sufficient energy from alternative sources to sustain industrial society at its present scale of operations. To achieve such a transition would require (1) a vast financial investment beyond society’s practical abilities, (2) a very long time—too long in practical terms—for build-out, and (3) significant sacrifices in terms of energy quality and reliability.

Perhaps the most significant limit to future energy supplies is the “net energy” factor—the requirement that energy systems yield more energy than is invested in their construction and operation. There is a strong likelihood that future energy systems, both conventional and alternative, will have higher energy input costs than those that powered industrial societies during the last century.We will come back to this point repeatedly.

The report explores some of the presently proposed energy transition scenarios, showing why, up to this time, most are overly optimistic, as they do not address all of the relevant limiting factors to the expansion of alternative energy sources. Finally, it shows why energy conservation (using less energy, and also less resource materials) combined with humane, gradual population decline must become primary strategies for achieving sustainability.

Read the full report: Download the PDF (2.61 MB)

Source: Energy Bulletin