[GWSG] Radical rec; biochar vs. HG; sacred mission; EU targets; most dangerous?; Aquion battery; using heat in pv

[Tilley, Al]

1.  Kevin Anderson, Deputy Director of Britain’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, asserted at the Radical Emission Reduction Conference the necessity of keeping warming under 2°, and described a program for achieving that.  He does not believe that market solutions would be adequate, based on market theory, but envisions simultaneous top down and bottom up pressures for radical change (opposed by, I guess, energetic sideways bullying by fossil fuel interests).  https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/55630

2.  Biochar not only sequesters carbon but scrubs some heavy metals from soil.  Chicken manure biochar is especially effective with mercury.  China leads in biochar research.  http://e360.yale.edu/feature/as_uses_of_biochar_expand_climate_benefits_still_uncertain/2730/

3.  The UN’s Cristiana Figueres holds her climate mission sacred, and says that no nation on earth is now doing what must be done for a secure future.  http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/01/22/davos-climate-un-official/4785589/

4.  The EU will cut its carbon emissions 40% by 2030 on a 1990 base, and produce 27% of its energy renewably.  The targets are the most ambitious of any region, though they probably need strengthening.  http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/22/eu-carbon-emissions-climate-deal-2030
Germany wanted a 50% cut, and Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre wanted a target of 80%.  “Anything less and the EU will renege on its 2° commitments and, as the Commission rightly notes, bequeath to future generations a legacy of ‘devastating impacts.’”   http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2014/jan/22/eu-energy-and-climate-targets-live
The agreement is probably all that could have been achieved in a negotiation among the existing interests.  http://www.theguardian.com/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2014/jan/22/eu-2030-climate-change-energy-emissions-targets   Fossil fuel interests, including their stable of politicians, no longer belong as legitimate parties to negotiations, if adequate agreements are to be reached.  As it stands the fossil fuel industry is buying inaction.  Kevin Anderson’s “top down, bottom up” vision of change in item one seems the most likely way to accomplish a freeze-out of the global heat lobby.  “Top down” puts hope in the UN process, and “bottom up” looks to social action as a change forcer.

5.  Joe Romm addresses the question “What is the most dangerous impact of climate change?”  http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/01/22/3191081/dangerous-climate-change-impact/

6.  The startup Aquion is producing a salt battery which is about the same cost as a lead-acid battery but lasts twice as long, and uses nontoxic materials.  The battery is intended to back up small renewable energy installations.  They have the potential to become cheap enough replace natural gas plants as backup power for large systems.  http://www.technologyreview.com/news/523391/startup-thinks-its-battery-will-solve-renewable-energys-big-flaw/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-weekly-energy&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20140127

7.  The new solar thermophotovoltaic cell uses heat to increase the efficiency of the photovoltaic cell.  http://www.technologyreview.com/aroundmit/523881/how-to-tap-the-suns-energy-through-heat-as-well-as-light/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-weekly-energy&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20140127
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