Federal Government To Cut GHG Emissions

Posted on | February 7, 2010 | Comments Off

President Obama announced on January 29 that the federal government—the largest energy consumer in the U.S. economy—will achieve a 28% reduction in its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2020. Reducing and reporting GHG emissions, as called for in Executive Order 13514 on Federal Sustainability, will ensure that the government leads by example in building the clean energy economy. The president issued the Executive Order on October 5, 2009, requiring each federal agency to submit by January 4 a 2020 target for reducing its GHG emissions from its estimated 2008 baseline. The new target is the aggregate of the targets set by 35 federal departments and agencies.

The federal departments and agencies will establish their baseline GHG emissions by measuring their current energy and fuel use. They will achieve their GHG reductions by becoming more energy efficient and shifting to clean energy sources like solar, wind, and geothermal energy. As a next step, the Office of Management and Budget will validate and score each agency’s sustainability plan, assuring a long-term return on investment to the U.S. taxpayer. To ensure accountability, progress will be measured and reported to the public annually.

Achieving the GHG reduction target will reduce federal energy use by 646 trillion Btu, equivalent to 205 million barrels of oil, while avoiding $8-11 billion in energy costs by 2020. Agencies are already taking actions that will contribute towards achieving their targets, such as installing solar arrays, tapping landfills for renewable energy, putting energy management systems in federal buildings, and replacing older vehicles with more fuel-efficient hybrid models.

Earthquakes In The Northeast United States?

Posted on | February 3, 2010 | Comments Off

USGS
Question: Why should people in the eastern US be concerned about earthquakes?

Answer: a) Severe earthquakes have occurred in the East:

In November of 1755, an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 6.0 and a maximum intensity of VIII occurred 200 miles off the coast of Cape Ann, Massachusetts. Boston was heavily damaged. The strongest earthquakes recorded in the continental US were not in the West; they were centered in eastern Missouri near the border with Kentucky and Tennessee. In the winter of 1811-1812, a series of three earthquakes of magnitudes 8.4 to 8.7 and maximum intensities of XI occurred near New Madrid, Missouri. These shocks were so strong that observers reported that the land distorted into visible rolling waves. They changed the course of the Mississippi River; they made church bells ring in Boston and Washington, D.C. Because the surrounding area was mostly undeveloped at the time, few deaths were reported and these events stirred relatively little attention then. In August of 1886, a strong earthquake occurred in Charleston, South Carolina. Magnitude is estimated at 6.6 and maximum intensity was X. Most of the city of Charleston was damaged or destroyed. Earthquakes in the East are not confined to these areas; they have been recorded in every State east of the Mississippi. Damaging earthquakes have occurred historically in nearly every eastern State.

b) Earthquakes of the same magnitude affect larger areas in the East than in the West:

The size of the geographic area affected by ground shaking depends on the magnitude of the earthquake and the rate at which the amplitudes of body and surface seismic waves decrease as distance from the causative fault increases. Comparison of the areas affected by the same Modified Mercalli intensity of ground shaking in the 1906 San Francisco, California, the 1971 San Fernando, California, the 1811-12 New Madrid, Missouri, and the 1886 Charleston, South Carolina, earthquakes shows that a given intensity of ground shaking extends over a much larger area in the Eastern United States. Ground shaking affects a larger area because amplitudes of seismic waves decrease more slowly in the east than in the west as distance from the causative fault increases.

c) Eastern state’s building codes:

Modern building codes in Eastern states are not as strict as those in California and much of the West: Not only that, but older buildings, which predate modern building codes completely, are more prevalent in the East than in the West.

d) Causes of earthquakes in the East are not well-understood:

Hundreds of millions of years ago, the East coast was this continent’s active plate tectonic boundary, as the West coast is today. If the East is not now in an active plate margin, why do we have earthquakes here and why do we have them in the center of the continent? One possible explanation is that ancient faults or rifts are stressed. If this is true, what is the cause of the stress? In many areas of the East where earthquakes have occurred historically, specific faults causing the quakes have not been mapped or even identified. Another problem we encounter when evaluating earthquake risk is that we only have earthquake records for the last couple of hundred years. Establishing geologic patterns over human time scales is difficult at best.

See also:
Lamont-Doherty Cooperative Seismic Network
Westin Observatory at Boston College
MCEER – New York
Virginia Tech Seismological Observatory
Earthquakes & Maryland – Maryland Geological Survey

What Is Cap-and-trade?

Posted on | February 3, 2010 | Comments Off

About Emissions Trading / Cap And Trade

U.S. Energy Information Administration: What Is a Cap-and-Trade Program?

A cap-and-trade program is an environmental policy tool designed to reduce emissions of a pollutant by placing a limit (or cap) on the total amount of emissions that can be released by sources covered by the program during a fixed time period.

The overall cap on emissions is implemented through a system of allowances. Each allowance represents the right to emit a specific amount of emissions, and each emissions source covered by the program must submit enough allowances to cover its actual emissions. These allowances, sometimes called permits, are initially allocated to affected sources or auctioned off by the agency implementing the program.

How a Cap-and-Trade Program Works

Cap And Trade

Allowances can be traded, which creates an incentive for those who can reduce emissions most cheaply to sell their allowances to those who face higher emission reduction costs. The incentive to trade allowances persists as long as one or more sources can reduce emissions by an additional unit at a lower cost than some other source faces to achieve its last unit of emissions reduction. Therefore, allowances will be traded until the marginal cost of emission reduction is equal across all covered sources. At this point, the pollution level required by the cap is achieved — theoretically at the lowest possible cost to society — regardless of how the allowances were initially allocated.
How Does a Cap-and-Trade Program Work?

Not all cap-and-trade programs are identical. Below is a list of four characteristics shared by all cap-and-trade programs, with some possible variations shown. These variations could affect how a particular program works.

1. A limit or cap on emissions of a pollutant is established.

Variations:

* Who is required to limit their emissions. Is it all sources of emissions or just some sources of emissions?
* What area the cap covers. Is it a region or State, the whole United States, or a group of nations?
* When emission limits take effect. Will the cap be in place in the near term or at a later date?
* Whether the cap will become tighter, meaning the total allowable level of emissions drops over time. If so, how quickly will this decrease happen?
* When the cap is in place. Will it be in effect for a season — such as just for the summer months — or is it applied for the whole year?

2. An allowance must be surrendered for every unit (often a ton) of emissions generated.

Variations:

* Who must submit allowances. While this depends on the specific cap-and-trade program, some examples include producers of the polluting substance, distributors of a product whose production or consumption generates emissions, States, or even nations.
* How allowances are initially distributed. Allowances could be auctioned, distributed for free based on current or historical emissions, or given out using some combination of an auction and a free distribution. In an auction, allowances are sold to the highest bidders. Uses of auction revenue depend on the specific cap-and-trade program, and could include the distribution of a portion of the revenue to consumers.
* Whether the program allows for the purchase of offsets in lieu of allowances. Offsets are certified reductions in emissions from sources that are not required by the cap-and-trade program to restrict their emissions.

3. Allowances can be traded.

Here’s an example of how the trade could work. Emitter ABC found it really easy and cheap to reduce its emissions below the level covered by its allowances, while Emitter XYZ had a tougher time. ABC was able to make larger reductions in its emissions and offered to sell its extra allowances to XYZ. This transaction was a good deal for XYZ because the cost of allowances it bought was lower than the cost of equipment needed to reduce its own emissions to a level that matched the number of allowances it held before buying more allowances from ABC.

Variations:

* How much an allowance costs. In general, the allowance price depends on the options available to reduce emissions and the demand for allowances. If there are relatively low-cost options to reduce emissions, the price of allowances would be lower.
* Whether emitters are allowed to save — or “bank” — allowances, either for their own future use or to sell to someone else later. Some proposals might also allow the current use of a future period’s allowances.

4. Actual emissions are measured and penalties are assessed if targets are missed.

Variation:

* Depending on the program, these tasks could be the responsibility of one or more governmental agencies.

How Do Cap-and-Trade Programs Affect Our Use of Energy?

The burning of fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and natural gas, is the main source of carbon dioxide — the most important greenhouse gas produced by human activity — and a major source of other emissions. A cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions would increase the cost of using fossil fuels, making them less competitive with non-fossil energy resources and increasing the overall cost of energy to consumers. The cost of using coal, which has the highest carbon dioxide content and the lowest price per unit of energy among the fossil fuels, would be most affected by a cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gases.
Why Might a Cap-and-Trade Program Be Considered?

A cap-and-trade program allows emitters to have flexibility in their approach to reducing emissions. An alternative environmental policy might require each regulated source to use a specific emission control technology. With a cap-and-trade program, the overall cap on emissions is fixed, but the compliance approach by any individual source need not be specified. This flexibility allows parties to choose the least costly option and should reduce the cost of reaching the overall emissions cap.

The implementation of the U.S. cap-and-trade program for sulfur dioxide beginning in 1995 is an example of the benefits of flexibility in reducing environmental compliance costs in the energy sector. Allowances for sulfur dioxide emissions were actively traded as coal-fired electricity generating units covered by the program chose a variety of compliance strategies. These strategies included installing scrubbers, switching to lower sulfur coal, and buying allowances.
Where Has Cap-and-Trade Been Used?

Cap-and-trade programs have been used to limit several different types of emissions in State, U.S., and international contexts.

* As noted above, a cap-and-trade program limiting sulfur dioxide emissions has been operating in the United States since 1995.
* The European Union established its Emissions Trading System for greenhouse gas emissions in 2005.
* In 2009, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative established an interstate cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions covering electric power plants in 10 northeastern States. Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about the Federal Government establishing a nationwide cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions.

Make Your Money Grow — More Seeds Means Fewer Weeds

Posted on | January 29, 2010 | 1 Comment

U.S. Department Of Agriculture
By Ann Perry

Farmers cultivating organic produce often use winter cover crops to add soil organic matter, improve nutrient cycling and suppress weeds. Now these producers can optimize cover crop use by refining seeding strategies, thanks to work by an Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist.

In moderate climates, suppressing weeds in winter cover crops is important because weeds that grow throughout the year produce seed that can increase weeding costs in subsequent vegetable crops. ARS horticulturist Eric Brennan, at the U.S. Agricultural Research Station in Salinas, Calif., conducted studies comparing winter cover crop planting protocols in organic systems along California’s central coast.

Brennan looked at how seeding rates and planting patterns affected cover crop performance. He planted rye using three seeding rates: 80 pounds per acre, 160 pounds per acre and 240 pounds per acre. The seeds were either planted in a grid pattern that required driving a grain drill across fields twice, or in traditional rows. All seeding was carried out in October.

Brennan found that planting rye at higher seeding rates consistently improved early-to midseason rye biomass production and weed suppression. But he saw no consistent crop improvement from grid planting.

Brennan also studied seeding rates and planting patterns using a cover crop of legumes and oats. The seeds were planted at densities of 100, 200, and 300 pounds per acre and planted both in grids and traditional rows.

Results were similar to the rye cover crop results. As seeding rates increased, weed biomass production decreased from around 267 pounds per acre to less than 89 pounds per acre. In addition, planting patterns had no effect on cover crop yield or weed suppression.

Brennan’s findings suggest that increased seeding rates could provide organic producers with a cost-effective weed control strategy. However, planting in a grid pattern would probably not consistently boost the benefits of cover crops—and since it would require two passes through the field, grid planting would likely double dust production, fuel use, planting time and labor.

The research was published in the Agronomy Journal.

ARS is the principal intramural scientific research agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.