Third Week of November

Wednesday: It was interesting grading the other papers in class. I liked that we were able to give input on how the rubric was constructed and see how it could possibly be changed.

Friday: I found the presentation very interesting, even if it was a bit over my head. I'm really not into money or economics or any thing of the sort, and its really difficult for me to wrap my mind around the rationality of all of it...but the presentation helped me understand the current economic situation a bit more. 

In the presentation, it was explained that the current economic situation can be contributed to rising oil prices (up to $ 145 a barrel and $4 at the pump), the tripling or more of grain prices, ad the spike in prices of many raw materials such as copper and cotton. Gas prices finally went down to about $55 a barrel and $2 at the pump. This situation provides relief for consumers but could potentially hinder the progress of conservation gains. 

It is too late to avoid a recession, but lower prices may make the recession itself milder. There also could be possible conflict with economic recovery with the use of price floors, green market solutions, cap and trade, and carbon taxes. Some believe however that Green spending could possibly help economic recovery. 

In terms of the housing market issues:

Homebuilding is down nearly two-thirds. House prices are down nearly 20 % and could fall even lower. Mortgages are very hard to obtain at this point. Many homeowners can't pay their loans, which is causing foreclosures to double to a near 3 million annual rate. Mortgage "paper" were loans that turned into security, clogging world banking and portfolios with 11 trillion of "bad papers". 

There will always be credit cycles. Credit busts are preceded by credit booms. But now banks will not lend to customers or each other. Sectors are now credit starved, including non-Frannie/Freddie mortgages, mergers, acquisitions, local government projects, auto + consumer lending. 

There have also been problems in over-investing. An investor could guess wrong on technology, not know competitors' investments, misjudge pricing power, costs, + profits, or misjudge future market sizes. These small misses can drastically affect business. People do not know how to value things anymore because many new products are complex and there is no regulated way to trade them. Accountants do not know how to price these items. If accountants don't know how to price them, neither do many CEO regulators and rating agencies don't know either. Problems worsen with prepayments, bad collateral, and by simply pretending that the problem is not there. Other problems have resulted from insurance abuses. Its a good idea for insurers to have reserves to pay out losses and be regulated. However, Frannie and Freddie wrote 3.6 trillion of mortgage pool insurance with no reserves. 

What can we do about this economic situation? We can "spend like crazy", embrace infrastructure and temporary tax cuts, forget the budget, while still helping the poor and saving the environment. We can rethink corporate leadership and governance, remove perverse incentives, and even become comfortable with bankruptcy because after all, its not liquidation, its protection from creditors. 

Ideas for Top Ten Blog Posts

1. enviroCAB findings

2. Can Coal and Clean Air Coexist in China?

3. Inconvenient Truth-Evacuation of the Cateret atoll in Papua New Guinea

4. Hot, Flat, and Crowded

5. Leave Only Footprints: Measuring and Managing Corporate Carbon Emissions

6. "Sustainability at GW" Plenary

hmmm....

November 12th Class Notes: Presentations Continued

Oxy Fuels

-burns oxygen with gaseous fuel

-one plant in Europe

potential problems: release of methane, which is worse than carbon dioxide

-takes a lot of energy, might not be worth it or seen as efficient

-having this one plant in Europe may cause people to investigate this process further and possibly make the process more efficient

Justice says EPA has Power

-Clean Air Act, 1960s

-major steps in the sense that politics is becoming more concerned with environmental policies

Clean Coal Plant canceled-Hydrogen Economy, Too

-FutureGen

-(refer to our article on China and coal. This is the failed American version)

-still not economically feasible

-argued that its not feasible by Jeff Goodell, in "Big Coal: The dirty secret behind America's energy future". 

-plant fell through because of major costs

-possibly trying to use this process on a much smaller scale

-some argue that it needs to be done even though it may not be successful/efficient...argue that we need to start somewhere and that no process is typically successful in its first run. You never really know until you try-kind of mindset

-lack of government funding

EnviroCAB!

Today I was walking around I street and saw a white and green taxi with the phrase "envirocab" written on it. So I decided to this up on the internet: http://www.envirotaxicab.com/

The cab service operates in Arlington and produces an estimated 60 percent less emissions than standard cabs. enviroCAB also offsets remaining emissions by buying offset credits. According to this website, enviroCAB's policies would actually emit zero carbon dioxide even with a "fleet of taxis". For each cab put into operation, enviroCAB also offsets the pollution of two 16 mpg standard taxi cabs currently operating in Arlington County. They claim to be the "first cabon-negative taxi service in the world." Currently 50 hybrid taxicabs are operating from Arlington County. enviroCAB was introduced in D.C. on Feb 11, 2008 as the first all-hybrid taxicab service.  The taxis include (Toyota Priuses, Camrys, Highlanders, and Ford Escapes. 

here are some facts listed in an article from the website:

• the first taxicab company within the Washington, D.C. region to put a fleet on the road comprised entirely of fuel-efficient, low-emission hybrid vehicles. 
• the first taxicab company in the U.S. to completely offset its own emissions by purchasing “clean-source” offset credits. 
• the world’s first carbon-negative taxicab service by offsetting the emissions of 100 of the approximately 685 non-hybrid taxis operating in Arlington,Va.

enviroCAB will emit 2.3 million pounds of carbon dioxide less than similarly sized standard taxi vehicles, and will offset an additional 1.5 million pounds of carbon dioxide emission for its fleet to be carbon neutral. By purchasing “clean-source” offset credits, enviroCAB will become carbon-negative by offsetting another 7.6 million pounds of carbon dioxide, or the equivalent of 100 older, fuel inefficient taxis.

the number for envirCAB is (703) 920-3333

I was really surprised to see the enviroCAB driving around D.C. and even more surprised to find out that its the first environmentally friendly taxi service in the nation! I haven't seen many, but I'm really going to start looking around for these taxis. Maybe these kind of taxis will eventually take over the taxicab industry of DC and even beyond that...

Liquifying Coal

In class on Friday, one group presented an article on the process of liquifying coal. I had read a bit about this process in my groups' own article about clean coal and China, but the article did not go very in depth. 

From what i understood from the presentation, liquifying coal is a process that is only in its beginning stages. One of the setbacks of liquified coal is that is a fairly new technology and has not been thoroughly investigated. However, we must look to the future and hope that more can be found out about this process. 

Notes:

-Half of U.S. electricity comes from coal. 

-Liquifying coal would emit less carbon dioxide and mercury.

-BUT, some carbon dioxide would still be emitted.

-Fischer-Tropsch Process-gasified coal converted into  diesel operates best at 150-300 degrees Celsius, but the temperature is kept lower than that to save money and emit less methane, even though using higher temperatures in this process would be more efficient. 

-Tests have only been conducted on a small scale process and would need to be done on a much larger scale in order to really evaluate results and eventually implement the process of liquifying coal.

Can Coal and Clean Air Coexist in China?

-David Biello

-In China, coal produces 75% of its electricity.

-More than 4,000 miners die each year digging up fossil fuels.

-Chinese dependence on coal is most visible in the air. Smog fills the sky to form a "brown cloud", which is visible from space and accounts for 15% of air pollution. 

-Many of the cities in China would fail both U.S. and E.U. safety standards with the amount of pollution in the air.

-It costs China an estimated $100 BILLION in health coasts associated with respiratory problems. (World Bank)

-According to research by Frederica Perera of Columbia, the pollution in China could actually STUNT THE GROWTH of the next generation in Chongqing.

-China has burned coal for centuries, but it is only recently that the country began to burn 2.5 billion tons ANUALLY (twice the amount of the U.S.). 

-China opens one large coal-fired power plant a week on average to generate enough electricity to provide for its 1.3 billion population + fuel industries that manufacture cheap goods for both the U.S. and Europe.

-This year China surpassed the U.S. as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases

Developing Alternatives:

-designed plan to reduce sulfur dioxide by as much as 10% over the next 5 years by closing small, inefficient coal plants and replacing them with larger ones. This doesn't seem to make much sense, but the abundance of new coal power plants will actually SOMEWHAT help clear the air of pollution. 

-GreenGen: government launched pilot project in Tianjin to capture and store carbon dioxide produced from coal and use this carbon dioxide as a fuel for electricity generation at a power plant "GreenGen". Power and coal companies will contribute funds to create an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant where coal is converted to gas and pollutants removed before burning. IGCC could produce 250 megawatts of electricity and could cut capture more than 80% of the carbon dioxide normally produced by combustion, storing it in nearby depleted oil fields by 2015. Criticisms of the project include the fact that this process requires extra energy and requires more burning of coal just to generate the same amount of electricity. 

-As the host nation of the Olympics this summer, China was somewhat motivated to clean up their pollution by relocating factories to industrial parks or on the outskirts of towns and closing small&inefficient coal power plants.

-Possible plans for turning coal into liquid fuel (however, this is a costly transformation and can emit twice as much carbon dioxide as burning coal and even consumes more energy)

Interesting points: A good amount of China's air pollution is outsourced smog from industry that has migrated from the U.S. and E.U. to China in order to maintain low prices and clean Western skies. 23-33% of China's greenhouse gas emissions can be linked to Western exports.

Class Notes Post Election

Combustion

-process of rapid oxidation with the release of heat and light

-heat, oxygen and fuel combine to cause combustion, heat and exhaust result...heat continues in cycle

-often carbon based, as in furnaces, propane grills

-hazardous

(for more info refer to howstuffworks.com)

Carbon capture-analogy to paper, once you print something out, put in neat stack instead of letting it just sit around. Seems to be an attempt to capture carbon emissions immediately before it travels and gets our of control and contributes to climate change in the atmosphere.

Carbon storage?-look up articles