Recently in Climate Category

From the 25x'25 blog:

The 25x'25 Alliance today issued a list of proposed amendments to the American Clean Energy and Security Act (HR 2454) that the organization said are needed to maximize the benefits that agriculture and forestry can provide in the cap-and-trade program outlined in the measure.

The amendments, which were aired during a Farm Foundation forum at the National Press Club this morning by Carbon Work Group Chairman Nathan Rudgers, a former New York state agriculture commissioner and a member of the 25x'25 National Steering Committee, address multiple areas within the Waxman-Markey bill, including:

• Domestic offsets must have identical characteristics and risks, i.e. fungibility, with each other and with allowances.
• Sequestration offsets must be for a contracted duration, with a suggested "permanence" of fifty years.
• The risks of unintentional reversals and leakage must be fully managed at a program-level, not at a project level. (At the same time, offset providers must be held accountable for any and all intentional reversals.)
• Biological sequestration offsets must be credited at a discounted rate so that the difference between the value of the full offset and a discounted offset is the source of funds to manage all risks of reversal, such as from a forest fire.
• The measure must recognize the abundant offset protocols and methodologies that have been previously developed under other programs by allowing the program administrator to quickly establish a list of pre-approved project types.
• The bill must direct the program administrator to devise protocols, methodologies, procedures, registry requirements, verification requirements, and any other relevant process issues to be as operationally lean as possible and reduce overhead costs of compliance.
• USDA should be the lead agency to assume responsibility for the majority of farm and forestry offset functions.
• Domestic offset providers from the agriculture and forestry sectors should be treated equally under the Strategic Reserve, a price management mechanism, which sets aside extra permits that can be allocated to prevent unexpected allowance-price fluctuations.
• Agriculture and forestry stakeholders currently engaging in land management practices that provide offsets - "early actors" - should be recognized under the cap-and-trade program and specifically protected against any bias that could accrue relative to other offset providers.

From the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA):

NOAA scientists have teamed up with experts from the University of Maryland and North Carolina State University to form the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites. The new institute will use satellite observations to detect, monitor and forecast climate change, and its impact on the environment, including ecosystems.

"To help us understand climate change, we have to find ways to best leverage all of our available resources, including the information we get from satellites," said Mary Kicza, assistant administrator for NOAA's Satellite and Information Science. "Bringing together some of the best minds to study satellite imagery and data will shed more light on how our climate is changing."

The institute will have two centers - one in College Park, Md., adjacent to the site of the planned NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction, and the other at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

25x'25 recently released a youtube video focused on the opportunities for the agriculture and forestry sectors in the reduced carbon economy. The five minute video can be viewed here.

Chairman Collin C. Peterson announced today that the House Agriculture Committee is seeking comments on proposals to address global climate change. The Committee is soliciting the opinions of more than 400 agricultural, environmental, scientific and educational groups and other members of the public, through a print- and web-based questionnaire. The questionnaire allows stakeholders throughout the nation to provide the Committee with their views on the different options being considered in Congress to reduce greenhouse gas emissions - especially as they relate to the agriculture and forestry sectors. The questionnaire can be accessed here.

From TimberBuySell.com:

The CVal spreadsheet is a powerful tool that will help foresters, managers, and project developers work with private forest landowners to assess the economic profitability of participating in carbon markets. CVal provides a discounted cash flow analysis based on a full accounting of variables, including tract size, carbon sequestration rate, carbon price, and enrollment and trading costs. Automated, financial break-even analysis in the macros version quickly assess threshold values of key variables for profitable projects, and the program readily performs "what if" calculations after storing starting values. CVal was designed to evaluate managed forest and afforestation projects traded on the Chicago Climate Exchange, but its methodology could be adapted for other trading mechanisms and agricultural sequestration projects. Documentation is provided in the program itself and in GTR-180.  CVal was developed by Ted Bilek (USFS Forest Products Lab), Peter Becker (Eastern Ozarks Forestry Council), and Tim McAbee (LandMark Systems), and is available at no cost. Tool can be downloaded here.

Senate Democrats have decided to combine federal legislation for a renewable electricity standard and cap-and-trade into one bill. The news story can be found at the New York Times.

A new article published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology found that corn ethanol emits, on average, 51 percent less greenhouse gases than gasoline. The University of Nebraska study researched dry-mill ethanol plants that use natural gas. The research team stated that this was the first study "to quantify the impact of recent improvements throughout the corn-ethanol production process, including crop production, biorefinery operations and co-product use ... Previous studies, which found ethanol to have a much smaller edge over gasoline in GHG emissions, relied on estimates based on corn production, ethanol plant performance and co-product use as they were seven years ago." The press release can be found here.

The Energy Information Agency (EIA) has released its 2007 inventory of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. The report found that total greenhouse gas emissions were up by 1.4% from 2006 to 2007 and that the increase was largely made up of carbon dioxide emissions. The agency attributes the increase to "unfavorable weather conditions, which increased demand for
heating and cooling in buildings; and a drop in hydropower availability that led to greater reliance
on fossil energy sources (coal and natural gas) for electricity generation, increasing the carbon intensity of the power supply." The full report can be found here.

From MarketWatch:

USA Biomass, the nation's leading association of biopower companies, has been awarded a $100,000 grant from the Energy Foundation to promote the importance of renewable, biomass energy generation in meeting the nation's growing energy needs, while reducing our "carbon footprint' and promoting a healthy environment.

The Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that biomass-based power currently provides nearly 45 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, or about 1.2% of the nation's electric sales. DOE projects that overtime, biomass could supply as much as 14% of the nation's power needs. Biomass in all forms, including for heat and industry, power generation, and motor fuels, supplied 3.5% of America's total energy supply in 2007.

According to recent studies, the greenhouse gas reductions from operating biomass plants are significant. For every megawatt hour of biomass power, approximately 1.6 tons of CO2 are avoided, resulting in a projected reduction of almost 30 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually.

USA Biomass is the only national organization devoted solely to the growth and long-term viability of biomass-powered electric generation -- a growing industry that is strengthening America's rural economy, promoting energy independence and reducing carbon emissions. It has 41 member companies operating 80 power plants in 20 different states. These power plants use a broad range of biomass fuels -- from wood chips in Maine, bagasse in Florida and rice hulls in Louisiana, to forest waste in Arizona and orchard prunings in California. Their website is www.usabiomass.org.