A comprehensive assessment of global fossil-fuel subsidies has found that governments are spending $500 billion annually on policies that undermine energy security and worsen the environment.

The study, titled “The Politics of Fossil-Fuel Subsidies” by David Victor, a professor of political science with UC San Diego’s School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS), was one of five released April 22 by the Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI) of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). GSI’s goal is to reform, reduce and ultimately eliminate fossil-fuel subsidies, which are highest in Iran, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, India and Venezuela.

The reform effort received a boost September 2009 when President Obama and other world leaders met in Pittsburgh, Pa., for the Group of 20 Summit. They agreed in a non-binding resolution to phase out fossil-fuel subsidies, but the measure didn’t attempt to resolve difficult political issues such as how governments would actually achieve a phaseout.

Victor’s study addresses the political challenges. The U.S. was one of the governments pressing for subsidy reform at the G20 Summit in September 2009. Such policy reforms are a relatively easy way to improve energy security for all nations and reduce growth in emissions of gases that cause global warming. Continue Reading →

The San Joaquin Valley (SJV) in California currently experiences some of the highest surface ozone (O3) concentrations in the United States even though it has a population density that is an order of magnitude lower than many urban areas with similar ozone problems.

Previously unrecognized agricultural emissions may explain why O3 concentrations in the SJV have not responded to traditional emissions control programs. In the present study, the ozone formation potentials (OFP) of livestock feed emissions were measured on representative field samples using a transportable smog chamber. Seven feeds were considered: cereal silage (wheat grain and oat grain), alfalfa silage, corn silage, high moisture ground corn (HMGC), almond shells, almond hulls, and total mixed ration (TMR = 55% corn silage, 16% corn grain, 8% almond hulls, 7% hay, 7% bran + seeds, and 5% protein + vitamins + minerals). The measured short-term OFP for each gram of reactive organic gas (ROG) emissions from all livestock feed was 0.17−0.41 g-O3 per g-ROG. For reference, OFP of exhaust from light duty gasoline powered cars under the same conditions is 0.69 ± 0.15 g-O3 per g-ROG. Model calculations were able to reproduce the ozone formation from animal feeds indicating that the measured ROG compounds account for the observed ozone formation (i.e., ozone closure was achieved).

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The most commonly known F-gases are the early, so-called first generation F-gases: the CFCs that destroyed the ozone layer and were banned by the Montreal Protocol.To save the ozone layer accelerated the use of second generation chemical cousins: HCFCs (now also being banned under the Montreal Protocol).Our focus today is on the third generation of F-gases: HFCs.

F-gases are thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide (CO2). Their major applications are in refrigeration and air-conditioning (where they are used as refrigerants, which accounts for 80% of their use2), foams, aerosols, fire extinguishers and solvents. It is these same heat-trapping properties that make most F-gases such good refrigerants which also make them extremely powerful greenhouse gases.

powerful greenhouse gases developed by the chemical industry to solve the ozone crisis. They are already the refrigerants of choice in most industrialised countries. But if HFCs are used as substitutes for all the ozone-destroying chemicals they were designed to replace – and end up in the atmosphere – they will have a devastating impact on the climate.These chemicals could be one of the most dangerous and yet most avoidable chapters in our environmental history. The use of F-gases around the world is expanding rapidly. This is despite the fact that HFCs are supposed to be regulated under the international climate framework,the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)– in fact, since the implementation of the UNFCCC’s Kyoto Protocol, HFC emissions have risen by 15% a year.

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Now energy is produced from the following sources

• Coal -(Disadvantages: Pollution/Strip Mining)
• Natural Gas – (Disadvantages:Cost and Lack of Infrastructure)
• Hydro – (Disadvantages:Limited Availability/Environmental Concerns)
• Wind – (Disadvantages:Limited Site and Resource Availability)
• Solar Photovoltaic – (Disadvantages:Higher Cost)
• Nuclear – (Disadvantages:Waste disposal) Continue Reading →