Carbon Reduction

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Details: Written by: Richard_McKie; Parent Category: Economy; Category: Energy; Published: 26 December 2010; Hits: 81416

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Carbon Reduction Imperative

Due to improving living standards in developed and some developing countries (China India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore etc) the worldwide demand for energy for electricity generation has been growing by around 2% pa worldwide.

Worldwide electrical energy is predominantly based on the combustion of fossil fuels (carbon and a proportion of hydrogen). The carbon is released as atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂). The consequent exponential release of CO₂is believed to be threatening the climate of the planet. This is compounded by the release of methane and other air, water and land pollution (associated with industrialisation) and the widespread disruption of the natural carbon cycle by tree clearing and broad-acre farming and grazing monocultures and damage to marine ecosystems (as a result of exponential population growth).

In response, carbon mitigation strategies are in place throughout the developed world to attempt to contain the growth of atmospheric CO₂. To facilitate these strategies, renewable energy technologies are projected to make an increasing contribution to world energy consumption. The stronger these carbon mitigation strategies are; the more competitive low carbon and renewable energy becomes.

Although there are various experimental and speculative alternative (low carbon and renewable) electricity solutions, this article focuses on those that presently make a significant contribution, or may do within the next 20 years. For the purposes of this analysis these alternatives are:

Hydro
Wind
Solar
Geothermal
Biomass/Biogas (including wood, algae and bio/solar)
Marine (tides, waves, currents)
Nuclear (including fusion)

Some of these involve more 'whole of life' carbon production in their manufacture; installation; maintenance; demolition; and recycling than others. The following analysis is based on the assumption that they actually run, and produce useful electricity, for their estimated lifetime. If they become ‘white elephants’ their carbon footprint becomes very large indeed.

Comparative Carbon Footprints

Source: UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology - Carbon Footprint of Electricity Generation

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Travel

Italy

A decade ago, in 2005, I was in Venice for my sixtieth birthday. It was a very pleasant evening involving an excellent restaurant and an operatic recital to follow. This trip we'd be in Italy a bit earlier as I'd intended to spend my next significant birthday in Berlin.

The trip started out as planned. A week in London then a flight to Sicily for a few days followed by the overnight boat to Napoli (Naples). I particularly wanted to visit Pompeii because way back in 1975 my original attempt to see it was thwarted by a series of mishaps, that to avoid distracting from the present tale I won't go into.

Fiction, Recollections & News

The Coronation

Last Time

When George VI died unexpectedly in February 1952, I was just 6 years old, so the impact of his death on me, despite my parents' laments for a good wartime leader and their sitting up to listen to his funeral on the radio, was not great.

At Thornleigh Primary School school assemblies I was aware that there was a change because the National Anthem changed and we now sang God Save The Queen.

Usually, we would just sing the first verse, accompanied by older children playing recorders, but on special occasions we would sing the third verse too. Yet for some mysterious reason, never the second.

The Coronation was a big deal in Australia, as well as in Britain and the other Dominions (Canada, South Africa and New Zealand) and there was a lot of 'bling': china; tea towels; spoons; and so on. The media went mad.

Opinions and Philosophy

Luther - Father of the Modern World?

To celebrate or perhaps just to mark 500 years since Martin Luther nailed his '95 theses' to a church door in Wittenberg and set in motion the Protestant Revolution, the Australian Broadcasting Commission has been running a number of programs discussing the legacy of this complex man featuring leading thinkers and historians in the field.

Much of the ABC debate has centred on Luther's impact on the modern world. Was he responsible for today? Without him, might the world still be stuck in the 'Middle Ages' with each generation doing more or less what the previous one did, largely within the same medieval social structures? In that case could those inhabitants of an alternative 21st century, obviously not us, as we would never have been born, still live in a world of less than a billion people, most of them working the land as their great grandparents had done, protected and governed by an hereditary aristocracy, their mundane lives punctuated only by variations in the weather; holy days; and occasional wars between those princes?

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