What do I think, What can I do?

Climate Change Snapshots from my Canary Island Holydays (IV)

12 09 19

This summer I was lucky to enjoy some vacation days in the very nice Canary Islands, concretely in Tenerife and La Palma. It was just holidays but Climate Change appeared, subtly in certain occasions I want to share with you again in this post as did in the previous ones.

In this case I share a fact, slightly negative but an opportunity at the same time. We hired a car in Tenerife. Certainly the cost was very competitive and it was with Hertz company. But it contained a disagreeable surprise, the deposit was full of gas and it was directly charged to us. This condition was not clear when we booked the car and supposed a considerable increase in the price for a three-day use of car but in my opinion the worse thing is related to one story the seller explained me at the desk:

As one customer was so committed to “use” all the product bought, that before returning he finished making rounds in the parking lot of the hiring company until depleting the car fuel

This customer was quite extreme, even ridiculous to waste his holiday time this way but he was just following the feelling created in most of us after facing one of those experiences: to waste the fuel because it is paid, because I hava been forced to pay it.

I have nothing in particular against Hertz company, there were very nice otherwise and I was told that this kind of practise is widespread in Tenerife nowadays due to the low earnings of the hiring companies. I even had  a very good surprise in the past with Hertz when the offered me a Prius car (like mine) in sustitution of another smaller one a trip some time ago, showing some commitment with Hybrid cars. But those commitments are of no use if you incite customers to burn gas without sense and add some more Kgrs of CO2 to the atmosphere, this kind of small actions show clearly that our conscience of climate change is still quite theoretical in the best case and that there are many opportunities for improvement of energy efficiency, without doubt the most CO2 saving of any energy source and cases like this, the most profitable one too.

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Small Great things

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Venecia and Climate Change

12 09 15
Venice collage from Wikipedia

Venice collage from Wikipedia

Some places are more worried about climate change than others, or at least shout be. It is normal as some enjoy a wonderful weather that can only be worsened, or depend a lot on their current climate or sea level. This is the case for Venice This study shows (link in Spanish)the flood frequency will increase in this wonderful city. And floods in Venice affect 75% of the city old town, it is one of the hefty prices of being so special.
Will this be definitive for Venice’s sustainability? I do not know but certainly they will have to be very aware of Greenlands melting to think about clever mitigating measurements if they do not want to become the most beautiful diving center in the world. Anyway, they will not be alone, the rest of us will suffer many other consequences of climate change some of them unpleasantly unexpected, and many will not have resources for the most basic mitigation.

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Interesting Consequences

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El Hierro, a renewable island

12 09 02
A map from El Hierro island

A map from El Hierro island

El Hierro is the smallest of the main Canary islands, with only 278 Km2 and 10000 inhabitants maybe for this reason it was the perfect place to accomplish an ambitious project: Get its electricity only from renewable sources. 5 wind mills will be enough for that but supported by an energy storage system, when the mills are not producing electricity for the grid they will feed pumps to raise sea water to a natural deposit. In case electricity is needed and there is no wind a hydropower station will work with this water coming from the deposit. A more detailed explanation is here.

Although small (10000 people) this project is ambitious and promising at the same time. Why? Because it works in a scale between the big country and the familiar house but at the same time it is a complete electrical system as Canary islands are not connected to other grids and for this reasons they have been reluctant to introduce too many renewable sources that would challenge the stability of their small grids fueled with diesel power plants. So it has been easier to try a total replacement (although fuel power plants will continue to be operative for backup) that a mixed system.

At the same time this is an opportunity, because Canarian electricity is expensive, more expensive than standard renewable technology and I haven’t found the cost of this project but it would not surprise me to find it is cheaper in the long-term that standard power production in El Hierro. This data would be great to make a more precise assessment.

Anyway, the most important achievement of this project in my opinion is that renewables have been able to become the main power generation source in a whole electrical system that clearly is in another scale compared to a household. It is a 10000 people scale distributed in a 278 Km2 location. By itself it will not change the general emission trend of the world because even if there are 700 million people living in islands, most of those inhabitants live in much greater islands. But it is a step to change scale and every difficult achievement has been done step by step.

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Renewable energy

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There are internal fights in Spanish government about Energy politics

12 08 27

The conservative government in Spain is breaking records in its politics against renewable energy. The time where Obama mentioned Spain as example seems far away. After Rajoy took office one of the first energy politics by Industry minister caller Soria was to stop feed-in-tarif. Later, it went even further planning a new tax for some energy sources, for example renewables. The great driving force in Sorias speeches was “tarif-deficit“, a concept deserving a post by itself but roughly defined as the difference of accepted official prizes for energy producers and final lower retail prizes for customers. The op-ed in the local reference in the sector energias renovables considering the previous Industry minister as the worse for renewables is simply outdated.

Is this the same as could happen in USA if republicans reach the white house? I do not think iso, t is more complicated. In spanish energy policy conservatives and socialists have not been so far in last years. In fact, some progressive press has criticized solar industry, considering them conected to conservative local governments. So, in this complex but worsening history it is refreshing to find p recently divergences between governmet ministers and see them became public. It is not the first time these divergences are made public. But this time it is stronger and somehow hopeful. Just two short comments for outside observers:

1.- It would be very important to obtain a widespread support for renewables, because this gives more security to the investment. For this, it is a key factor to explain how they are more expensive now but an investment for the future (as research, which by the way is suffering the same problems due to the crisis)

2.- It is important to design renewables growth not only expecting more power demand, also and preferably expecting power demand reduction, as it is happening now in Spain. This is the only way to avoid more than 450 ppm of CO2 in our beloved atmosphere.

Image from http://politic-toc.blogspot.com

Image from http://politic-toc.blogspot.com

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climate wars, Renewable energy

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Climate Change Snapshots from my Canary Island Holydays (III)

12 08 23

This summer I was lucky to enjoy some vacation days in the very nice Canary Islands, concretely in Tenerife and La Palma. It was just holidays but Climate Change appeared, subtly in certain occasions I want to share with you again in this post as did in the previous one and second

The image is from the wildfire La Palma island, concretely in Mazo town. The wildfire burned more or less 2000 Ha in the island out of 73000. It was close to several houses for moments as seen in the image taken from the main road of the island. In any case it was much better than the wildfire in nearby island La Gomera  which lasted for two weeks and burned more than 10% of the land.There were two more in Tenerife. Most of them were human caused, but climate change played a role with an extremely dry year, making very difficult fire extinction work. Some places in La Palma were really dry without rain in almost a year. To help even more a heat wave came to La Gomera adding more fuel to the flames.

Those fires did not come from the climate but it helped to make them greater and more dangerous. In the future it can be even worse. Who will pay for the firefighters bills in the future and the increment of their need? Will fossil fuels contribute is some amount to this bill, or will be just for everybody?

A photograph of the wildfire in La Palma during August 2012, image taken from the road

A photograph of the wildfire in La Palma during August 2012, image taken from the road

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Small Great things, Uncategorized

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Climate Change Snapshots from my Canary Island Holydays (II)

12 08 22

This summer I was lucky to enjoy some vacation days in the very nice Canary Islands, concretely in Tenerife and La Palma. It was just holidays but Climate Change appeared, subtly in certain occasions I want to share with you again in this post as did in the previous one.

The images are from the Poris de La Candelaria a site with strange but striking beauty in La Palma island, concretely in Tijarafe town. Of course, my images are too poor to show the real beauty of this place that it is not a mayor turist attraction maybe due to the difficulties to arrive there. Nevertheless it is important for the locals for spare time use (fishing, sleeping near the sea, festivals,…) and also for the connection to their ancestors, as this places use is documented from the middle ages but is likely older.

And, where is the link to climate change? The link is in my thoughts. They told me that in spite of its peaceful aspect in winter  the storms can be strong there causing some damages in the amateur houses. In consequence I thought that in the future they will have to work harder to repair the damages in the stronger storms or even one day leave this place to the fishes due to sea level rise. I know it will not be the worse consequence of climate change but it will be a pity for them and for the eventual visitors.

Photograph from the entrance to Poris de la Candelaria

Photograph from the entrance to Poris de la Candelaria

Photograph from inside Poris de la Candelaria towards the sea

Photograph from inside Poris de la Candelaria towards the sea

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Small Great things, Uncategorized

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Climate Change Snapshots from my Canary Island Holydays (I)

12 08 18

This summer I was lucky to enjoy some vacation days in the very nice Canary Islands, concretely in Tenerife and La Palma. It was just holidays but Climate Change appeared, subtly, as many other times in certain occasions I want to share with you.

The image is from the Loro Parque a “must” for any child visiting Tenerife. This site is a mixture of zoo- animal care and life shows, one even with orcas, that started as a Parrot conservation centre. My son loves it and the environmental message is widespread in the whole installations, although there has been some discussion in the media related with their last orca acquisition: Morgan. In contrast to the general environmental care advises climate change is not too present in the shows or readings. The only mention I found is in the snapshot below, in the penguins zone. It was good to find it but, in may opinion, it is not enough as climate change is one of the main risks of many species shown in the Loro Parque. And this kind of places are a great opportunity as they are visited by many people and several families and children not usually involved in climate change news circuit.

Snapshot from a explaining wall in the Loro Parque, the only one I found mentioning climate change

Snapshot from a explaining wall in the Loro Parque, the only one I found mentioning climate change

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Small Great things, Uncategorized

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Extreme heat is here too

12 08 11

Yesterday a new temperature record was established in Basque Country, a very unusual 44.8ª for a mild temperature region. This summer extreme weather events are one of the hot issues in climate blogosphere, Climate Progress describes the hot summer and widespread drought in USA, skeptical science displays the last research results connecting extreme events and climate change, … At the same time, in the other side of the ocean the temperatures are getting extreme too as yesterda here or the three summer heat waves in the very mild Canary Islands where I was in hollydays. I am not very fond of talking too much of weather as skeptics usually do because our weather memories are weak and it is very easy to play a tennis match: today I believe, tomorrow not at all. Climate is not just weather, it is more global and in more time length. However, extreme events are important, for these reasons in my opinion:

1 If they are frequent enough, they show that temperature distribution is changing as explained in mentioned skeptical science post and many others. Many researchers are working in this link as that post shows.

2 More important than that is that they affect our everyday life, they are one of the first effects we are going to suffer from climate change.

3 They help increase most people awareness about climate change and could convince us to start making the difficult decisions we must make. Although this can be a dangerous weapon following the tennis match model and getting many people tired. For this reason it has to be explained well.

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Interesting Consequences, Uncategorized

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Even big oil companies detect risks from climate change.

12 07 19

Oil ExtractionMost important things usually involve contradictions, but this one is really incredible. This post explains with some examples the risks that big  oil companies are detecting for their business due to climate change, and they are clever to think in this way and forget all the propaganda that are helping to generate against climate change. But if they want to be really clever they could do better and research renewable energies shifting their current and profitable business. It would make sense economically, at least for all in the long-term.

The problem is that maybe they are more worried for their profits and the short-term. Climate change really needs a change of point of view regarding time perspective.

 

By the way, I have not read it anywhere but renewable energies could be quite vulnerable too due to climate change, for example hydro and wind energy. Solar could even improve in many locations. I think this deserves some attention with the long-term perspective.

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Small Great things, Uncategorized

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Photovoltaic cells in our windows?

12 07 12
image

Old photovoltaic cell

Most of the energy we use comes from the sun, even if we are not too conscious of it.

Different kinds of solar energy are the most evident example, but the wind is also moved by the energy injected in our atmosphere by the sun, as well as the water of rivers and lakes. All biofuels are generated by photosintesis diven by sunlight and even the fossil fuels were produced that way millions of years ago. They are so energy rich because they concentrate the accumulation of energy in organic compounds produced during a long period of time.The exceptions to energy coing from the sun are only nuclear and geothermal.

So it is not strange to think that the Sun should be our main target to find the solution for our climate change problem. But it is not so easy. The whole earth receives a huge amount or solar energy in form of light but it is not so concentrated, and consequently not so easy to extract and use practically. For this reason photovoltaic cells have evolved slowly for many years (and because of lack of investment and production effort).

Nevertheless, knowadays there are many technological improvements in the solar field that could lead us to a successful energy revolution. The most real one is the steep reduction in price of standard photovoltaic cells, with this trend grid parity will be out of dicussion in many places in short time.  But it does not stop there, Heliatek german company says it is able to produce semitransparent cells (link in Spanish) able to be located in windows with sufficient efficiency even at low light conditions and not affected by heat. This would be very interesting as the integration in the buildings could be straightforward, the only problem is the the price is not mentioned. How expensive will it be with respect to the energy produced? I know a tall house near here with a whole surface of glass, it could be a terrific power station. Sometimes it is not the optimun solution what succedes is just a reasonably good one in the right place and right moment, we will see.

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Small Great things

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