Aaron Clark’s Post

Global average #temperatures have now hit or exceeded a key climate threshold for 12 months, highlighting the challenge in limiting global warming to below 1.5C above the pre-industrial era. The average for the year through June 2024 was 1.64C higher than the era from 1850 to 1900, the European Union's Copernicus ECMWF said in a report published Monday. Last month was the #hottest ever June, the 13th consecutive time a month has set a new average temperature record. “This is more than a statistical oddity and it highlights a large and continuing shift in our climate,” Carlo Buontempo, director of the service, said in a statement. “Even if this specific streak of extremes ends at some point, we are bound to see new records,” unless nations stop adding greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere and the oceans. My latest for Bloomberg Green https://lnkd.in/gAPGfQpH

Is natural gas a fossil fuel trap or a bridge to clean energy? Never before has gas played a bigger role in fulfilling the world’s energy needs. While consumption of oil and coal are poised to peak, demand for gas is rapidly growing, setting it up to be the last fossil fuel standing as nations adopt cleaner sources in an effort to avert the worst consequences of climate change. Advocates of #natgas have long made the argument that it can facilitate the transition to clean energy, both by reducing dependence on dirtier #coal and by compensating for the inability of #wind and #solar power to produce electricity consistently at all hours in every season. The world’s governments were seen as endorsing that view in the COP28 climate deal of late 2023, in which they acknowledged the role of unnamed “transitional fuels” even while making a historic commitment to move away from fossil fuels. With the rapidly growing energy needs of emerging market economies driving demand for gas, energy companies are spending heavily to boost their capacity to export it. The risk is that rather than serving as a bridge to #renewables, gas will become so entrenched it will prove a fossil fuel trap, locking in greenhouse gas emissions at a level that sustains a dangerous escalation of global warming. My colleague Stephen Stapczynski and I wrote guide to these arguments and what's at stake during the energy transition for Bloomberg Green. You can access through the gift link here: https://lnkd.in/gkqAj3XW

Methane emitted by burping #cows, #sheep, #goats and other #livestock does more short-term damage to the climate than the world’s passenger vehicles, by some estimates. A Boston-based startup says its new #vaccine could take a big bite out of their emissions Ag-biotech company ArkeaBio™ says its drug targets methane-producing microorganisms that live in animals’ saliva and digestive tracks. As of now, it’s still in early stages and will be at least 2.5 years before it could be on the market. But if successful, the drug would be a step towards tackling one of the world’s most intractable climate challenges: curbing #methane emissions from agriculture. The industry is the biggest source of human-generated methane, ahead of fossil fuels and waste, according to International Energy Agency (IEA). “The tools to make a really good run at this haven't existed until the cost of sequencing and the cost of biotechnology came down substantially over the last five to 10 years,” Colin South, chief executive officer of ArkeaBio told me. The company is seeing “better-than-expected results” in cattle trials currently underway, he added. Read more in my latest for Bloomberg Green through the gift link below: https://lnkd.in/gUpc5aYv

Roughly half a century ago geologists exploring for hydrocarbons accidentally shattered the roof of a huge underground gas deposit opening a crater 60-meters (197-feet) wide. Rather than let the potent #methane fumes leak uncontrollably, engineers eventually lit the gas on fire, presumably on the theory it would quickly burn off. It didn’t and the site is believed to have burned continuously ever since. The Darvaza Crater, nicknamed the Gates of Hell, for years was promoted as a tourist attraction in the central Asia country of #Turkmenistan and has even been recognized by Guinness World Records as the “longest burning methane crater.” But global concern over the climate impact of methane and carbon dioxide emissions has intensified and in 2022 then-President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov announced a plan to close the site. In an effort to halt the release, the government proposed drilling a well to extract gas from the reservoir feeding the crater so the fuel could be transported to market, where it’s likely to be burned more efficiently to produce power or heat. Satellite data now shows that plan could be working. The amount of gas burned at the site has fallen roughly 50% since August, according to an analysis by Mark Jonathan Davis, chief executive officer of Capterio, which uses satellites to track flaring globally and works with oil and gas producers and governments to cut emissions by optimizing operations. Davis estimates one million standard cubic feet a day of gas is currently being combusted at the site. While much of the gas emitted from the Darvaza Crater is combusted into CO2, it likely still emits some methane. Turkmenistan sits atop of the world’s fourth-largest natural gas reserves and International Energy Agency (IEA) data shows the nation spews more methane per unit of oil and gas output than any other major supplier. Any progress towards curbing the potent greenhouse gas that leaks from the sparsely populated nation’s oil and gas infrastructure would be a significant climate victory. Read more in my latest for Bloomberg Green through the gift link: https://lnkd.in/gSVPMecN

In his new book "The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won't Save the Planet," Brett Christophers argues there’s a widespread misconception about what’s needed to expand deployment of #renewables and transition away from #fossilfuel power generation. For years, many analysts and commentators promoted the idea that cheap electricity from #solar and #wind power generation was the key to unlocking an energy revolution that would significantly diminish fossil fuels’ contribution to power generation systems. But what matters far more are #profits, argues Christophers, a professor of human geography at the University of Uppsala in Sweden whose research focuses on the intersection of climate and finance. Electricity and heating are the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, which is why replacing coal and gas-fired generation with cleaner alternatives remains the main focus of the low-carbon transition. I spoke with Christophers for Bloomberg Green and you can read more about his take on how the profitability (or lack thereof) of renewables is impacting the energy transition through the gift link below: https://lnkd.in/gv2Ndz_S

Amazon.com Inc., the world’s biggest corporate buyer of clean electricity, delivered a clear verdict on #Japan’s energy policy earlier this month: The country isn’t moving quickly enough to deliver green power to the private sector. “If a company with Amazon’s scale cannot procure power at scale in Japan, then there's something wrong with how we're enabling new projects to come online quickly enough to meet the demand that's growing,” Ken Haig, head of energy and environmental policy for the Asia-Pacific region for Amazon Web Services (AWS) said at a Renewable Energy Institute conference in Tokyo. “There are many, many companies looking for renewable power here in Japan. We need more supply to meet that demand.” Japan has become a difficult market for companies that need green electricity to meet internal emissions targets and customer demands. The country currently relies on fossil fuels for more than 70% of its power generation, and while it committed along with the rest of the world at COP28 in Dubai in December to tripling global #renewable capacity by 2030, the country plans to keep burning coal, oil and gas for much of its electricity. The government is making the utmost effort to make renewable energy the main source of power, the New and Renewable Energy Division within Japan's Agency for Natural Resources and Energy said in a statement. Read more in my latest for Bloomberg Green through the gift link below: https://lnkd.in/gCraH29m

#Satellites sitting more than 22,200 miles (35,700 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface have been capturing storms and weather data for decades. Now, scientists are essentially #hacking the data coming back for another purpose: spotting methane emissions. The breakthrough is the latest in a series from a group of young scientists affiliated with Harvard University, the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) and the United Nations’ International Methane Emissions Observatory that have rapidly expanded researchers’ ability to spot leaks using a wide range of satellites not originally designed to track methane. The innovation could have far-reaching consequences for fossil fuel operators unable or unwilling to halt major #methane releases because it allows researchers to observe emissions every five minutes and estimate the total amount emitted. The approach, which uses shortwave infrared observations from the NOAA: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES), can detect large-emitting events of around tens of metric tons an hour or larger in North America. The new approach enables near continuous, real-time coverage and contrasts with other satellites currently used to detect methane, which are in low-Earth orbit and snap images as they circumnavigate the globe at speeds of around 17,000 miles per hour, only allowing scientists to estimate emission rates. “GOES can detect brief releases that the other satellites miss, and it can trace detached plumes back to their sources,” said Daniel Varon, a research associate at Harvard's Atmospheric Chemistry Modeling Group who first proposed the concept in 2022. “It can also quantify total release mass and duration, rather than just instantaneous estimates of emission rate.” The new technique is already being used by geoanalytics firms and scientists to quantify major emissions events in North America. Kayrros used the approach to estimate that a fossil gas pipeline spewed about 840 metric tons of methane into the atmosphere after it was ruptured by a farmer using an excavator. The short-term climate impact of the event was roughly equal to the annual emissions from 17,000 US cars. Read more in my latest for Bloomberg Green through the gift link below: https://lnkd.in/gVjYnNYE

When the Biden administration paused approval of new liquefied natural gas export licenses in January, the decision was driven by a recognition that the climate impact from the fossil fuel needs to be reassessed. The fight over just how much #lng contributes to global warming was rekindled in part by a study with explosive findings. Compiled by Robert Warren Howarth, a professor at Cornell University, the analysis — which was released in October but remains in peer review — uses leak and emissions data from an array of sources. It finds that total greenhouse gas emissions from US LNG in the best case scenario are comparable to coal. In the worst case, emissions could be more than two-fold greater. Understanding how much of the potent greenhouse gas escapes from the giant intercontinental network of wells, pipelines and ships is now one of the central questions of the energy transition and an emerging climate battleground. Despite years of research, many scientists and the Biden administration believe that question hasn’t been sufficiently answered. The argument that LNG, which generates about half the carbon dioxide of coal when combusted, is relatively less damaging to the climate hinges on an important caveat. To have a lower warming impact than coal, only a minuscule amount of methane — the primary component of fossil gas — can leak as it moves through vast global supply chains that often begin at wellheads in the scrublands of Texas and Oklahoma and span thousands of miles across oceans, to furnaces and power stations in cities from Shanghai to Hamburg. But there are also opportunity costs that are less binary. Are US LNG shipments displacing coal generation or channeling money and resources that could have been gone toward clean energy projects? The context of alternatives, many scientists argue, also matters. Howarth’s study “clearly was a factor in the Biden administration’s decision to pause making the required determinations required for approval of new LNG export projects and launching a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) study of the climate impact of LNG exports,” said Steve Hamburg chief scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund who has served as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Read more through the gift link in my latest for Bloomberg Green https://lnkd.in/gqRmmc2e