Between the Poles

Berkeley Earth links global warming to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide

According to a new Berkeley Earth study released yesterday, the average land temperature of the Earth has risen by 1.5 °C over the past 250 years, from 1753. Berkeley Earth compared the shape of the rise in temperature over 250 years to a number of variables for which data exists for the same period including solar activity and concluded that by far the best match was to the record of atmospheric carbon dioxide, measured from atmospheric samples and air trapped in polar ice.

"The good match between the new temperature record and historical carbon dioxide records suggests that the most straightforward explanation for this warming is human greenhouse gas emissions."

Together with their most recent results and papers, Berkeley Earth also released their raw data and analysis programs.

Germany generates 25% of its power from renewables in first half of 2012

According to BDEW, Germany produced 67.9 billion kWh of renewable energy in the first six months of 2012.  That's 25 percent of Germany's power production and an increase of 19.5 percent over the same period last year.  Wind energy accounted for 9.2 %, biomass 5.7 % and solar 5.3 % of total energy output.  Solar energy was up 47 percent over the previous year.

Conceptual energy modeling in a simplified BIM workflow

Project Vasari is a technology preview of a simplified design tool for creating conceptual building designs with integrated analysis for energy and carbon. Vasari is for early concept work.  One of its big differentiators from products like Sketchup is that it is intended to fit into a building information modeling (BIM) workflow.

Project Vasari has been sponsoring a series of talks about different aspects of the project.  The next one is specrficially about conceptual energy modeling.  By understanding the big picture energy implications of a building design early you can save time and money by identifying the key energy drivers.  In this talk Lura Griffiths, LEED® AP BD+C, E.M.I.T Senior Energy Analyst at Glumac, will present several examples of real building designs and how their energy performance was analyzed in the early stages of design using conceptual energy analysis.  The results of the early analyses helped guide the design and make significant impacts on the energy use of the buildings.

Date: August 8, 2012

Time: 11:30 AM Eastern time

You can register here.

EU Emissions Trading Scheme: EC attempts to address emissions allowance glut

With the slowdown in the EU economy and the large volume of free allowances, Europe's cap-and-trade scheme (EU ETS) for greenhouse emissions (GHG) has resulted in a price of carbon of €7 per tonne of CO₂ equivalent, so low that there are doubts about whether the scheme will have any significant impact on GHG emissions.  For comparison, in Australia the carbon price, which is not yet market determined, has been set initially at A$23 per tonne.  Some argue that the fundamental problem is that the EU ETS is schizophrenic because it should be either a purely market-based process with the free interplay of the supply and demand for the benefit of the environment or a market intervention policy designed to stimulate structural industrial change.

In the third phase of the ETS starting in 2013, at least half of all allowances will be auctioned. For industries such as electricity generation, no allowances will be allocated free of charge, all will be auctioned.  However, some other sectors with a significant risk of carbon leakage will continue to receive allowances for free.

Last week the European Commission (EC) issued a proposal to address the current situation of a glut of allowances.  The EC is proposing changing the timing of allowances auctions in phase 3 of the EU ETS, so as to avoid flooding an allowances market which is already glutted.   Because of the macroeconomic developments in the last few years years, the idea is to postpone allowance auction volume from 2013-2015 to the end of phase 3.  After the proposal was announced, the price of carbon dropped further to €6.70, suggesting that the proposal is not foreseen to be able to effect a major change in the ETS.

Ordnance Survey forms OS International to offer national mapping assistance internationally

In the UK the 1790's were responsible for two major advances, the elimination of scurvey in the Royal Navy through the issuance of limes, and the creation of the Ordnance Survey tasked with identifying sites for artillery placement along the English seacoast.  Both contributed to preventing an invasion of the UK by Napoleon.  Interestingly at roughly the same time a survey was being carried out in France from South to North to measure the meter, then defined as one ten millionth of a quarter of the Earth's circumference.  If Napoleon had invaded Britain, it is interesting to speculate that Imperial units would have been replaced by SI in the early 19th C which might have avoided the units debates in modern times.

Since then as the world's first national mapping agency, the Ordnance Survey (OS) has been a model for other government mapping agencies around the world.  The OS has just announced the formation of an international service, Ordnance Survey International, to provide specialist services to other national mapping agencies.  It is estimated that location-based data contributes more than £100 billion to the UK economy.  Ordnance Survey International will start in September 2012 and will be headed by Steven Ramage, former Executive Director at the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)..  Carsten Roensdorf, currently with the OS in Southampton, will also be joining OS International and will be located in the Middle East.  I've known both Steven and Carsten for many years.   This is an outstanding team that will add a lot of value to national mapping internationally at a critical time when many of these organizations are experiencing rapid and dramatic changes.

It's the weather

Katherine Hamilton, very influential in energy circles and ex-president of the Gridwise Alliance, an organization representing a broad range of the energy supply chain from utilities to emerging tech companies, has just made a post on her blog (also posted on AOL Energy) that just could be the harbinger of a sea change in the discussion about climate change.  Entitled "Clean Energy Policy: Reducing Climate Change Without the Politics", it starts off

"This blog—and my career, frankly – has carefully steered clear of politically sensitive issues and focused instead on advocating for smart public policy. But having lived through summer after summer in Washington, D.C., with temperatures continuously climbing above 100 degrees and increasingly violent storms (with scientists echoing that things seem to be progressing more quickly then once thought), I finally am compelled to comment on the topic of climate change.

"Given these circumstances, it seems that at long last, a real conversation about climate change is bound to happen. I actually think climate change policy does not have to be mired in politics, especially when the skepticism is concentrated in a small part of the political spectrum in Washington, D.C."

She then goes on to give her personal experience of the climate change debate beginning with COP15 in 2009 and the subsequent unsuccessful attempt in the U.S. Congress at cap and trade legislation, after which the "topic become taboo in many political circles."  She says that she now thinks "the pendulum is due to swing back."

UK National Infrastructure Plan includes public loan guarantees for private investment

I have blogged previously about the UK National Infrastructure Plan which plans to invest about £250 billion in the next five yrs and £ 400 billion in the 10 yrs on infrastructure including high speed rail, energy (especially nuclear and wind), aviation, water and wastewater, roads and highways, and high speed broadband.  This is a considerably higher spend than in the past and focuses on economic infrastructure. The most revolutionary aspect of this plan is that 70% of the funding is intended to come from the private sector.

The government has found it diffcult to attract the level of private investment that is required, at least partially due to the adverse credit situation in Europe.  To make infrastructure investment more attractive to private investors, such as pension funds, the UK goverment has announced a £50bn loan guarantee program for private investment in infrastructure and exports.

It is estimated that up to £40 billion worth of projects could quality.  The criteria the government intends to use to assess projects are

• Nationally significant
• Ready to start construction within 12 months (similar to the U.S. ARRA's shovel-ready criterion)
• Financially credible
• Would not proceed without a loan guarantee
• Good value to the taxpayer

The loan gurantees program also includes a temporary lending programme to enable 30 public private partnership (PPP) infrastructure projects worth an estimated £6 billion to go ahead.

FOSS4G 2012 Beijing cancelled

The OSGEO Board of Directors has announced that the global FOSS4G 2012 conference scheduled to be held in September in Beijing has been cancelled.  It's unfortunate, but FOSS4G has being growing successfully, rapidly and internationally including Capetown and Sydney, from its original base in the U.S. and Canada and things like this are bound to happen once in a while.  Last year's FOSS4G 2011 event in Denver was the largest yet, with 900 people from 42 countries.  Next year's FOSS4G 2013 in Nottingham is already very advanced.  In addition there are a growing number of regional events including one for North America in Washington DC, one for Central and Eastern Europe in Prague and there will be a FOSS4G Japan in November. Many regional geospatial conferences now also include a OSGeo/FOSS4G stream.

China expanding smart grid technologies including energy storage

China's electricity demand is expected to triple by 2035.  According to Greentech Media, in 2012, China’s installed generation capacity and quantity of electricity produced will become the largest globally. China plans to invest $490 billion in grid upgrades by 2020, including about $90 billion in smart grid technology.

Early this year it was reported that China had installed the world’s largest battery park (Lithium Iron Phosphate) with a capacity of storing 36 MWh of electric power and costing half a billion dollars.  The battery park, which is the size of a football field, is fed by intermittent renewable energy sources, a 100 MW wind farm and a 40 MW solar project.  What this means is that for the grid operator, State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC), the intermittent sources together with the battery comprise a dispatchable energy source.

Azure International and GTM Research have projected that the energy storage market in China will grow to a $500 million per year market by 2016.

Energy efficiency directives for Federal buildings in the U.S.

I blogged recently about the prioritization of energy efficiency in the EU, driven by the 20-20-20 energy efficiency objective as well as energy independence.  Pike Research has projected that as a result of the recast EU EPBD Directive and similar legislation in other parts of the world, worldwide revenue from net zero energy building construction will grow at an annual rate of 43% over the next two decades, reaching $690 billion by 2020 and $1.3 trillion by 2035, with much of the growth occurring in the EU.

In the U.S. there are a number of aggressive mandates for Federal government buildings, the idea being that the Federal government should take the lead be a model for the private sector.  In 2006 a  Memorandum of Understanding entitled Federal Leadership in High Performance and Sustainable Buildings signed by 22 agencies set the stage for these initiatives.  A major goal of the MOU is the implementation of common strategies for planning, acquiring, siting, designing, building, operating, and maintaining high performance and sustainable buildings.

The U.S. Federal government owns about 445,000 buildings with total floor space of over 3 billion square feet, in addition it leases 57,000 buildings with about 374 million square feet of floor space. 

How the GSA is complying with these directives can be found in the GSA's FY 2011-2016 Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan.  A more detailed overview of the requirements can be found in the SAME Frontier Post presentation July 2011.

Executive Order 13423

Executive Order 13423 (EO 13423) "Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management", signed by President Bush in 2007. The order sets goals in the areas of energy efficiency, acquisition, renewable energy, toxics reductions, recycling, renewable energy, sustainable buildings, electronics stewardship, fleets, and water conservation.

Order 13423 is a national initiative to reduce the average annual energy consumption of the entire Federal building inventory, which is the responsibility of the General Services Administration (GSA). Specifically, its goal is to

• reduce facility energy use per square foot by 3 percent per year through the end of 2015 or by 30 percent by the end of fiscal year 2015, relative to a 2003 baseline.  To achieve this goal, GSA’s inventory must reach a metered annual energy consumption of approximately 55,000 BTU/GSF (British thermal units per gross square feet).

Energy Policy Act of 2005

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPACT 2005) signed by President Bush in 2005 addresses energy production in the United States, including: (1) energy efficiency; (2) renewable energy; (3) oil and gas; (4) coal; (5) Tribal energy; (6) nuclear matters and security; (7) vehicles and motor fuels, including ethanol; (8) hydrogen; (9) electricity; (10) energy tax incentives; (11) hydropower and geothermal energy; and (12) climate change technology.

EPACT 2005 requires that

• directs all Federal agencies to install advanced metering to measure electricity use in buildings.
• federal buildings be designed to use 30% less energy than they would by complying with the industry standard - ASHRAE Standard 90.1. 
• increase renewable electricity consumption by the federal government by 3 percent in fiscal year 2007-2009; 5% percent in fiscal year 2010-2012; and 7.5% in fiscal year 2013 and each fiscal year thereafter.

Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007

The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA 2007) signed by President Bush in 2007 reinforces the energy reduction goals for federal agencies put forth in Executive Order 13423, as well as introduces more aggressive requirements. The three key provisions enacted are the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards, the Renewable Fuel Standard, and the appliance/lighting efficiency standards.

EISA 2007 requires the GSA to reduce its designed energy consumption with respect to the average commercial building energy usage as determined by the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Agency (EIA). 

• In 2010 the GSA was required to use 55% less energy than an average commercial building and continue with incremental decreases every five years.
• By 2030, GSA must construct all new facilities to be net zero energy buildings.
• Finally, EISA 2007 stipulates that every 5 years, GSA must select a third-party green building certification system, with corresponding level of certification, to document the overall sustainable performance goals of GSA’s new and modernized buildings.

Executive Order 13514

Executive Order 13514 (EO 13514), "Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance," was signed by President Obama in 2009. The goal of EO 13514 is "to establish an integrated strategy towards sustainability in the Federal Government and to make reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) a priority for Federal agencies."  This EO does not rescind/eliminate the requirements of EO 13423. Instead, it expands on the energy reduction and environmental performance requirements for Federal agencies identified in EO 13423. 

EO 13514 lays out the following numerical targets for Federal agencies:

• Ensure at least 15% of existing buildings and leases (>5,000 gross sq ft) meet the Guiding Principles by FY2015, with continued progress towards 100%.
• Ensure 95% of all new contracts require products and services that are energy-efficient, water-efficient, biobased, environmentally preferable, non-ozone depleting, contain recycled-content, non-toxic or less-toxic alternatives.

This EO also sets non-numerical targets that agencies must reach, including:

• Reduce building energy intensity.  
• Ensure all new Federal buildings that enter the planning process in 2020 and thereafter are designed to achieve zero-net-energy standards by 2030.

Guiding Principles (2008)

The Interagency Sustainability Working Group (ISWG) created by EO 13423 has updated the Guiding Principles of the MOU of 2006 including updates to the Guiding Principles for Sustainable New Construction and Major Renovations and the creation of a separate Guiding Principles for Sustainable Existing Buildings.