Lecture 34-35

Question 1

World energy consumption

Answer 1

Coal dropped from 39% to 27% by 2020
Oil dropped from 40% to 31%
Natural gas increased from 15% to 25%
Renewables increased to 5% in 2020

Question 2

Canada’s energy consumption 1965-2015

Answer 2

Tripled overall energy consumption since 1965
Rate of increase in energy use slowing - efficiency + transfer of heavy industry to other countries
Fossil fuel use declining
Not nearly steep enough to reach net carbon zero by 2060

Question 3

What are the predicted energy consumption by 2050?

Answer 3

Nearly 50% increase in world energy usage, led by growth in Asia
With rapid growth of electricity generation, renewables-including solar, wind, and hydroelectric power-are the fastest growing energy source between 2018 and 2050
Global natural gas consumption increases more than 40% between 2018 and 2050

Question 4

What is the Paris agreement?

Answer 4

Goal to reduce emissions

Question 5

How do we decarbonize?

Answer 5

Join effort of reducing emissions as well as removing CO2 from the air (increasing biosphere and human carbon sinks)

Question 6

Stabilization triangle

Answer 6

increasing linear curve (current path = ramp)
flat path (interim goal)

The section in between the current path and the flat path (triangle) is divided into 8 wedges

Question 7

What is a wedge in a stabilization triangle?

Answer 7

A wedge is a strategy to reduce carbon emissions that grow in 50 years from zero to 1.0 GtC/year. The strategy has alreawdy been commercialized at scale somewhere

Cumulatevely, a wedge redirects the flow of 25 GtC in its first 50 years. In other words, we do not need to go from 0 to 100, but rather starting now, go on for 50 years to flatline carbon outputs

Question 8

What are the 4 categories of wedges?

Answer 8

1) Efficiency and conservation
2) Fossil-fuel based strategies
3) Nuclear energy
4) Renewables and biostorage

Question 9

What are the wedges in the category efficiency and conservation?

Answer 9

increased transport efficiency
reducing miles traveled
increased building efficiency
increased efficiency of electricity production

Question 10

What are the wedges in the category fossil-fuel based strategies?

Answer 10

fule switching (coal to gas)
fossil-based electricity with carbon capture and storage (CCS)
coal synfuels with CCS
fossil-based hydrogen fuel with CCS

Question 11

What is the wedge in the category in nuclear energy?

Answer 11

nuclear electricity

Question 12

What are the wedges in the category in renewables and biostorage?

Answer 12

wind-generated electricity
solar electricity
wind-generated hydorgen fuel
biofuels
forest storage
soil storage

Question 13

Transport efficiency

Answer 13

a wedge of emissions savings would be achieved if the fuel efficiency of all the cars were doubled from 30 mpg to 60 mpg

hybrid and diesel engines, making vehicles out of stronger and lighter material

Question 14

transport conservation

Answer 14

a wedge of emissions savings would be achieved if the number of miles traveled by the world’s cars were cut in half

urban planning leading to more use of mass transit and if electronic communication becomes a good subsitute for face-to-face meetings

encourage urban planning to encourage public transportation

Question 15

building efficiency

Answer 15

a wedge of emissions savings would be achieved if emissions in all new and existing residential and commercial buildings was cut by 25%

largest potential savings in building sector = heating and cooling, water heating, lighting, appliances

carbon savings from end-use efficiency strategies (wall and roof insulation), renewable energy strategies (solar water heating, passive solar design)

adopting more strategies will reduce its cost

Question 16

efficiency in electricity production

Answer 16

a wedge of emissions savings would be achieved if we produced the world’s current coal-based electricity with doubled efficiency

coal-bruning power plants produce 25% world’s carbon emissions

efficiency from better turbines, using high-temperature fuel cells, combining fuel cells and turbines

Question 17

What is the most economical way to store carbon?

Answer 17

store undergrond

if CO2 emissions from fossil fuels can be captured and stored, reduce harmful climate consequences of continuning to burn fossil fuels

Question 18

CCS electricity

Answer 18

a wedge of emissions savings would be achieved by applying CCS to 800 large (1 billion watt) baseload coal power plants or 1600 large baseload natural gas power plants in 50 years

injecting a volume of CO2 every year equal to the volume of oil extracted

possibility of CO2 leakage

Question 19

CCS hydrogen

Answer 19

desirable fuel because when burned, emits water vapour

produced mainly in ammonia fertilizer production and petroleum refining

currently, generate 100 million tons of capturable carbon

however, distributing CCS hydrogen requires building infrastructure

Question 20

CCS synfuels

Answer 20

a wedge of emissions savings would be achieved if you could capture the CO2 emissions from 180 coal-to-synfuel facilities

when coal is heated and combined with steam and air or O2, CO and H2 are released and can be processed to make a liquid fuel called synfuel

release twice the carbon emissions of petroleum-derived fuels

largest synfuel facility is largest point source of atmospheric CO2

Question 21

fuel switching for electricity

Answer 21

a wedge of emissions savings would be achieved if 1400 large natural gas plants displaced similar coal-electric plants

because of lower carbon content of natural gas and higher efficiencies of natural gas plants –> 50% emissions of coal

4x global production of electricity from natural gas in 2000

Question 22

Nuclear electricity

Answer 22

a wedge of emissions savings would be achieved if the world’s current nuclear capacity by nuclear electric plants was tripled

currently provides 10% (down from 17%) world’s electricity, no CO2, world’s second largest source of low-carbon power

weapons, proliferation, nuclear waste, local opposition

Question 23

Wind electricity

Answer 23

a wedge of emissions savings would be achieved if current wind capacity scaled up by a factor of 10
currently produces 2% of total global electricity

NIMBYs

Question 24

solar electricity

Answer 24

a wedge of emissions savings would be achieved if you installed solar arrays with an area of two million hectares, or 20,000km^2

Convert sunlight to electricity, CO2 free and renewable
Lower land demand than other renewables

Question 25

Wind hydrogen

Answer 25

a wedge of emissions savings would be achieved if you added another 1 million windmills

To produce hydrogen with wind energy, electricity generated by turbines used in electrolysis, liberates hydrogen from water

Wind hydrogen displacing vehicle fuel is 50% efficient at reducing carbon emissions as wind electricity displacing coal electricity

Could be small scale, less investment in infrastructure

Question 26

Biofuels

Answer 26

a wedge of emissions savings would be achieved if today’s global ethanol production increased by 12x, and was sustainable

wedge would require 1/6 of world’s cropland and an area the size of India

Biogengineering: increase efficiency of PS and use of crop residues –> reduce land demand

Ethanol production in US and Brazil: 20 billion gallons of biofuel from corn and sugarcane

biodiversity threats and competing land use

Question 27

Forest storage

Answer 27

a wedge of emissions savings would be achieved if global deforestation was stopped

current global deforesation adds 1-2 billion tons of cabon to atmosphere

natural sinks

requires reduction in deforestation + planting new trees

Question 28

Soil storage

Answer 28

a wedge of emissions savings would be achieved by applying carbon management strategies to all the world’s existing agricultural soils

natural vegetation –> cropland reduces soil carbon by 50%

reverse carbon loss through agricultural practices that build up carbon in soil (reduce period bare fallow, plant cover crops, reduce aeration)

Question 29

What is an institution?

Answer 29

any structure or mechanism of social order and cooperation governing the behaviour of a set of individuals within a given human community

an organization formed for a specific purpose

a set of rules and structures that allow people to organize for collective action

institutions are often used to organize a response at a national or at an international level

Question 30

Explain the story of ozone depletion

Answer 30

Mid20th c: new classes of inert and harmless chemicals, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and halons, start to be used in diffirent ways
- CFCs used in aerosol cans, cooling systems, foam making
- halons containing F, Cl, Br; used in fire extinguisher systems, dry cleaning, etc.

However, when exposed to UV radiation in the stratosphere, halons break down and release Cl, BrO, NO, etc. that then destroy stratospheric ozone. In particular, in Antarctic spring, it leads to the formation of a ozone hole that gets worse every year.

Mid70s: CFCs observed in stratosphere; first hypothesis of possible ozone desruction by CFCs

Early 80s: ozone depletion observed
- Vienna convention: information sharing
- 1987: Montreal protocol: freeze CFC production at 1986 levels; reduce by 50% by 1998

Late 1980s: thanks to incentives, HCFC subsitutes devleoped

1990s: protocol gradually strengthened thanks to new tools (tech. transfer, special permits)

2010: no more CFC produced (still have emissions from old appliances)

2020: no HCFC in developed countries

2030: no NCFC in developing countries

Question 31

What is the result of the CFC ban?

Answer 31

the growth of the ozone hole has now stopped

because of the residence time of CFCs and ClO in the stratosphere, the ozone hole will take several decades to disappear

Question 32

What have we learned from the CFC-ozone experience?

Answer 32

global conventions are possible (many tools in the future to facilitate transitions were developed during this crisis)

they can be effective, at least under conditions represented by the CFC-ozone issue

Question 33

US Clean Air Act

Answer 33

Amended 1970, 1990

The Clean Air Act required the implementation of pollution limits at levels that protect the public health and provide an adequate margin of safety.

Limits on sulfar oxides, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, photochemical oxidants, nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons

Question 34

What are follow ups from the US Clean Air Act?

Answer 34

There have been challenges periodically:

Lesson learned: policy-making can have a strong political aspect; policies can be changed for better or for worse. Concerned citizens need to be aware, active and vocal

Question 35

Institutional response to climate change

Answer 35

Framework convention on climate change
- international framework for discussing climate change was developed at the Rio Summit in 1992
- Signed by 166 states (known as “the parties”)

International meetings: conference of the parties (COP)

Question 36

COP3

Answer 36

Kyoto, Japan
Proposed to Kyoto protocol: binding agreement for developed nations to reduce GHG emission from 5-7% below 1990 levels in the 2008-2012 period.

Developed nations did not meet their targets

Question 37

Paris Agreement 2015

Answer 37

197 countries, 193 ratified so far
Aim: to limit warming to <2 degrees C
Went into effect on 4 Nov. 2016

Bottom-up process: contrary to most top-down international regulatory frameworks
- Nationally determined contributions
- Not binding: collective political pressure rather than legal enforcement

All nations expected to contribute, including developing
International transfer of mitigation outcomes (ITMOs) permitted
Discussions of financial support for adaptation and clean development
Involvement of cities as well as nations

Question 38

What was Canada’s Paris Agreement commitment

Answer 38

80% below 2005 by 2050
energy

Question 39

What have we learned from the experience of trying to regulate climate change?

Answer 39

Challenged of regulating highly diffuse emissions closely tied to the economy
- The socio-economic commitment to CFCs was far less than that to fossil fuels

Difficult to get agreement in a complex system with legitimate but large uncertainty about outcomes; less difficult as outcomes become more certain
- Knowledge has increased dramatically, uncertainty has decreased, and means to act or alternatives hav gradually improved
- Growing evidence that decarbonization is possible
- Increased market penetration of renewable energy technologies
- Increased awareness

Question 40

What are the factors that influence action or environmental issues?

Answer 40

how well established is the nature of the problem? how well understood are the causes and effects?

what are the likely impacts and their severity

how distant in time and space are the impacts

are there available solutions, if not how quickly can they be developed

who, or how many, must be involved in the solutions

what are the economic implications of inaction and of action

how immediate are the benefits of a response

what is less complex: mitigation or adaptation

Question 41

Compare the Kyoto agreement to the Paris agreement?

Answer 41

Kyoto was largely about command and control, but lacked enforcement authority
- Required authority to be assumed by nations, did not deliver
- Experiments with binding targets have been less successful

Paris’ approach adopted collective motivation and flexibility in policy
- global moral persuasion, national freedom to adopt rules
- so far seems to be working
- rely on peer pressure/ aspirational goals to motivate

Emerging sub-national response