Article on Arctic Ice Melt

i found this article on CNN about summer ice melt in the Arctic. From this article it does not seem very promising but i wnt to find the actual report and read that at some point.

Best electric cars

I found this website very interesting. It ranks the best elecrtic cars to buy today.

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/02/07/the-top-ten-electric-vehicles-you-can-buy-today-for-the-most-pa

Cost-Benefit Analysis

Chris and I worked on a Cost-Benefit Analysis for using motion sensors in the hallways of the dorms. This was applied to one hall in the Babcock dorm.

Info:

$ 100 – Motion sensor

36-W twin light bulb

$.09 per kWh, average cost for power in NC in May 2006

-Average 6 hours a day of lights off (best estimate based on observation of hall usage assuming the lights will be mostly off during the hours of 3AM-8AM) / leave the lights on during peak times 10AM-10PM, put it on timer the rest of the day, go to timer from 10PM-10AM

Initial Calculations:

72 (amount of watts per hour for light bulb due to two tubes in each) x hours = number kWh per light

24 hours a day = 1.73 kWh

18 hours a day = 1.30 kWh

Formula:

Number of lights in hallway x (1.73 or 1.30) = per hour for the hallway

Hallway x 24 or 18 x 7 days a week x 52 weeks = usage per year

(Usage per year x .09) + 100 = cost

Cost per 24 – cost per 18 = savings

Calculations:

9 bulbs x 1.73 kWh = 15.57 kWh per 24 hours for the hallway

15.57 kWh x 7 days a week x 52 weeks a year = 5667.5 kWh per year

5667.5 kWh per year x .09 per hour = $510 for one year without motion sensors

9 bulbs x 1.30 kWh = 11.7 kWh per 18 hours

11.7 x 7 x 52 = 4258.8 kWh per year

4258 kWh per year x .09 per hour = $383 for one year with motion sensors

$510 - $383 = $127 savings per year for one hall in Babcock residence hall

Note:

A) The $127 savings does not include the $100 for motions sensor and installation, but that would be a one time cost while the $127 would be saved every year.

B) One thing we did not factor in was the effect of turning the lights on and off. It would have some impact, but not enough to overcome the 127 dollars saved.

In our opinion it would be very beneficial to have motion sensors in the hall way.

The economics of global warming: Stern

Hey guys,

For Thursday we'll be talking about the economics of global warming. Go ahead and look for sources. We'll be centering the discussion on the executive summary of the Stern Review which was commissioned by the British government. There is a lot of other information on the page you might want to look at. Also, don't hesitate to go to some places that might have a different opinion about things, or even places that might have a known bias, just to see what the landscape is like. If you find other things, go ahead and post them to the blog.

Energy Efficient Cars

This website had some really good information on the most energy efficent vehicles of 2007 and a link to other articles and info on environmentally friendly vehicles!!

WFU and Solar Cells

Found this article on the Student Page, Wake Forest research has improved the efficiency of solar cells with nanotechnology.

The Tesla now has competition!

Hi Folks,

Check out this new car from Zap. This company has a line of small electic cars and truck that use lead acid batteries. But this new model is truly state-of-the-art! To see their other cars (some of which sell for under $10k), check out www.zapworld.com.

JimC

The Cost of Reducing Carbon Emissions: Lessons from Portland, Oregon

This is an interesting article discussing steps that Portland, Oregon took that has reduced carbon emissions since 1993. These steps include increasing public transit and building 750 miles of bicycle paths.

GM's plan to reduce CO2 emissions

HEY! this is an interesting article about how GM plans to reduce CO2 emissions by 40% by 2010. (pretty ambitious)

GM's plan

The first article I found is one in Business Weekly that features a lot of discussion of the economic side of alternative energy. It discusses details about the viability of various forms of energy, as well as what the government is currently doing to encourage use of other forms of energy.

Another article I found was actually a cover story in Sports Illustrated. It discusses the impact of climate change on the sporting landscape. This is an interesting read because it gives a different look at the impact that drastic climate change can have on all aspects of life.

Debate over Ethanol

I found this article that debates the potential risk of smog from ethanol. It was written yesterday, and is an interesting article because it is debate-style and tries to present two sides of the issue as opposed to some of the older articles we have read that are much more one-sided.

Cost of a Species

This article (click the first result) looks at how the Willingness to Pay per Household is calculated for a species. It also gives some of the dollar amounts for a species, it seems that what people are willing to pay for a species is more than what was thought.

Powerpoint about energy consumption

Here's a link to a page which contains a great powerpoint. The link for the powerpoint is at the top of the box on the upper right of the page. This powerpoint is from Nate Lewis, a chemistry professor at the California Institute of Technology. It talks about calculated values for mean energy consumption and breaks down the energy consumption into the specific sources of energy. Also, the powerpoint gives info on a variety of carbon-free power sources.
Powerpoint

Kyoto's Flexibity Mechanisms

If you want to find out about how emissions trading works in the Kyoto Treaty then this is a great great site. It talks about all three ways that Kyoto creates flexibility and some of the pros and cons of being able to trade emissions.

go here

www.teslamotors.com

How much and who pays?

Hey guys,

Here are several articles that we'll be discussing for class. The first is by philosopher Peter Singer and talks about who should pay for mitigating global warming. The next article is by Jeffrey Sachs, head of Columbia University's Earth Institute and talks about humans and biodiversity in Absent Minded Killers.

In addition to these largely moral arguments, there is a lot of information about the economic cost of mitigating global climate change. Joseph Stiglitz is a Nobel Prize winning economist and had this article on the Cool Calculus of Global Warming. Make sure to read this article on The Changing Climate of Climate Change too.

We'll be sending you the exact assignment by email.

Enjoy!

Nuclear power?

Hey guys, an article just published in Nature talks about the future of nuclear power:

Nuclear power: Chernobyl and the future: when the price is right

Once touted as too cheap to meter, nuclear power has become too costly to build. But the economics may be shifting, finds Jim Giles.

There are a couple of other articles on nuclear power in there as well.

It's the end of the world as we know it.....

Hey guys, to compliment the natural disaster reading for this week we thought you might spend a few minutes poking around the World Bank's Natural Disaster Hazard and Risk Management Site.

Also, for those of you wanting to know about the odds that we are going to get smacked by an asteroid in the near future, there is an article in Science that you might want to read. And, did you know that there is actually a chance that some of the particle physics experiments we do could cause the Earth to instantly vanish? Seriously. To learn more about that risk, check out this article in Nature on "strangelets."

(If you aren't at WFU you'll have to go through the library's web site to the Science and Nature issues that are linked.)

Carbon Markets

Hey guys, some of you were wondering about carbon markets and whether they existed, how they worked, etc. Here is a site--Point Carbon--that is "the leading provider of independent analysis, forecasting, market intelligence and news for the power, gas and carbon emissions markets." As you can see, it is quite a developed enterprise. You can buy your own ton of carbon emissions on the EUA market for $34.69.

Buzz about Global Warming

Hey guys, I don't know if you've noticed, but there has been a lot of attention focused on global warming over the last few weeks, including ads from the Ad Council (The organization that helped bring you "This is your brain, this is your brain on drugs" and "Friends don't let friends drive drunk") and Environmental Defense. (Editorial comment: the train one is better than the tic-toc one). There were also articles on ABC, in Forbes, Time, Newsweek, and even our own Winston-Salem Journal. About as timely a discussion as we could have!

Information sources

Hey guys, I've been reading some drafts of papers and one potential problem that I see is that people are relying on web-based resources very heavily, but those web-based sources are often fairly fringe. A cool website name does not necessarily mean that it has good information. For this paper, as we posted earlier on the blog under "climate resources", it is important to look at some primary sources of information on climate impacts, and ones that reflect some degree of consensus. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the world's center for information on climate change. If I were writing this paper, I would definitely think about citing some information from that. There is a IPCC Summary for Policy Makers that might be a particularly good resource. And it is written for busy, time-starved political decision makers.

Hi Folks, Here's another approach to solving the climate problem. The link is to an overview. The site has links to the actual articles in scientific journals. Enjoy! JC

http://www.princeton.edu/~cmi/resources/stabwedge.htm

Two readings for Tuesday: ozone, broader impacts of warming, and some resources

Hey guys, we talked about the Montreal Protocol and ozone depletion and we'd like you to read this article on the history of the debate about ozone depletion for next Tuesday. Also there is a FAQ about ozone depletion that has some good information about where and when ozone is depleted, and what the effects of ozone depletion are.

Also, we had some trouble getting the discussion of global warming beyond US GDP today. Read this article/site that goes into other effects of climate change. For discussion, read the frames entitled "How much will it warm up", "Dangerous Impacts", "Regional Impacts", and "Conclusion." It might help us frame a broader view so we can narrow down to write our papers. The other sections are good review and expansion on the material we had in class, and talk a lot about risk analysis in the context of global warming, so you might find those sections interesting as well. The main section of the site has information on global warming that you might find useful.

If you have questions about these things, or comments, email one of us, and/or post your comment to the blog. Take care, M.

Hi Folks,

The "command-and-control" vs. market-based regulation debate rages on! The Bush admistration is in favor of cap-and-trade methods, but old regulations require expensive emissions control equipment. The courts have sometimes ruled in favor of Bush's plans, and recently against them. Here's a Wall Street Journal article that outlines the debate.

JC
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB114308122241005963.html

Climate Change Resources

Hey guys, I thought I'd put together a few resources for climate change. If you want a single place to go to see an archive of climate information, check climatewire.org, particularly the section on archived articles. The EPA website on global warming has some decent information as well. For our purposes, check the climate section. If you want to get into less filtered data, check NOAA's Geophysical Fluids Dynamics Laboratory's climate site.

One of the best places to get information on climate models, and climate in general is the Hadley Centre. If you want to know more about how climate is predicted, or to even run your own climate models and scenarios, start here. This page gives an excellent overview of model predictions. If you want to get into the nitty-gritty of the model, check some of the carbon cycle models.

The central clearing house for world science on climate change is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC Data Distribution Center has lots of imformation on scenarios for warming, predictions, etc. It has a lot of interactive data viewers for past climate and predicted climate. A great resource!

Readings for Climate Change Section

Hey guys, we'll be starting on climate change this week with a lecture on basic climatology on Tuesday and then on global climate change on Thursday. Here is a series of three articles by Elizabeth Kolbert from the New Yorker last year that provide an entry-point into global climate change. We'll get more technical articles out as we get more up to speed. I'd try and get through part one on the arctic and the study of climate change and part two on climate and ancient civilizations by Thursday or so. Part three treats differing ideas about what is to be done about climate change, and you might want to read that as well as you start to frame your upcoming papers later in the week.

After we get a little basic climatology under our belt we can hit the primary literature, which is a lot of fun!

MTBE, Ozone

Hey guys, since we got into a discussion about MTBE this last class I thought it would be good for us to have some resources on it. The USGS water use estimates say that 37% of the US population gets its drinking water from ground water, and that ground water and surface water also interact. General references on ground water from the EPA and the USGS are pretty interesting. Here is an article on MTBE contamination frequency in wells from the journal Ground Water. And, finally, the National Institute of Environmental Health and the Centers for Disease Control fact sheets on MTBE.

And, we were also talking about ozone. We'll get into the effects of ozone and ozone depletion up high (stratospheric or "good" ozone) after break, but I wanted to give you guys the fact sheet on low-level or "bad" ozone. Oxygen is super-powerful stuff, and O3 is highly reactive even by oxygen standards. We use it to kill organisms to purify our public drinking water. Here is the fact sheet on the effects of high- and low-level ozone from the EPA.

Geek Squad Makes Biodiesel Nano-Tech Style

Hey guys, check out this article about using nano-technology to make biodiesel. Keep the Geek Squad fed and give them some research money and all sorts of cool things happen.

Reference styles for upcoming paper

Hey guys, several of you have asked about how to cite sources in your upcoming paper, general style, etc. We thought it would be good to use the same styles that practicing scientists use, so we'll use the format of the journal Science, one of the two most prestigious journals in all fields of science (the other is Nature). If you have a question about style, go to this page at the Science site. Use this link to see the format for references in particular. And, as in all areas of life, a picture is worth a thousand words, so make sure to log in to Science and simply read an article to see how it looks. Also, WFU provides us with a reference manager called EndNote that makes citations dead simple. If you want a tutorial on how to use it, I'll give one after class on Thursday. Good luck!

Fuzzy on Fungible--Dilbert

Hey guys, I was just looking at the Dilbert cartoon and I'm a bit fuzzy on a different economic principle. It seems to me that if Dilbert spends less money on gas, then whoever sells him gas is getting less money from him. Sure, someone else can buy the gas he doesn't, but he's not giving as much of his money to 'terrorists', just like he says. And, if he has an alternative fuel (say biodiesel), then he can buy that and know he's giving his money to farmers, US oilseed processors, etc. That becomes very attractive when the alternative fuel costs the same as gas or diesel.

How hydrogen fuel systems could work.

Folks, here's how a hydrogen sytem could work. One needs a source of hydrogen--this site shows how electicity is used to remove hydrogene from water. Then, harvesting the energy requires a fuel-cell, which operates basically in reverse, producing an electical current. JC
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/electrol.html

Nuclear Power

Another article from a classmate on nuclear power. Enjoy!

Gas Tax Articles

Hey guys, here are the links I have so far for the gas tax papers. I'll update them as they come in.
First, one asking is ethanol the answer?. Second, an article on hydrogen fuel (use internet explorer--something pops up). And, finally, check these links for three articles--one on how high oil prices might help the economy, another on ethanol and the environment, and an oil tax article from the NY Times. Enjoy!

Gas Tax II

Hey guys, that library session was fun. I hope you are enjoying looking for those articles.

Some of you asked about the blog posts and readings. Most of the time when we post things to the blog, we're doing it because we thought you might be interested in it. When it is required reading, we'll make a point of telling you about it. But, do take advantage of them. They are things that might help you to shape your own ideas on some of these issues. It is a bit of a change in thinking--we're not giving you assignments so that you can give us the same information back, we're giving you assignments so you can form new ideas on problems and then communicate them to other people. This last part is central to being a scholar.

Now, here is yet another article by Thomas Friedman about the gas tax. He seems to have a chip on his shoulder about Dick Cheney. But, putting that aside, file his idea away as yet one more reason that one might argue for or against a gas tax. We'll get the skinny on the economics of the gas tax from Robert on Tuesday, so be kicking these ideas around in your head.

Friedman on the gas tax

Hey guys, here is an op-ed article by Thomas Friedman from today's New York Times on the gas tax. It touches on markets, incentives, etc. See what you think. And, make sure to muscle us faculty aside in the discussions if we get long-winded. You can even post comments right to the blog so that we all can read them.

FAO forest resources

Hey guys, as we start to move through the next material, make sure to take a look at data sources. Here is the link for the FAO forestry information. And, we put links for the FAO, BEA, BLS, NOAA, etc., on the side-bar so you'll have them for reference.

And more from the Washington Post

Hey guys, check out this article from the Washington Post about energy.

If you can't get the article from the link posted above, go to the library journal page and search for the Washington Post. The library actually has subscriptions to lots of newspapers and magazines (like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The New Yorker, etc.). Enjoy!
.

More on oil from the Wall Street Journal

The article

NY Times on Bush's energy plan

Hi Folks, here's a New York Times article on Bush's proposed energy policy.

Energy policy from Bush's speech

Excerpt from President Bush's State of the Union Address on energy policy (Jan. 31, 2o06):

"Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. Here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.

Read the rest of the section, and the whole speech from the transcript.

Grist for our energy discussion

Hey guys, check out this Op-Ed from the Wall Street Journal: Oil Bashing, Round Two

Google Earth Resources

Hey guys, make sure to download Google Earth and install it on your computers. We'll be using it during the class to look at different areas we'll be studying. Here is a link to a BIO 113 lab that uses Google Earth to look at deforestation in Earth's biodiversity hotspots. It has a lot of good resources for getting started with Google Earth and seeing what it can do. Check out the parts starting under "Democratization of GIS" and "Exercise 1". Enjoy!

Hi Folks, Here's a short note on models used to estimate global warming. We'll be discussing them later in the course. Jim Curran

http://info.nature.com/cgi-bin24/DM/y/hWhv0BfgYX0Ch0tje0EM

Easter Island and Basic Climate Change Resources

Hey guys, as we move forward into issues dealing with environmental change I thought it would be good for you to have access to the raw data. The NOAA Paleoclimate Program has a great site that gives overviews of all the kinds of proxies we use to infer past climates, as well as the data and reconstructions of past climate themselves, so you can look at them. A lot of the very same data that the scientists who Diamond talks about in Collapse used are housed on the site. There are also informational areas about issues like global warming, etc. I think you'll have fun learning about this stuff.

Check out this cool pollen viewer for past tree species distributions. You can see the glaciers, the old coastlines, and how the trees migrated in response to climate change.

Now, for Easter Island, PBS has a good general resource for exploring the island. And, here are the Google Earth KMZ files for Easter Island that you saw in class.

Welcome!

Hey guys, throughout the semester we'll use this blog to keep each other posted on interesting articles and ideas we come across. We'll all be able to share comments as well.