Videos and Resources on Climate Change and Energy:
Energy and climate change
Power Surge: Clean energy revolution | NOVA
Are we finally on the brink of a clean energy revolution? Aired April 20, 2011 on PBS
Full Video: http://video.pbs.org/video/1873639434#
Trailer:
Notes:
1) Wedge Approach to Climate Change:
Pacala & Socolow Paper | Intro
- By Princeton professors Rob Socolow and Stephen Pacala
- To stabilize emissions in the next 50 years, the world must reduce emissions by about 7 gigatons of carbon (not carbon dioxide) compared to “business as usual” scenarios. So Socolow and Pacala identify 15 stabilization wedges that, if deployed at a significant global scale, could concievably reduce emissions by 1 gigaton each.
- So we need to cap it at a level of stabilization. The triangular area in between a) the current trend-line (upward diagonal line) and b) the horizontal stabilization line represents what we need to cut down through the use of better technology, divided into the following 4 approaches:
1) Increased Efficiency - increase the fuel efficiency of the cars (mgp)
2) Tripling the no. of nuclear power plants
3) Cleaning coal plants
4) Harnessing the power of the sun/wind
2) Carbon Capture
2.1 From atmosphere
- Klaus Lackner, Columbia university
- raisin based material that attracts CO2
- it will capture CO2 (just like in submarines)
2.2 From oil plant back into the ground
- pressurized CO2 is injected deep into the ground
- very expensive; no commercial motivation to do it
- ex: Insalla Plan
Carbon Footprint
American family footprint:
- driving: 2 tons/year/family
- other: 6 tons/year/family
3) Solar Power
- Challenge is how to make solar power cheaply!
- China leads the world in manufacturing
- SunTech is the leader (Zhengrong Shi)
- China Solar Valley: Huang Ming - design a community w/ 80% solar reliant
- US is also spending 40 billion for clean energy development (Stephen Chu - Dept of Energy)
4) Transportation
Fuel Cell
Biofuel
- Keasling; uses Switch grass; yeast is bio-engineered to produce diesel fuel; But very expensive
- Sugar made by plants + mix with yeast -- fermentation --> Diesel fuel
5) Efficiency Increasing
- Finding leaks using thermo-camera
- Motion sensors to shut off light
- Energy bill reduced by 1.5 million dollar @ National Archive Center
- Increase Home efficiency
- Increase efficiency of cars
6) Nuclear Power plant
Challenges:
- How to make them safe
- new designs to make sure nuclear disaster that happened in Fukusima doesn't occur again
- How to dispose nuclear waste?
- use nuclear fuel more efficiently to produce energy