Flood risk to nuclear reactors raises meltdown fears

Paul Brown in the Ecologist: ...All nuclear plants need large quantities of water for cooling so all must be built close to the sea, large rivers or lakes. This makes them vulnerable to sea level rise, storm surges and to the possible collapse of large dams upstream from poor construction, floodwater or seismic activity.

Since nuclear plants are designed to operate for as long as 60 years and need around a further century to decommission, accelerating sea level rise and more intense rainfall may present serious problems. There are currently 435 operating nuclear reactors in the world, many of them potentially vulnerable to flooding because of natural disasters. Examples from the UK, Finland and the US show that the extent of the danger is not always being disclosed.

... The same fears [of flooding] were raised in the US by the Union of Concerned Scientists after a report was leaked about the danger to nuclear reactors from dams bursting. According to a report by the US Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRC), which had been withheld, more than 30 nuclear installations were in danger from flooding. The Commission was later accused of using security concerns to mask embarrassing information.

Among many revelations in the report was the fact that the authorities had known for a decade or more that the failure of a dam upstream from the Oconee nuclear plant in South Carolina would cause floodwater to overwhelm its three reactors, possibly causing a catastrophic meltdown The odds of the dam bursting were far higher than thechances of the accident that devastated Fukushima.

Oconee is one of the largest nuclear plants in America and has been operating since 1983. Its owner, Duke Energy, remains confident that it could shut the plant down safely in an hour, before floodwaters from upstream could reach the reactors. The NRC has decided that this is sufficient safeguard....

A 1974 image of the control room at the Oconee nuclear plant in South Carolina

Benefits of adapting Africa's infrastructure to climate change outweigh the costs

FinChannel: The impact of climate change on Africa’s water and energy infrastructure will be costly, according to a new World Bank report, and immediate action is needed to reduce these risks.

"Enhancing the Climate Resilience of Africa’s Infrastructure" quantifies the impacts of climate change on hydropower and irrigation infrastructure and identifies adaptation options as well as recommendations for increasing climate resilience.

Investment in infrastructure is fundamental to sustaining growth in Africa. In 2012, the Region’s Heads of State and Government laid out a strategic program (PIDA) for closing Africa’s infrastructure gap. Much of these investments will support the construction of hydropo
wer dams, power stations, and irrigation canals, which will be vulnerable to the potentially harsher climate of the future.

“Climate change requires new approaches that will help make infrastructure investments in Africa more resilient to the uncertain climate of the future. No action is not an option,” said Jamal Saghir, the World Bank's Senior Regional Adviser for Africa.

Launched during the Africa Climate Resilient Infrastructure Summit in Addis today, the report uses for the first time, a consistent approach across river basins and power systems in Africa, and wide range of state-of-the-art climate projections to evaluate the risks posed by climate change to planned investments in Africa’s water and power sectors. It further analyses how investment plans could be modified to minimize those risks; and it quantifies the corresponding benefits and costs....

‘Monster’ fracking wells guzzle water in drought-stricken regions

Anastasia Pantsios in EcoWatch: The fracking industry likes to minimize the sector’s bottomless thirst for often-scarce water resources, saying it takes about 2-4 million gallons of water to frack the average well, an amount the American Petroleum Institute describes as “the equivalent of three to six Olympic swimming pools.” That’s close to the figure cited by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as well.

But a new report released by Environmental Working Group (EWG) located 261 “monster” wells that consumed between 10 and 25 million gallons of water to drill each well. Among the conclusions EWG teased out of data reported by the industry itself and posted at fracfocus.org is that between April 2010 and December 2013, these 261 wells consumed 3.3 billions of water between them, a average of 12.7 million gallons each. And 14 of the wells topped 20 million gallons each.

“It’s far more relevant to compare those figures to basic human needs for water, rather than to swimming pools or golf courses,” said EWG’s report. “The 3.3 billion gallons consumed by the monster wells was almost twice as much water as is needed each year by the people of Atascosa County, Texas, in the heart of the Eagle Ford shale formation, one of the most intensively drilled gas and oil fields in the country.”

And proving that everything really is bigger in Texas, that’s where most of these monster wells were located, hosting 149 of them. Between them they consumed 1.8 billion gallons of water. The largest was located in Harrison County on the east Texas border, where in March 2013, Sabine Oil & Gas LLC drilled a well using more than 24.8 million gallons of water. Irion County in west central Texas had the most monster wells with 19 averaging water use of 12.9 each. And Texas also had what EWG described as the “dubious distinction” of using more fresh water in fracking, consuming 21 million gallons in 2011 alone….

The Jonah Gasfield in Wyoming, shot by Peter Aergst of the Wilderness Society, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 4.0 license

Ahoy, offshore wind: Advanced buoys bring vital data to untapped energy resource

Frances White in a press release at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory: Two massive, 20,000-pound buoys decked out with the latest in meteorological and oceanographic equipment will enable more accurate predictions of the power-producing potential of winds that blow off U.S. shores.

The bright yellow buoys — each worth $1.3 million — are being commissioned by the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington state's Sequim Bay. Starting in November, they will be deployed for up to a year at two offshore wind demonstration projects: one near Coos Bay, Oregon, and another near Virginia Beach, Virginia.

"We know offshore winds are powerful, but these buoys will allow us to better understand exactly how strong they really are at the heights of wind turbines," said PNNL atmospheric scientist Will Shaw. "Data provided by the buoys will give us a much clearer picture of how much power can be generated at specific sites along the American coastline — and enable us to generate that clean, renewable power sooner."

Offshore wind is a new frontier for U.S. renewable energy developers. There's tremendous power-producing potential, but limited information is available about ocean-based wind resources. DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy purchased the buoys to improve offshore turbine performance in the near term and reduce barriers to private investment in large-scale offshore wind energy development in the long term. The buoys were manufactured by AXYS Technologies, Inc., in Sidney, British Columbia.

A recent report estimated the U.S. could power nearly 17 million homes by generating more than 54 gigawatts of offshore wind energy, but more information is needed. Instruments have long been sent out to sea to measure winds on the ocean's surface, but the blade tips of offshore wind turbines can reach up to 600 feet above the surface, where winds can behave very differently....

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is commissioning two of these large buoys, which are decked out with advanced scientific instruments to more accurately predict offshore wind’s power-producing potential. Terms of Use: Our images are freely and publicly available for use with the credit line, "Courtesy of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory."

New report raises concern about electricity and water

Winnie Axelsen at News and Events at Aarhus University: Two new reports that focus on the global electricity water nexus have just been published. Three years of research show that by the year 2040 there will not be enough water in the world to quench the thirst of the world population and keep the current energy and power solutions going if we continue doing what we are doing today. It is a clash of competing necessities, between drinking water and energy demand. Behind the research is a group of researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark, Vermont Law School and CNA Corporation in the US.

In most countries, electricity is the biggest source of water consumption because the power plants need cooling cycles in order to function. The only energy systems that do not require cooling cycles are wind and solar systems, and therefore one of the primary recommendations issued by these researchers is to replace old power systems with more sustainable wind and solar systems.

The research has also yielded the surprising finding that most power systems do not even register how much water is being used to keep the systems going. “It’s a huge problem that the electricity sector do not even realise how much water they actually consume. And together with the fact that we do not have unlimited water resources, it could lead to a serious crisis if nobody acts on it soon”, says Professor Benjamin Sovacool from Aarhus University.

Combining the new research results with projections about water shortage and the world population, it shows that by 2020 many areas of the world will no longer have access to clean drinking water. In fact, the results predict that by 2020 about 30-40% of the world will have water scarcity, and according to the researchers, climate change can make this even worse.

“This means that we’ll have to decide where we spend our water in the future. Do we want to spend it on keeping the power plants going or as drinking water? We don’t have enough water to do both”, says Professor Benjamin Sovacool...

Penstocks, Salal Hydroelectric Power Station, Distt. Reasi, Jammu

Straits of Mackinac ‘worst possible place’ for a Great Lakes oil spill

University of Michigan News: Because the strong currents in the Straits of Mackinac reverse direction every few days, a rupture of the oil pipeline beneath the channel would quickly contaminate shorelines miles away in both lakes Michigan and Huron, according to a new University of Michigan study commissioned by the National Wildlife Federation.

In one scenario examined in the study and accompanying animations, oil from a hypothetical pipeline break reached Mackinac Island and Round Island after 12 hours and Bois Blanc Island after two days. All three islands are in westernmost Lake Huron, just east of the straits.

Within 20 days of a spill in the Straits of Mackinac -- which separates Michigan's upper and lower peninsulas and connects lakes Michigan and Huron -- oil would spread as far west as Beaver Island in Lake Michigan, a distance of roughly 35 miles, and as far southeast as Rogers City in Lake Huron, a distance of about 50 miles, according to the computer-simulation study released today and conducted by hydrodynamics expert David Schwab of the U-M Water Center.

The area around the 5-mile-wide straits is considered ecologically sensitive and is a major tourist draw. "If you were to pick the worst possible place for an oil spill in the Great Lakes, this would be it," Schwab said. "The currents are powerful and change direction frequently. In the event of an oil spill, these factors would lead to a big mess that would be very difficult to contain."

Just west of the Mackinac Bridge, two 20-inch underwater pipes carry 23 million gallons of crude oil daily through the straits. The 61-year-old pipeline is operated by Enbridge Inc.

..."Any material released into the straits will go into both Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, which would complicate containment efforts," Schwab said. "Hopefully, these simulations and animations will be useful in understanding and preparing for potential impacts."...

Under the Mackinac Bridge crossing the Straits of Mackinac, shot by varnent, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Typhoon Neoguri threatens western Japan's already weak grid

Clint Richards in The Diplomat: Japan has been preparing for Typhoon Neoguri since last weekend, and on Tuesday it began battering Japan’s southernmost Ryukyu Islands, which include Okinawa and its 1.2 million people. The typhoon will be one of the biggest many parts of southern and western Japan have seen in decades, with Commander James Hecker U.S. Air Force’s 18th wing in Kadena saying Neoguri will be the biggest typhoon Okinawa has seen in 15 years. As Okinawa and Kyushu prepare to take the brunt of what was until Monday categorized as a “super typhoon,” local infrastructure will be pushed to its limits, especially in Kyushu, where the area is saturated from heavy rains last week.

Japan’s Meteorological Agency has issued an alert for Okinawa’s main island, and local officials have advised 480,000 people to evacuate to local municipal buildings. Waves are expected to reach as high as 14 meters, with sustained winds of 198 km (123 miles) per hour and gusts up to 270 kph (168 mph), the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane in the North Atlantic Ocean. Neoguri is forecast to drop 80 millimeters of rain an hour in Okinawa, according to the meteorological agency.

The Typhoon is expected to reach Japan’s westernmost main island of Kyushu by midday on Wednesday, with sustained winds still at around 200 kph. The sheer size (if not strength) of Neoguri’s storm front is being compared with Hurricane Sandy, which devastated the U.S. east coast in 2012. The projected path of the typhoon is expected to cross Nagasaki on Kyushu’s east coast, which saw 20 centimeters of rain on Thursday (a 50 year record), while parts of
Kyushu saw 25 centimeters of rain on Friday. The heavy rains have continued on Monday, and this high level of saturation puts large population centers on the island, like Nagasaki, at risk of floods, landslides, and possible power outages.

The storm is expected to track eastward along the main island of Honshu, as it weakens before reaching Tokyo Thursday afternoon....

Typhoon Neoguri on July 7, 2014, from NOAA

Consider water use in climate change policies, advise Australian researchers

Springer Select (a press release from Springer): There’s more to trying to slow down climate change than just cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Technology, policies or plans that aim to do so should also take environmental factors such as water usage into account. A more integrated approach might make some options considerably more attractive than others, especially when implemented in arid countries such as Australia, advise Philip Wallis of Monash University in Australia and colleagues, in an article in Springer’s journal Climatic Change.

The researchers considered the example of Australia to show how water usage influences the appeal of certain preferred mitigation options. They analyzed 74 options that were ranked in the influential “Low Carbon Growth Plan for Australia” in 2010, and together could help Australia cut its 2000 emission levels by 25 percent by 2020.

The options varied considerably as to how much water each one uses. Energy efficiency measures were found to reduce water consumption, as do measures in the power sector generally. Renewable options such as solar thermal power only moderately impact water consumption. Further reductions are possible by tapping into existing power-related water supplies or using air or salt-water cooling. Wind power, biogas, solar photovoltaics, energy efficiency and operational improvements to existing power sources can reduce water demand by offsetting the water used to cool thermal power generation. This could help save nearly 100 Mmᶾ of water in Australia annually by 2
020. Wallis believes the technologies and locations used for renewable energy should appropriately reflect water constraints.

Land-based mitigation measures such as “carbon farming” for carbon credits and the suggested reforestation of land use the most water. This is likely to influence catchment water yields, depending on where planting takes place. Although such plantings can also help reduce salinity, erosion, and flooding, the researchers believe some of these endeavors should be reconsidered, either in the scale of plantings, their location, or the carbon price required for these to be cost effective.

The reconfiguring of Australian cities towards water-efficient and low-energy systems represents both a significant challenge and opportunity. Energy is a substantial operational cost in the water industry, especially since the increased use of inter-basin water transfers and desalination plants. Urban water management indirectly influences 13 percent of electricity use plus 18 percent of Australia’s natural gas usage. The water supply and waste-water sectors can however ensure savings by moving towards higher energy efficiency by using, for example, variable-speed water pumps and smart water meters, and renewable energy options such as small-scale hydroelectric plants. Demand management programs targeting hot water and the diversion or localized treatment of different types of waste-water should also be considered.

“This integrated analysis significantly changes the attractiveness of some mitigation options, compared to cases where water impacts are not considered,” believes Wallis. “This Australian case shows that mitigation measures that carry water co-benefits, especially energy efficiency, ought to be pursued.”...

The rural route to a more energy-secure Europe

Rob Vierhout in EurActiv: In 2014, Europe is remembering the tragic consequences of two World Wars.  The under-rated miracle of the European Community, then Union, not only helped to deliver Western Europe from a state of self-destruction to peace, but also provided the framework for almost 50 years of steady economic growth and the creation of a European social model that is the envy of the world.

However, a mixture of globalisation, technology and sometimes-misguided policies is now combining to threaten this stability. As Europe struggles to recover fro
m its worst economic crisis for nearly 100 years, we face a huge challenge to remain competitive, provide good jobs for our youth, and regain our leadership position.

Energy is at the heart of this struggle. As the first continent to industrialise, Europe has already used up much of its indigenous fossil fuel resources. Even if it has become a world leader in solar and wind technology, Europe currently relies extensively on energy imports. Last year, more than half of all the continent’s energy came from outside its borders. In the transport sector, this is even worse with 94% of its energy coming from oil, of which 84% is imported from politically unstable regions.

...In this context, renewable energy sources should rightly take centre-stage. We can use the sun, the wind, even the tides to make power, which will not be influenced by global politics. But, what about Europe’s plentiful land?

Using agricultural products, including increasingly agricultural and forest residues as well as municipal waste to make ethanol, represents a huge opportunity for Europe to reduce its reliance on imports in the transport fuel sector.

This is just the beginning. There are at least 1.7 million hectares of unused farmland in Europe.  The FAO stats tell us that the EU 28 is abandoning 0.5m hectares of additional farmland every year.  Only 0.7% of Europe’s agricultural land is currently being used to produce crops for ethanol – less than the total area of unused land in Romania alone. If we put this abandoned farmland to work, and take advantage of increased agricultural yields, the production of European renewable ethanol using European feedstock could easily double production of ethanol in no time. ...

A combine harvesting a field in the Czech Republic, shot by Podzemnik, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 3.0 license

Thousands of fracking wells in Pennsylvania 'may be leaking methane'

Bobby Magill in the Guardian (UK) via Climate Central: A study of abandoned oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania finds that the hundreds of thousands of such wells in the state may be leaking methane, suggesting that abandoned wells across the country could be a bigger source of climate changing greenhouse gases than previously thought.

The study by Mary Kang, a Princeton University scientist, looked at 19 wells and found that these oft-forgotten wells are leaking various amounts of methane. There are hundreds of thousands of such oil and gas wells, long abandoned and plugged, in Pennsylvania alone, and countless more in oil and gas fields across the country. These wells go mostly unmonitored, and rarely, if ever, checked for such leaks.

A growing list of studies conducted over the past three years has suggested that crude oil and natural gas development, particularly in shale formations, are significant sources of methane leaks — emissions not fully included in US Environmental Protection Agency greenhouse gas inventories because they are rarely monitored. Scientists say there is inadequate data available for them to know where all the leaks are and how much methane is leaking.

...So when abandoned oil and gas wells — possibly hundreds of thousands of them in Pennsylvania alone — that are not currently included in any federa
l estimate for total US greenhouse gas emissions are found to be leaking methane, the implications could be significant.

Kang directly measured leaks from the abandoned wells and found that all 19 wells in the study tested positive for methane leaks, some more than others. She found that overall, the wells leak so much methane that if leaks from all the abandoned wells in Pennsylvania are added up, the leaks could account for between 4 percent and 13 percent of human-caused methane emissions in the state.

But because of significant uncertainty about the total number of abandoned and plugged wells that exist in Pennsylvania, more study is needed to fully understand how common leaking abandoned wells are in the state and how much methane they may emit....

A fracking site in Warren Center, Pennsylvania, shot by Ostroff Law - Fracking Lawyer, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 3.0 license

Coal consumption highest since 1970

Energy Daily via UPI: As world leaders try to generate momentum for an international agreement on and solution to climate change, large amounts of coal continue to be produced and burned. In fact, coal consumption now accounts for more than 30 percent of the world's energy market -- its highest share in 44 years.

According to a recently released report, the "BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2014," coal consumption grew three percent in 2013 -- more than any other energy source. That's a dip from coal's ten year average; consumption of the fuel has grown nearly 4 percent per year over the last decade.

It's bad news for those who had hoped alternative and renewable energy sources would cut into the dominance of dirtier, more traditional sources like coal. Although renewables continue to grow, especially wind and solar, they can't keep up with cheaper and more popular competitors like coal.

Americans -- who sit on the largest coal reserves in the world -- are using less coal, thanks to the abundance of cheaper shale gas. But the U.S. is still producing and exporting the fuel to Europe and Asia in huge amounts, chiefly China and India....

Stoking coal in the Royal Navy during World War II

Four in 10 oil and gas wells in high-risk areas uninspected by federal government

Al-Jazeera America: Four in 10 new oil and gas wells near national forests and fragile watersheds or otherwise identified as higher pollution risks escape federal inspection, unchecked by an agency struggling to keep pace with America's drilling boom, according to an Associated Press review that shows wide state-by-state disparities in safety checks.

Roughly half or more of wells on federal and Indian lands weren't checked in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, despite potential harm that has led to efforts in some communities to ban new drilling.

...Government data obtained by the AP point to the Bureau of Land Management as so overwhelmed by a boom in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, that it has been unable to keep up with inspections of some of the highest priority wells.

"No one would have predicted the incredible boom of drilling on federal lands, and the number of wells we've been asked to process," said the BLM's deputy director, Linda Lance.

Since fracking reached a height in 2009, about 90 percent of new wells on federal land are drilled by the process, which involves pumping huge volumes of water, sand and chemicals underground to break up gas-rich shale rock. "The current rate of inspections is simply not acceptable to us," she said....

Fracking in the Bakken Shale in North Dakota, shot by Joshua Doubek, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 3.0 license

EU proposal scraps mandatory 'dirty' label for tar sands

EurActiv: A mandatory EU requirement to label oil from tar sands as more polluting than other forms of crude could be scrapped altogether following years of lobbying from top producer Canada, according to a draft European Commission proposal. The change removes one obstacle to Canada shipping crude from tar sands to Europe, but will be criticised by environmental campaigners.

The clay-like sands have to be dug up in open-pit mines with massive shovels, or blasted with steam and pumped to the surface, before oil can be extracted. As a result, the oil costs more to produce than regular crude, uses more water and energy, and emits more carbon.

Canada, oil majors and the refining industry have fiercely opposed EU plans to label tar sands as highly polluting. In the context of the Russia/Ukraine crisis and fears about European energy security, Canada argues Europe should be embracing its oil as a secure form of energy.

"We don't see the crisis in Ukraine as simply an opportunity to market Canadian products, but obviously we're deeply engaged in a discussion with our allies on how we can make sure that globally our energy supplies are secure and stable," Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper told reporters after G7 talks in Brussels on Thursday (5 June).

...The European Commission draft document proposed that oil refiners would only have to report an EU-wide average of the emissions for the feedstock they use. "The proposed methodology requires suppliers to report a (European) Union average greenhouse gas emission intensity per fuel with an option to report supplier specific values," the draft said....

Syncrude's Mildred Lake plant in the Athabasca Oil Sands of Alberta, Canada. Shot by The Interior, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 3.0 license

EPA seeks 30% cut in power plant carbon emissions by 2030

Wendy Koch in USA Today: Taking a historic step to fight climate change, the Obama administration proposed a plan Monday that aims to slash carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants 30% by 2030 and could accelerate the nation's shift away from coal.

The Environmental Protection Agency plan, which is President Obama's largest climate effort so far, could help the United States prod other countries like China to pledge similar emissions cuts as part of a new international treaty that's slate for negotiation next year in Paris.

The controversial 645-page plan, expected to trigger legal challenges, sets different reduction targets for each state and gives them flexibility in how to achieve them. Yet it aims for a 30% national reduction of heat-trapping CO² emissions, from 2005 levels, by 2030 -- an amount that the EPA says is equal to annual emissions from powering more than half of U.S. homes.

... Some states that rely heavily on coal-fired power plants will have lower emission targets by 2030 than others that do not. For example, West Virginia must cut 19%,compared to its 2012 emissions, while Ohio must cut 28%, Kentucky 18%
and Wyoming, 19%. In contrast, New York has a 44% target although it can get credit for steps it's already taken to lower emissions.

Thwarted by Congress' inability to pass a bill to lower carbon emissions, Obama is pushing his own approach. Last June, he asked the EPA to use its authority under the Clean Air Act to limit power plant emissions, which account for the largest share — nearly 40% — of total U.S. emissions. Coal-fired facilities could be hardest hit, because they emit more carbon than other power plants.

The rule will not take effect for at least two more years. Obama has asked the EPA to finalize it in June 2015 and initially wanted each state to submit its plan by June 2016. The EPA proposal gives states until 2017 or, if they make joint efforts with other states, 2018....

The coal-fired Avon Lake power plant on Lake Erie, shot by Ben Stephenson, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license 

We need an apartheid-style boycott to save the planet

Some inspiration from Desmond Tutu in the Guardian (UK): Twenty-five years ago people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse. No more can it be dismissed as science fiction; we are already feeling the effects.

...Who can stop it? Well, we can, you and I. And it is not just that we can stop it, we have a responsibility to do so. It is a responsibility that begins with God commanding the first human inhabitants of the garden of Eden "to till it and keep it". To keep it; not to abuse it, not to destroy it.

...People of conscience need to break their ties with corporations financing the injustice of climate change. We can, for instance, boycott events, sports teams and media programming sponsored by fossil-fuel energy companies. We can demand that the advertisements of energy companies carry health warnings. We can encourage more of our universities and municipalities and cultural institutions to cut their ties to the fossil-fuel industry. We can organise car-free days and build broader societal awareness. We can ask our religious communities to speak out.

We can actively encourage energy companies to spend more of their resources on the development of sustainable energy products, and we can reward those companies that do so by using their products. We can press our governments to invest in ren
ewable energy and stop subsidising fossil fuels. Where possible, we can install our own solar panels and water heaters.

...It makes no sense to invest in companies that undermine our future. To serve as custodians of creation is not an empty title; it requires that we act, and with all the urgency this dire situation demands.

Desmond Tutu in 2007, shot by Elke Wetzig (Elya), Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Water-energy nexus reaches crisis level in Asia

Parameswaran Ponnudurai in Eurasia Review:  A coal-linked project in China’s dry Inner Mongolia region has caused a local water table to plunge and a local lake to shrink. In neighboring India, a thermal power plant has been forced to shut down because of severe water shortages.

In Southeast Asia, impoverished Laos risks destroying the spawning grounds of migratory fish species that feed millions of people along the key Mekong River as it pushes ahead with the controversial Xayaburi dam project aimed at selling electricity to power-hungry Thailand. Wealthy Singapore, meanwhile, is consuming large amounts of of energy to overcome its water scarcity challenge even as the island nation’s progress toward water self-sufficiency is considered exemplary.

Decisions made in Asia for water use and management and for energy production are having major impacts on each other and serious repercussions for the region, according to studies highlighted on World Water Day last week. The nexus between water and energy is quite evident in the region largely because of poor and uneven access, and the cross use of the two resources for exploitation, officials say.

“Some of the statistics are quite startling,” Shamshad Akhtar, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), said in a speech last week when commemorating a World Water Day event in Bangkok.

He said that while 4.3 billion people or about 60 percent the global population live in Asia, people in the region only have access to 38 percent of the world’s fresh water. As a result, Asia has the lowest regional per capita water availability in the world. In parallel, Akhtar said, Asia’s energy consumption also remains lower than the global average, but is expected to rise sharply in the next three decades, to drive the required pace of regional economic growth....

Inner Mongolian Desert, shot by Fir0002, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license 

Exxon Mobil to assess climate risk

Heather Long in CNN Money: Exxon Mobil (XOM), America's largest energy company, funded global warming denial groups for years. Now it has agreed to release a report by the end of March that details how climate change could affect its business.

The move comes in response to a shareholder resolution and as the nation marks the 25th anniversary of the Valdez oil spill that released 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound in Alaska. Investors and activists concerned about climate change see this as a major victory that they hope will inspire other companies to follow suit.

The push to get Exxon Mobil to do a climate change assessment has been going on for months. Investors sent letters and tried to engage with Exxon behind the scenes. Arjuna Capital, a sustainable wealth management firm, and As You Sow, a California non-profit, ultimately filed a shareholder resolution demanding a comprehensive "carbon risk report." That resolution has been dropped now that Exxon plans to issue its climate change report.

The argument environmentally conscious investors have made is that shareholders need to know how large a company's fossil fuel reserves are. Regulatory or financial conditions may make it too costly to use all the current reserves, let alone new ones. "Shareholder value is at stake if companies are not prepared for a low-carbon scenario," said Natasha Lamb, director of equity research for Arjuna Capital....

World faces 'water-energy' crisis: United Nations

The Times of India: Surging populations and economies in the developing world will cause a double crunch in demand for water and energy in the coming decades, the United Nations said on Friday. In a report published on the eve of World Water Day, it said the cravings for clean water and electricity were intertwined and could badly strain Earth's limited resources.

"Demand for freshwater and energy will continue to increase over the coming decades to meet the needs of growing populations and economies, changing lifestyles and evolving consumption patterns, greatly amplifying existing pressures on limited natural resources and on ecosystems," the report said.

Already, 768 million people do not have access to a safe, reliable source of water, 2.5 billion do not have decent sanitation and more than 1.3 billion do not have mains electricity. "Lack of access to water, sanitation and sustainable energy is an aggravating factor for poverty," Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, told a conference at the United Nations University in Tokyo. "We need to adopt more integrated policies and innovative strategies to tackle the issues."

About 20% of the world's aquifers today are depleted, according to the UN report. Agriculture accounts for more than two-thirds of water use. The World Water Development Report, the fifth in the series by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), is an overview collated from data from scientific studies and investigations by agencies....

Temple pond on the left side of the Thousand Pillar Temple. Shot by Achyuta T. Madabushi, Wikimedia Commons,  under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license 

Sri Lanka' punishing heat wave

Amantha Perera in IPS: Sri Lanka is heading into a major crisis under extreme heat, as the rains stay away. Fears are growing of power cuts and interruption to the water supply because reservoir levels are running scarily low. By the third week of February, the Ceylon Electricity Board said it was relying on expensive thermal generators for 76 percent of the country’s power supply.

Around August 2012, extended dry weather almost dried up hydro-reservoirs. The country spent over two billion dollars to import furnace oil. The drought impacted over a million persons, according to the Sri Lanka Red Cross. Power supply and the vital paddy harvest are likely to be hit if the rains stay away for longer.

The 2012 dry spell was followed by heavy rains that allowed hydro-power to gain lost ground last year. That vicious cycle could be repeating itself. Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal said last week that changing climate patterns have had a serious impact on the country’s fortunes. “Sri Lanka also is impacted by climate change in the form of droughts, floods and other natural disasters. We take these matters into consideration when framing monetary policy,” he said during a live Twitter interaction.

According to experts, power supply and the vital paddy harvest are likely to be hit if the rains stay away for longer. Asoka Abeygunawardana, executive director of the Sri Lanka Energy Forum and Advisor to the Ministry of Technology, told IPS that Sri Lanka’s power supply was too dependent on hydro-power or on costly coal and furnace oil....

Sri Lanka's Victoria Dam in wetter times in 2009, shot by Chamal N, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license 

Peru to ‘eliminate’ key environmental rule for oil and gas firms, says minister

David Hill in the Guardian (UK): The Peruvian government is planning a new law loosening the social and environmental checks on companies exploring for oil and gas, according to a controversial announcement by the Energy Minister.

Current law states that companies must research and write “Environmental Impact Assessments” (EIAs) of proposed operations before submitting them to the government for approval and then beginning exploration.

However, Energy Minister Eleodoro Mayorga Alba announced this week that oil and gas companies planning to explore by conducting seismic tests will be exempt from the EIA process. Speaking at an event in Lima, he said that Energy Ministry and Environment Ministry personnel are currently working on the law and had reached several agreements:

[One] agreement is to eliminate environmental impact assessments for seismic operations. The [oil and gas] industry has its laws, the industry has principles, it has well-established practices, and the idea is to move away from procedures and permissions to action. The companies know what they have to do.

Mayorga’s comments were reported by Peruvian newspaper Gestion which stated that the new law, according to the minister, is intended to “accelerate investment in the oil and gas sector.”...

An oil pump in Talara, Peru, shot by Maurice Chédel, public domain