[GWSG] Antarctic canyon; pv film; CO2 capture; transformation?; retired coal; fast neutrons; solar potential

[Tilley, Al]

1.  The discovery of a grand-canyon sized valley under the West Antarctic ice helps explain why the area is losing mass at such a rate—the valley helps spread the effect of warming coastal waters to the inland—and will aid in projecting sea level rise.  http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0727-grand-canyon-antarctica.html

2.  Scientists at UCLA have produced a photovoltaic polymeric film which is nearly transparent and stronger than silicon.  One use would be to produce electricity from windows but about any structural surface would apparently do.  http://www.latimes.com/news/local/environment/la-me-gs-ucla-transparent-solar-film-could-be-gamechanger-20120727,0,4271267.story

3.  A number of advances at Georgia Tech support technology to capture CO2 at $100 a ton, with the prospect of cost reductions to come.  Sequestration is not addressed.  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120724104647.htm  Restored mangroves store CO2 at a cost of $4-10 a ton.  http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=restoring-mangroves-may-prove-cheap-way-to-cool-climate

4.  Our best hope for avoiding runaway warming and building a sustainable economy may lie in a general demand that the government make conversion to clean energy its primary goal.  http://truth-out.org/news/item/10585-climate-change-and-the-next-us-revolution  Gus Speth and others have argued for this.  I recommend his new book America the Possible, which advances a practical and transformational program.  Speth is a Professor of Law at the U of VT and has led environmental  efforts at the international level since he was science advisor to the Carter administration.  While the release date is listed as September I have received my copy.  http://www.amazon.com/America-Possible-Manifesto-Economy-American/dp/0300180764/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343760216&sr=1-3&keywords=gus+speth   Current Canadian experience shows that government climate action must be mandated and publicly tracked.  http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Plan%20bureaucrats%20savvy%20climatechange%20risks%20easy%20ignore%20documents/7008023/story.html  Reactionary economic pressures may be expected.  BC’s Prime Minister is conditioning participation in fashioning a national energy policy on a bigger cut of the proceeds from a tar sands oil pipeline.  In the US, the XL pipeline keeps popping back up.  http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Premier%20Christy%20Clark%20derails%20forge%20national%20energy/7000434/story.html  Katherine Hamilton believes that we can move to an energy transition without politics.  I wonder if she doesn’t mean that the current propaganda and economic pressures for inaction might be sidestepped by the urgency of the situation.  I notice Shell’s ad accompanying her article and am reduced to hoping that such ploys will be ineffective with a public which has become convinced of the need to move beyond fossil fuels.  http://energy.aol.com/2012/07/28/clean-energy-policy-reducing-climate-change-without-the-politic/

5.  27 gigawatts of US coal fired power capacity, 8.5% of the total, is expected to retire in the next 5 years.  Suggested reasons are aging, cost, and regulatory pressure.  http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=7290

6.  Fast neutron reactors use plutonium as a fuel.  In the short term the prepared plutonium poses an increased security risk.  In the long term it will be recycled.  As expensive as fourth generation reactors are, they would provide reliable and continuous power on a large scale. http://e360.yale.edu/feature/are_fast-breeder_reactors_a_nuclear_power_panacea/2557/

7.  The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has released a report on the technical potential of renewable energy sources.  The report does not address economic or market restraints.  Solar has far and away the greatest potential in the US with 190,000 gigawatts, 150,000 of that in rural utility-scale photovoltaics.  http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/51946.pdf
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