Technology to the rescue

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently issued its report for 2014. The report was written by 235 scientists from 57 countries, compiling findings from peer-reviewed papers.

The message from this report is clear: If we continue to do very little or nothing to stop climate change, temperatures around the world will continue to rise. If we exceed the 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit increase from preindustrial levels generally thought as the threshold for dangerous climate change, the world will approach the point of no return, threatening food supplies, destabilizing economies and forcing the relocation over 1 billion people from coastal communities. Weather instability and drought already are emerging at an alarming rate with food prices increasing.

What we do or fail to do in the next 30 years will determine the fate of humanity.

The report clearly shows that human activity is affecting climate patterns. The most alarming statistic is that 50 percent of the carbon that's been released by humans since 1750 has been released in the last 40 years. The increase in carbon release is staggering.

The dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945 was the single-largest release of carbon up to that date. Today, the world's economies release an equivalent of 345,000 times the amount of carbon released by that single atomic blast - every day.

HOPEFUL SIGNS IN CHINA

But there are technologies emerging that can reduce carbon release dramatically and still power the economies of the world. The largest bus manufacturer on the planet is testing combining hydrogen with diesel to power its vehicles. That is likely to reduce the amount of carbon released by those engines by 30 percent to 50 percent through increased fuel efficiency and a more complete burn of the fuel. If the company is successful, every bus and truck manufacturer in the world can follow its lead and do it in a span of a few years since the fuel savings will more than pay for the retrofit. This could remove 15 percent to 20 percent of global carbon release.

Caribbean PROJECTS

A demonstration project of hydrogen- and heavy fuel oil-powered stationary electricity generators is occurring in the Caribbean. Like the testing in China, this program would combine hydrogen and heavy fuel oil to power the generators, which provide 90 percent of the energy in that part of the world. Again, the saving in fuel costs would pay easily for the equipment retrofit and also ensure air emission reductions.

A major power plant project that doesn't use fossil fuel is being planned for the Caribbean. It's powered entirely by ocean turbines and hydrogen generators. No carbon is released into the environment, yet it can produce electricity at an estimated cost of 5 cents a kilowatt hour.

Testing at a major East Coast university indicates there is a technology that captures 85 percent of the most harmful air emission, nitric oxide, emitted from any sort of internal combustion engine - whether it runs a lawn mower, car or coal-fired power plant. The carbon is sequestered in blocks, which can be used for building materials.

At the same university, another effort is redesigning the traditional internal combustion engine to be valveless. Award-winning NASCAR engine designers have patented engine technology that eliminates more than 100 parts from the traditional internal-combustion engine - a design that has not been changed significantly since its invention more than a century ago. This transformation of the internal combustion engine will reduce air emissions and significantly increase fuel efficiency.

ENERGY STORAGE

Yet the greatest innovations now are occurring with energy storage. Spurred on by a recent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission directive that encourages higher prices to be paid for electricity generation with renewables when coupled with energy storage, technologies for storing electricity have blossomed.

With breakthroughs in flow battery design and thermal fuel-cell technology, we can talk seriously about wind and solar energy as dispatchable, baseload sources. There are even batteries designed into rail cars or truck trailer that allow renewable energy to be transported by rail and truck rather than be transmitted by wires and poles.

These breakthroughs will increase dramatically the financial feasibility of getting wind- and solar-generated electricity from remote locations to population centers. At the same time, emerging wind-turbine technologies are allowing wind farms to be set closer to urban areas.

CHANGES IN IOWA

Closer to our home, the University of Iowa is developing a program whereby perennial grasses are harvested and used as fuel in a cogeneration plant. Alliant Energy is working on digesters that use cattle waste to generate fuel. Institutions such as Luther College have combined increased energy efficiency with renewable energy generation through wind and solar to reduce dramatically their carbon footprint.

The IPCC report is sobering. But the breakthroughs in technology give hope that we can cost-effectively save our global economy and the world as we know it.

' Based in Iowa City, Michael Garvin is the former Technology Transfer Specialist for the University of Iowa and is presently the director of the Caribbean Renewable Energy Consortium. He is considered a Paradigm Shift Specialist in his work to identify and test emerging carbon reduction and elimination energy and transportation systems. Comments: michael@renais.org