Oregon State University and the US Environmental Protection Agency convened 30 scientists and policy experts to evaluate the future of wild Pacific salmon. Their prognastications were not rosy. Here’s the crux:
"The most probable forecast if things don’t change markedly is that by 2100, wild salmon will be reduced to remnant runs in the lower 48 states and southern British Columbia," said Bob Lackey of the Environmental Protection Agency in Corvallis.
The Salem Statesman-Journalreports.
We’ve been goingonabitaboutCalifornia clean-car standards.
California cars will emit 30 percent less greenhouse gas by 2016. But even more ambitious is Canada’s commitment to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from new vehicles by 25 percent by 2010. It’s a slightly smaller reduction but a whole lot sooner.
So far, however, the commitment hasn’t had the force of law or binding agreement. It’s simply been a government pledge.
Today’s Globe and Mail gives an update on Canada’s negotiations with automakers. Some parts of government seem ready to strike a deal with carmakers for a lesser reduction voluntarily; other parts—the Ministries of Environment and Transportation—are holding the line.
The David Suzuki Foundation has made it easy for Canadians to send letters of encouragement to the latter.
It’s official. Wind power is now cheaper than natural gas-fired power.
Others have been saying this for some time, but I’ve been holding out. Now I’m convinced.
The Idaho Power Company, as I noted here, is not prone to being swept up in wishful green thinking.
So it moves me to see the following quote from Karl Bokenkamp, general manager of power supply planning at Idaho Power in this month’sCon.WeB:
"Based on our analysis, and our assumptions for future natural gas prices, we expect the 30-year levelized costs of wind and geothermal projects to come in under the 30-year levelized cost of new [gas-fired] combustion turbine projects."
Translation: Wind and geothermal are now cheaper than gas.
Forget Valentine’s Day. The real holiday that matters this week is Kyoto Day.
Eric already beat me to the punch, but I wanted to wish all Northwesterners to the new post-Kyoto-treaty world. Of course, if you live in the US portion of the region, you didn’t really get invited to the party. But that doesn’t mean that you’re completely out of luck—the fact that Kyoto has come into effect gives you some concrete ways to address climate change.
First, as we mentioned before, you can ratify Kyoto yourself (see previousposts), by estimating your family’s climate-warming emissions—and by pledging to reduce or offset them below where they stood in 1990.
Second, the advent of Kyoto means that the European carbon market now has some real teeth. Right now, a ton of CO2 emissions on the European market costs about 7.62 Euros (this site has daily price updates), which is about US $10 or Can$12. A car releases about 20 pounds of carbon for every gallon of gas consumed; for a car that gets 20mpg, that’s about a pound a mile. (Or, in metric terms, it’s about 2.4 kg of CO2 per liter of gas.) That means that if I could buy credits on the European market, I could more than offset my family’s annual automobile emissions for the low, low price of US $35.
One of the worst things about global warming for the Northwest is that it can feed on itself: higher winter temperatures mean less snowpack, which means there’s less water for hydropower, which means that more of our electricity comes from fossil fuels; burning fossil fuels feeds global warming, which means higher winter temperatures and skimpier snowpacks. And so on: a vicious circle if there ever was one.
Of course, the specifics can be mushy—though snowpack may dwindle if temperatures rise, Northwest may also get more total precipitation. Still, during the key summer months when California’s electricity demand peaks, low snowpack can mean mean bad news for electric power up and down the west coast.
That’s what happened in 2001. The winter of 2000-2001 was a terrible one for snow, and the resulting drop in hydropower production put the squeeze on spare generating capacity throughout the west—which was what made it possible for Enron and others to manipulate power prices, precipitating California’s electricity crisis and rolling blackouts.
So it’s worth noting that, as of last week, the snowpack in the watersheds that feed Seattle’s dams had dwindled to match the meager levels last seen in 2001. See here: the green line is this year, the yellow line was 2001.
Today is the inaugural day of the Kyoto Protocol’s enforcement (though the protocol does not apply to the United States, which did not sign the treaty). Fittingly, there is a great column in the Oregonian from Edward C. Wolf, who highlights some promising local action on climate change, especially the West Coast Governor’s Global Warming Initiative.
Wolf also puts some hard numbers to the cost of climate change. If a warming climate means more winters of lousy snow (like this one) in the Cascades, Oregon stands to lose a lot, strictly in financial terms. In Oregon alone, snow sports…
And snow business is only a small part of what Oregon’s economy stands to lose in changing climate conditions.
Seattle’s Broadview neighborhood is sporting an example of the Northwest’s leadership in urban design: a 32 acre natural drainage system. In urban areas, most rainwater runs quickly off impervious surfaces, carrying pollutants into creeks or lakes. But now Broadview uses weirs, native plants, sinuous streets, small wetland ponds, and silty soils to capture the rainwater and put it to better use.
The winding streets slow traffic. The native plantings will be a big aesthetic boost. And the price of construction was actually lower than installing traditional curbs and gutters. The Seattle Daily Journal of Commercereports (subscription).
Broadview was selected in part because the neighborhood sits in the drainage of Piper’s Creek, where activists are restoring a small salmon run in the city. The design has exceeded expectations: it captures 98 percent of stormwater runoff, according to Seattle Public Utilities. And, in a hopeful sign of how we can reconcile ourselves to nature, salmon now return to the creek in late fall where they’re observed by walkers, children, dogs, and at least one river otter.
The answer is "no." I will never get tired of writing on the same subject: low snowpack. Today’s angle: new research findings from a small group of scientists documenting the existence of six multiyear droughts in the Northwest between 1750 and 1950.
While our skimpy mountain snowpack appears to mirror scientific predictions for climate change, periodic droughts have naturally occurred in the region during the last several centuries. By analyzing tree core samples and historical records of Columbia River streamflow, the researchers were able to extrapolate levels of precipitation. They discovered evidence of six serious droughts, including one that began in 1840 and lasted for 12 years, and another in the 1930s that contributed to the Dust Bowl.
These days, in a thickly populated Northwest, a multiyear drought could have catastrophic consequences for farmers, salmon, cities, and hydropower generators who will scrap for water.
Here’s an obscure bit of news that has some real significance: PacifiCorp, one of the largest electric utilities operating in Cascadia, has launched a program in its Utah service area to control “peak demand.” Con.WEB has the story. Bringing this kind of program to Cascadia is important not only for the economy and environment but also for security-a topic we discuss much more in Cascadia Scorecard 2005, which is set for release on February 24.
An electric power grid is a tricky thing to operate. It must always be kept in balance: power supply has to match demand in real time. Yet demand varies enormously over the hours and seasons, so power companies have to maintain a huge amount of idle generating capacity on call for the periods of peak demand. This is expensive. It’s also polluting, because “peaking plants” are almost always less-efficient, fossil-fueled ones.
In other markets where supply cannot be stockpiled and where demand varies dramatically over time, prices to consumers rise during peak periods. Few discounted airline tickets are offered during the holidays, for example, and movie theaters only offer bargain rates for matinees. The higher peak-time prices diminish demand, shifting some of it to off-peak times and simply eliminating some of it. Some people go to the matinee instead; others rent a video or read a book.
But there’s no easy mechanism for pricing electricity based on its time of use. (Although time-of-use pricing is in experimental use in some places, including a failed Puget Sound Energy test in western Washington a few years ago.)
More on hybrids and Hummers, though only at the US nationwide level, not Cascadia-specific.
The Associated Press reports, via the Olympian:
“About 88,000 hybrids were sold in the United States last year, according to J.D. Power and Associates, which projects the number to more than double to about 220,000 this year."
And the Detroit Newsreports that large SUV sales were way down in 2004.
“Sales of large SUVs-a category that includes GMC Yukon, Hummer H2, Ford Expedition, and Toyota Sequoia-were down 6 percent last year, with many models posting double-digit declines, according to Autodata.”
Hummer H2 sales nationwide in 2004 dropped 27 percent, to 25,000 behemoths.
Again:
2004 US hybrid sales: 88,000
2004 US Hummer sales: 25,000
In the Northwest, hybrids swamp Hummers by even larger margins.
