Energy secretary predicts higher demand for oil

WASHINGTON – Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a champion of renewable energy and biofuels, has no delusions about the future of oil. Global demand for it will increase over the next two decades even with more efficiency and alternative fuels, he says, and prices will again go higher.

Chu, during an hourlong meeting with reporters Thursday, discussed the futility of predicting oil prices in the short run, the need for a national electricity transmission system, and the urgency of getting the billions of economic stimulus dollars to the nation.

For the second day in a row he indicated that the activities of the OPEC oil cartel are not one of his — or his department's — priorities.

When asked if the Obama administration would oppose expected production cuts by OPEC at a meeting next month, Chu said he was for oil price stability but couldn't say what the administration position was. He said he would look into it "to figure out what the U.S. position should be and what the president's position is."

"I'm not the administration, quite frankly," he said.

Asked if he thought oil prices, which have plummeted, might rebound again, Chu joked: "If anyone thinks they can predict oil prices, they will be very wealthy."

But in the long run, over the next two decades, he said, he's certain the price of crude will be significantly higher than today. Crude oil has dropped from a high last summer of $145 a barrel to a recent low of about $34.

"After we get out of the deep recession the world is in now I see higher demand" for oil, said Chu, although he hoped the push to alternative fuels and greater efficiency "can help the U.S. greatly decrease that demand."

He predicted oil will become more expensive to produce because of the decline in conventional sources and, he said, "that drives the price up."

A Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Chu clearly seemed more comfortable discussing the role his department plays in promoting science, the expected growth of wind and solar energy, and energy efficiency, than responding to questions about global oil politics and OPEC.

He said he viewed the Energy Department's primary role as one of influencing domestic energy issues and as a catalyst for energy-related science — and dealing with economic recovery.

Chu said he had directed "a sweeping reorganization" of the department's disbursal of direct loans, loan guarantees and other funding for energy development to more rapidly push out the tens of billions of dollars made available to the department under the stimulus package.

The department will process $32.7 billion in energy-related grants and has the authority to provide government backing for $130 billion in private loans, said Chu, appearing at Platt's Energy Podium, an event sponsored by the McGraw-Hill Cos. energy information company.

Chu promised — as he did in a speech to state utility regulators on Wednesday — to get the first loan approvals out by late April or early May.

On another matter, Chu said that there has been a "sea-change" in the way the country must look at electricity transmission.

Chu decline to say whether Congress should give the federal government more power to direct where transmission lines ought to be built, but he said electric transmission and distribution has become "a national issue."

"We desperately need a national transmission overlay" to be able to tap a wide range of power-generating sources including wind and solar energy, said Chu, although acknowledging there has to be "a balance" of local, state and national interests.

Orbiting NASA observatory to map, monitor CO2

WASHINGTON (AFP) – NASA readied the launch early Tuesday of a satellite that will produce the first complete map of the Earth's human and natural sources of carbon dioxide, CO2, the gas most closely linked to climate change.

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory, or OCO, was scheduled to be launched at 0951 GMT (1:51 am) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on board the Taurus XL rocket built by Orbital Science Corp., NASA said in a statement posted Monday on its website.

It would be the first time NASA has used a Taurus rocket.

NASA said the observatory would map the geographic distribution of CO2 sources and study their changes over time.

The measurements will be integrated with those from ground observation stations and other satellites to get a fuller picture of the processes that regulate CO2 and its role in Earth's climate and carbon cycles, according to the space agency.

The data gathered by the OCO satellite will help scientists project increases in CO2 with greater precision, thereby enabling them to more accurately forecast changes in climate.

Policymakers and the private sector could use the data to make better decisions aimed at improving the quality of life on Earth, NASA said.

"It's critical that we understand the processes controlling carbon dioxide in our atmosphere today so we can predict how fast it will build up in the future and how quickly we'll have to adapt to climate change caused by carbon dioxide buildup," said David Crisp, the OCO's principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Climate change risk underestimated: study

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The risk posed to mankind and the environment by even small changes in average global temperatures is much higher than believed even a few years ago, a study said Monday.

Published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study updated a 2001 assessment by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change that looked at temperature changes and the risks they pose.

"Today, we have to assume that the risks of negative impacts of climate change on humans and nature are larger than just a few years ago," said Hans-Martin Fussel, one of the authors of the report.

The new study found that even small changes of global mean temperatures could produce the kinds of conditions singled out as "reasons for concern" in the 2001 assessment.

Those included risks to threatened systems such as coral reefs or endangered species; and extreme weather events like cyclones, heat waves or droughts.

Other "reasons for concern" involved the way the impact of climate change is distributed, the aggregate damage caused and the risk of "large scale discontinuities" such as the deglaciation of the Greenland ice sheets.

"Compared with results reported in the (2001 assessment), smaller increases in GMT (global mean temperatures) are now estimated to lead to significant or substantial consequences in the framework of the five 'reasons for concern,'" the study said.

The report said its conclusions were based in part on observations of impacts already occurring because of global warming and better understanding of the risks associated with rising mean temperatures.

They also were based on "growing evidence that even modest increases in GMT (global mean temperature) above levels circa 1990 could commit the climate system to the risk of very large impacts on multiple century time scales," the study said.

Three of the authors of the latest report contributed to the 2001 assessment's chapter on "reasons for concern."

"If the associated risks are larger, the necessity is also larger to reduce the greenhouse gases emissions and to support affected regions to cope with the unavoidable consequences of climate change," Fussel said in a statement.

It was the third report published in recent weeks carrying grim news about climate change.

On February 15, a report by Chris Field, of the Carnegie Institution and a former member of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, warned that greenhouse gases have accumulated more rapidly in the atmosphere between 2000 and 2007 than anticipated.

Three weeks before that, a study by Susan Solomon, the senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said changes in surface temperature, rainfall and sea level are "largely irreversible for more than 1,000 years after CO2 emissions are completely stopped."

Scientists map CO2 emissions with Google Earth

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A team of US scientists led by Purdue University unveiled an interactive Google Earth map on Thursday showing carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels across the United States.

The high-resolution map, available at purdue.edu/eas/carbon/vulcan/GEarth, shows carbon dioxide emissions in metric tons in residential and commercial areas by state, county or per capita.

Called "Vulcan" after the Roman god of fire, the project, which took three years to complete, quantifies carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels such as coal and gasoline.

It breaks down emissions by the sectors responsible including aircraft, commercial, electricity production, industrial, residential and transport.

"This will bring emissions information into everyone's living room as a recognizable, accessible online experience," said Kevin Gurney, the project leader and an assistant professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Purdue.

"We hope to eventually turn it into an interactive space where the public will feed information into the system to create an even finer picture of emissions down to the street and individual building level," he added.

The United States accounts for some 25 percent of global emissions of carbon dioxide, which scientists have identified as the most important human-produced gas contributing to global climate change.

Simon Ilyushchenko, an engineer at Internet search giant Google who worked on the project, said "integrating the data with Google Earth was a way to advance public understanding of fossil fuel energy usage.

"Dynamic maps of the data, broken down by the different sources of emissions, easily show where people burn more gasoline from driving or where they use more fuel for heating and cooling homes and businesses," he said.

Vulcan integrates carbon dioxide emissions data from the US Environmental Protection Agency and US Department of Energy. The current data is from 2002, but the scientists said they plan to incorporate more recent data.

Besides Purdue, the project also involved researchers from Colorado State University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

It was funded by NASA, the US Department of Energy, the Purdue Showalter Trust and Indianapolis-based Knauf Insulation.

National Guard goes green to conserve energy, cost

SANTA FE, N.M. – The rapid whop, whop, whop of a wind turbine outside the New Mexico National Guard headquarters hints at a new mission for the homefront military: Going green.

Efforts nationally since 2001 to conserve energy and fuel also include a solar array that provides some power for the New Jersey Army National Guard's training center in Wrightstown, and the Ohio Air National Guard's 180th Fighter Wing opening of an alternative energy site in Toledo last September.

"Energy's become one of our top priorities here in the National Guard," said Thomas Gurule, a retired Guard lieutenant colonel who is now its energy manager.

Every building under the military construction program must meet the U.S. Green Building Council's silver rating, said Elvin L. Shields, chief of the design-criteria branch for the Army National Guard's installations division in Washington, D.C.

Two percent of a building's cost will be spent to make sure it meets standards, Shields said. That pays for upgrades on a building's systems — more energy-efficient systems, better windows and doors, and more insulation, he said.

"Now we're saying if we're going to do this, this is what we're going to need, and we're going to pay for it," he said. "Instead of going with lowest cost possible, we're going with the best with our economic situation."

The initiative — sustainable design and development — began in 2001. The Department of Defense also follows the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the Energy Efficiency and Security Act of 2007.

One of the first sites greeting visitors to the New Mexico Guard's compound near Santa Fe sees is a slender, 43-foot tall white wind turbine near headquarters. It generates 300 to 400 kilowatts a month, which the state's largest utility, Public Service Company of New Mexico, said is enough for about half the needs of an average home.

The electricity goes into the energy grid and the Guard receives credit on its electric bill. The turbine needs winds of at least 14 mph and can operate in winds up to 200 mph. In its first month, December to January, it operated at about 25 percent efficiency, but Gurule expects that to increase with the spring winds.

Solar tubes — like small round skylights — supply half the lighting needs at one Guard building and a quarter of those needs at two others.

Shields said there's more to a green building than just design.

"You can design the finest facility, but once you turn it over to the users, you have to educate the users. ... You don't have to stand there with the water running while you're brushing your teeth — that's the training," he said.

The New Mexico Guard pushes that with an energy reduction guide that recommends turning off computers, printers, copiers, televisions and other electronics at night to making sure a vehicle's air filter is clean.

At times, Gurule said, "it's really one of those things where you have to go behind folks and turn off lights."

Conservation doesn't end with the buildings. The 15-vehicle commercial fleet uses biofuels and ethanol and the general drives a hybrid electric-gas vehicle.

"It's not so much saving money on the flex fuels. They're more environmentally friendly to consume," said Gurule.

It's saved money as well. The electric bill dropped from $53,988 for October 2007 to $41,944 for October 2008. Total utility costs, including for natural gas, water and refuse, dropped from $96,457 in October 2007 to $70,126 in October 2008.

About 20 percent of states — among them Colorado, Oregon and Washington — had green building standards that Guard units had to follow even before the military began funding such initiatives, Shields said.

The future will be one of innovative projects, he said.

"You're going to see wind power, you're going to see photovoltaics, you're going to see solar power, ground source heat pumps, things like that on all of our buildings," he said.

Clinton, Indonesia need to act on climate: environmentalists

JAKARTA (AFP) – Top greenhouse gas emitters the United States and Indonesia should use US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to the country to take action against climate change, environmentalists said Thursday.

Around a dozen members of activist group Greenpeace rallied outside the presidential palace during a meeting between Clinton and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to call for greater assistance for developing countries in reducing emissions.

"We call on the US leadership to handle the issue of climate change seriously and we ask developed countries like the US to provide funds to countries like Indonesia to save their forests and support their efforts to reduce emissions," Greenpeace forest campaigner Bustar Maitar said.

"With the right leadership, we can bring global greenhouse gas emissions under control, set them on a downward trajectory, and avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change," Greenpeace Southeast Asia director Von Hernandez said in a letter.

"As the world's second and third largest greenhouse gas emitters, the United States and Indonesia have an historic opportunity to show decisive leadership, and ensure the strong climate protection needed to foster real and sustainable economic security," he said.

Indonesia, where forest-clearing is the main cause of emissions, has been a key nation in pushing for the inclusion of credits for forest conservation into any global carbon-trading regime.

Speaking with Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda Wednesday, Clinton said she "applauded" Indonesian efforts to "integrate deforestation into the broader climate negotiations."

But Greenpeace said that the United States needs to develop "concrete projects" that would pay countries to halt deforestation and promote environmentally friendly development.

Obama agrees to work with Canada on clean energy

OTTAWA (Reuters) – The United States and Canada, two significant greenhouse gas emitters, agreed on Thursday to work together on new energy technologies to fight climate change, saying it was key to recovery from global recession.

The agreement was announced in Ottawa during President Barack Obama's first foreign visit during which he held talks with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and pledged to renew historically close ties between the neighbors.

Obama calmed Canadian fears about a "Buy American" clause in the $787 billion U.S. economic recovery plan agreed last week. Canadians fear it will hurt commerce between the two countries, which have the world's largest trading partnership.

"Now is a time where we have to be very careful about any signals of protectionism," Obama told a joint news conference after several hours of talks with Harper. He stressed the United States would meet its international trade obligations.

"I'm quite confident that the United States will respect those obligations and continue to be a leader on the need for globalized trade," Harper said.

The two leaders said they had agreed to cooperate on "clean energy" technology that Obama said this week would allow both countries to use fossil fuels such as oil and coal while generating less pollution.

"It will include elements like carbon capture and sequestration and the smart grid," a White House official explained earlier.

Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas blamed by scientists for warming the Earth. Carbon sequestration, which is not yet commercially viable, involves capturing the gas and storing it underground before it enters the atmosphere.

(Additional reporting by Doug Palmer in Washington and Randall Palmer in Ottawa; Editing by David Storey)

AP Interview: Reid pushing for climate change bill

WASHINGTON – Saying it's time to "take a whack" at climate change, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he plans to push for Senate action on global warming by the end of summer.

The Nevada Democrat in an interview with The Associated Press said the Senate will take up energy legislation in a couple of weeks "and then later this year, hopefully late this summer do the global warming part of it."

Climate legislation will be among the most complex and contentious issues facing Congress.

While there is widespread agreement among both Democrats and Republicans — as well as across the business community — that global warming must be addressed, there remains a sharp divide over the details of a climate package and how best to limit the cost.

Nevertheless, Reid said he is convinced many senators want to move on the issue this year, ahead of international climate negotiations in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December.

"We have to take a whack at it," Reid said in a telephone interview late Thursday. He said failure to act "would be neglectful."

Along with climate, Reid, who is up for re-election next year, has assumed a high profile on the need to promote "clean energy" such as wind, solar and biomass that do not produce carbon dioxide, the predominant greenhouse gas. These are also energy projects popular in Reid's home state, where several major solar projects are under way or planned.

Next week, Reid will participate in a "clean energy" forum being convened by the Center for American Progress. Others participating will include former President Bill Clinton, possibly former Vice President Al Gore,and senior Obama administration officials.

Reid said the energy legislation expected to be taken up in the coming weeks will be limited largely to promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency — priorities of the Obama White House.

It is expected to say nothing about offshore oil development, or address the growing debate over whether the federal government should wield greater power in locating high-voltage transmission lines — an area of conflict between Washington and the states.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is crafting a national requirement for utilities to use renewable energy to generate electricity — at least 4 percent within two years, rising to a minimum of 20 percent over the following decade.

Reid said he favors a 20 percent renewable standard for utilities, but added, "We'll get by with what we can."

Many states already have requirements for utilities to use renewable energy, but attempts in Congress to establish a national mandate have fallen short repeatedly because of regional divisions. Lawmakers from the Southeast particularly have argued that utilities in their area would be hard pressed to meet a federal standard because they lack wind or solar energy resources.

Reid said he also favors some additional tax incentives aimed at spurring energy efficiency, especially for construction of more energy efficient buildings.

"We've got to give people incentives to build better buildings and also do something about the buildings that are there right now," said Reid.

But Reid said he doesn't expect the Senate to tackle the issue of offshore oil drilling again.

While Congress last fall ended a drilling moratorium that covered 85 percent of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf, Reid said he's convinced that Obama's Interior Department will protect those areas where drilling shouldn't be allowed.

"I don't think we need to do anything legislatively," he said.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar recently scrapped a Bush administration blueprint for offshore energy development through 2015 and said he was developing a new plan, keeping in mind that some areas are not suitable for drilling and putting greater emphasis on developing wind and wave energy projects offshore.

Climate change: 'Feedback' triggers could amplify peril

PARIS (AFP) – New studies have warned of triggers in the natural environment, including a greenhouse-gas timebomb in Siberia and Canada, that could viciously amplify global warming.

Thawing subarctic tundra could unleash billions of tonnes of gases that have been safely stored in frosty soil, while oceans and forests are becoming less able to suck carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the atmosphere, according to papers presented this weekend.

Together, these phenomena mean that more heat-trapping gases will enter the atmosphere, which in turn will stoke global warming, thrusting the machinery of climate change into higher gear.

Researchers in Finland and Russia discovered that nitrous oxide is leaking into the air from so-called "peat circle" ecosystems found throughout the tundra, a vast expanse of territory in higher latitudes.

CO2 and methane account for the lion's share of the gases that have driven global temperatures inexorably higher over the last century.

Nitrous oxide, or N2O, is far less plentiful in volume, but 300 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2. It accounts for about six percent of total global warming, mainly due to a shift toward chemical-intensive agriculture.

In experiments near the Russian city of Vorkuta, Pertti Martikainen of the University of Kuopio in Finland and colleagues found that N2O leaked as a result of cryoturbation, a process that occurs when frozen soil is thawed and then refreezes.

"There is evidence that warming of the Arctic will accelerate cryoturbation, which would lead to an increased abundance of peat circles in the future," said their paper, published on Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience.

"This would increase N20 emissions from tundra, and therefore a positive feedback to climate change."

Research presented Saturday at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Chicago suggested that the frozen soil of the tundra stored far more greenhouse gas that previously thought.

"Melting permafrost is poised to be a strong foot on the accelerator pedal of atmospheric CO2," said Chris Field, a professor at Stanford and a top scientist on the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC).

"The new estimate of the total amount of carbon that's frozen in permafrost soils in on the order of 1,000 billion (one trillion) tonnes," he said.

By comparison, the amount of CO2 that has been released through the burning of fossil fuels since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution is around 350 billion tonnes.

The greenhouse gases in the tundra, which also includes methane, come from the decayed remains of vegetation that died long ago.

Meanwhile, new research on the Southern Ocean surrounded Antarctica suggest that the sea, a vital "carbon sink," is sucking up less CO2 than before.

Nicolas Metzl, a researcher at the French National Research Institute, said fierce winds -- aggravated by climate change and gaps in the ozone layer -- were churning the sea, which brought CO2 to the surface and released it into the air.

This adds to previous research that points to the sea's drooping effectiveness as a carbon sponge, he said.

"Today, human activity injects about 10 billion tonnes of CO2 per year into the atmosphere, compared to around six billion in the early 1990s," said Metzl.

"Before we had an ocean that captured some two billion tonnes -- about a third. Today we are below two billion tonnes," less than a fifth of the total, he added.

Urgent need for 'Global Green New Deal': UN

NAIROBI (AFP) – The United Nations called Monday on rich nations to forge a "Global Green New Deal" that puts the environment, climate change and poverty reduction at the heart of efforts to reboot the world economy.

Leaders from the Group of 20 nations, meeting in April, should commit at least one percent of gross domestic product over the next two years to slashing carbon emissions, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a report released at the opening of its world forum in Nairobi.

"Reviving the world economy is essential, but measures that focus solely on this objective will not achieve lasting success," the UNEP cautioned, invoking the US New Deal launched by Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s.

"Unless new policy initiatives also address other global challenges -- reducing carbon dependency, protecting ecosystems and water resources, alleviating poverty -- their impact on averting future crises will be short-lived."

The world's most developed economies must take the lead by adopting national plans to slash their use of the fossil fuels -- oil, gas and coal -- that drive global warming, the report says.

Measures could include the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies worth hundreds of billions of dollars, and the development of carbon pricing, either through taxes or cap-and-trade schemes.

The G20's rapidly emerging economies such as China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Turkey "should aim, as far as possible" for the same one percent of GDP targets, the UNEP urged.

Poorer and developing nations cannot be expected to make the same carbon-cutting commitments, but should spend at least one percent of GDP on expanded access to clean water and sanitation for the poor, it said.

Twenty percent of people in the developing world lack sufficient clean water, and about half -- some 2.6 billion -- do not have basic sanitation.

Trade and energy top Obama agenda in first Canada trip

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Trade, energy and the global economic crisis will top the agenda of U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Canada on Thursday, his first foreign trip since taking over the White House last month. Concerns about U.S. trade protectionism and plans to fight climate change will also feature during Obama's one-day visit, which includes meetings with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Canadian Parliament.