Tag: gases

Insecticide Chemical Is a Powerful Greenhouse Gas

  • Sulfuryl flouride, a chemical used to fumigate termite-infested buildings, is a potent greenhouse gas (Source: Esculapio at Wikimedia Commons)

The federal government is going to take some significant steps to reduce global warming gases. Carbon dioxide is the main target, but there are other types of greenhouse gases. Lester Graham spoke with one researcher who found a potent greenhouse gas lingers in the atmosphere much longer than previously thought:

Transcript

We hear a lot about carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. But there are other chemicals that trap heat and contribute to global warming. One of them is an insecticide used to fumigate termite-infested buildings. It’s called Sulfuryl fluoride. That insecticide is four-thousand times better at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. It’s been estimated that Sulfuryl flouride hangs around in the atmosphere for five years or so… but new research shows that it lasts a lot longer than that:

Mads Sulbaek Anderson is working with other researchers at the University of California-Irvine published a study in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

He’s with us now… first, how is this termite insecticide used?

“Well, it’s used in a number of applications. What the fumigators do is, they basically cover the house in a giant tent. And then you fill up the house with this compound, and over the span of a few days, one or two days, this compound acts like a pesticide- it kills all of these bugs. After that time span, you remove the tent, and make sure that all of this compound evaporates and dissipates.”

What did you discover about how long this insecticide actually stays in the atmosphere?

“The usual routes by which pollution is removed from the atmosphere has to do with reactions, and there’s something called an OH radical, a hydroxyl radical in the atmosphere. That’s the usual cleaner of the atmosphere. In this case, this radical didn’t react at all with the compound – we couldn’t detect anything.”

Is this a significant contributor to global warming, or greenhouse gases?

“It’s still a question of how much is actually present in the atmosphere right now. But, we know how much is used every year of this compound. And so this compound, right, it’s 4,000 times more efficient in trapping the heat compared to carbon dioxide. But of course, there’s not much of it out in the atmosphere yet. But it’s more a precautionary tale, because other compounds are being phased out for other reasons and so sulfuryl fluoride could take over for those applications, if we don’t think twice about this. And it stays around for at least a few decades. So, it’s not an enormous problem by itself- we have to focus on the real problem, which of course is due to emissions from burning fossil fuels. But this compound too contributes to the warming of the atmosphere, or could potentially do it.”

Mads Sulbaek Anderson is a researcher at the University of California-Irvine. Thank you.

“You are very much welcome.”

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Interview: Making Greenhouse Gases a Commodity

  • (Photo courtesy of the EPA)

We can expect Congress will take up a carbon

cap-and-trade bill soon. That would make

greenhouse gases a commodity. The United

States Climate Action Partnership wants to

know the rules of the carbon trading game

sooner rather than later. US CAP is made

up of businesses such as GE, automakers,

some power companies and environmental groups.

Other business leaders say a carbon cap-and-trade

program will only increase the cost of everything.

Dan Lashoff is with the Natural Resources Defense

Council, one of the US CAP members.

The Environment Report’s Lester Graham asked him

why the companies in US CAP would want Congress

to come up with a cap-and-trade program now?

Transcript

We can expect Congress will take up a carbon

cap-and-trade bill soon. That would make

greenhouse gases a commodity. The United

States Climate Action Partnership wants to

know the rules of the carbon trading game

sooner rather than later. US CAP is made

up of businesses such as GE, automakers,

some power companies and environmental groups.

Other business leaders say a carbon cap-and-trade

program will only increase the cost of everything.

Dan Lashoff is with the Natural Resources Defense

Council, one of the US CAP members.

The Environment Report’s Lester Graham asked him

why the companies in US CAP would want Congress

to come up with a cap-and-trade program now?

Dan Lashoff: The opportunity that we have, right now, is to, first of all, invest
billions of dollars in the economic stimulus package – which the Congress will be
taking up in the next couple of weeks, that President Obama has made clear he
wants to see a substantial portion of that investment go into clean energy
technologies: insulating homes, building a smart grid to carry renewable energy
around the country. So, there’s an immediate step that needs to take place to
get investment flowing, to jump-start the green energy economy that we need.
That should be quickly followed with the type of comprehensive climate policy
that US CAP has called for, because that will guide longer-term investments, it
will mobilize private capital that is needed to build the clean energy future that we
need to have. And that will put people to work installing wind turbines, installing
solar systems, insulating homes, insulating schools. And keep the investment
flowing, and actually create an export opportunity for companies that are making
clean and efficient energy systems that the world is going to increasingly
demand.

Lester Graham: President Obama has talked a lot about the green economy and
green-collar jobs that you just mentioned, but will those jobs actually offset the
economic pain that a cap-and-trade program is expected to cause?

Lashoff: Well, first of all, you have to realize, if we passed a cap-and-trade bill
tomorrow, the actual limits would not kick in until 2012 at the earliest, and, by that
time, hopefully, the economy is really moving forward. So, what the value of
passing the legislation now is that it sets the long-term agenda, it sets the
strategic agenda that’s going to reduce our emissions, and it mobilizes
investment flows. The actual price signal that is needed to discourage global
warming pollution actually wouldn’t kick in for a couple of years, and that actually
works quite well with the timing, that is appropriate given the current economic
crisis.

Graham: The 80% emissions reduction below 2005 levels by 2050 is exactly
what President Obama has suggested we do, but there still are enough
Republicans who hold enough seats in the Senate to block cap-and-trade if they
wanted to. What are the chances of having legislation like this passed?

Lashoff: Well, I’m very optimistic that with the momentum that the US CAP
proposal delivers, the strong business support from at least a significant portion
of the business community, certainly not universal, that we can move forward. It
certainly will require a bi-partisan effort. There will need to be Republicans
joining the Democratic majority in the Senate as well as in the House to enact
legislation. I think we can do that. I think that this proposal provides a lot of
insight into the types of provisions, in addition to the cap itself. Things like
energy efficiency investments that will hold down the costs for consumers,
approaches to dealing with concerns of the economic impact – that chose a
pathway to get legislation enacted, hopefully in 2009.

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Monitoring the Air Around Mega-Farms

The Environmental Protection Agency says it will start monitoring the air around some large livestock farms this winter. The EPA says it will help them develop better air quality standards for these farms. But critics say the project is too soft on polluters. The GLRC’s Mark Brush has more:

Transcript

The Environmental Protection Agency says it will start monitoring the air around some
large livestock farms this winter. The EPA says it will help them develop better air
quality standards for these farms. But critics say the project is too soft on polluters. The
GLRC’s Mark Brush has more:


Thousands of farms have agreed to be a part of a voluntary air pollution monitoring
project. Big hog, poultry, and dairy operations produce a lot of manure. The manure
releases gases that can cause health problems. As part of the agreement with the EPA,
the farms will be immune from most federal lawsuits while the monitoring is done.


Jon Scholl is with the EPA. He says this voluntary approach will bring more farms into
compliance faster than direct enforcement:


“We have 2,568 agreements covering 6,267 farms that have a written agreement with the
agency that they’re going to come into compliance with applicable air quality laws, and
we think that’s significant and certainly much better than taking it on a case by case
basis.”


Critics of the voluntary project say there is enough evidence now to force these large
farms to comply with air quality laws. They say the Bush Administration lacks the
political will to do so.


For the GLRC, I’m Mark Brush.

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Outdoor Lab Forecasts Global Warming Effects

  • Mark Kubiske checks the valve that controls the flow of greenhouse gases to a stand of sugar maples, birch and aspen. (Photo by Jennifer Simonson)

Scientists from around the world are studying how higher levels of carbon dioxide will affect forests 100 years from now. They’re doing that by pumping higher levels of CO2 and ozone into stands of trees. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson visited the experimental forests and has this story:

Transcript

Scientists from around the world are studying how higher levels of carbon dioxide will affect forests 100 years from now. They’re doing that by pumping higher levels of CO2 and ozone into stands of trees. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson visited the experimental forests and has this story:


(sound of “quiet area”)


The north woods of the Great Lakes states are stands of millions of acres of pine, maple, birch, and aspen forests. It’s a perfect place to try to figure out how trees will react to the higher levels of ozone and carbon dioxide scientists expect in the future.


(sound of beeping fence gate)


The first thing you notice at Aspen Free Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment Project – Aspen FACE for short – is two huge tanks inside the fenced in enclosure. Each one is bigger than an 18-wheel tanker truck. They’re full of carbon dioxide… CO2. So much CO2 is used in this experiment, the tanks are filled twice a day.


(sound of filling tanks)


If you looked at the site from an airplane, you’d see 12 circular tree stands surrounded by 30 foot high pipes. Those pipes pour CO2 or ozone gases or both into the air surrounding birch, sugar maple, and aspen trees. The scientists know that greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere have been increasing. They believe two centuries of industrial pollution has contributed to the problem. And they expect the CO2 and ozone levels to double by the end of this century. They’re raising the level of greenhouse gasses in different mixes to see what the predicted levels will do to forests.


This open air project is different than previous experiments. David Karnosky is with Michigan Tech. He’s the Project Manager for Aspen FACE. He says before these kinds of projects, they just tested trees inside places like greenhouses.


“We needed to get out of those chambers. We needed to have a more realistic, real world sort of situation where we had multiple trees. We wanted real intact forest communities. We didn’t want to have just a small number of trees inside of a chamber.”


The United States Department of Energy launched this experiment in Wisconsin’s northwoods seven years ago. Karnosky says they’re learning how the trees react to the higher CO2 levels, and that could shape the future of the world’s timber industry.


“Who will be the winners? Who will be the losers? Will aspen or birch or sugar maple? In northern Wisconsin here we’ve got probably 40 million acres of those species mixes. What’s going to happen under elevated CO2 in the next 100 years? Will these forests remain as they are?”


(sound of driving on gravel)


Driving to one of the experimental circles, we pull up to a ring of trees. Mark Kubiske is one of the two full-time on-site researchers.


“Now this particular ring is an elevated CO2 plot. CO2 is delivered through this copper pipe. It runs to that fan, there’s a large fan right on the end of that gray building.”


The scientists have found that trees in the CO2 circles grow 30 percent faster than trees without the gas.


“The trees are larger in diameter, they’re straight, they have lots of leaf area, they just look very healthy. That is just in tremendous contrast to the ozone ring. We’ll go up around the corner and look at one.”


Nearby another circle of trees is not doing nearly as well. The trees are skinny, twisted not as tall as the other sites. Higher ozone levels are hurting the trees.


At the sites where pipes emit both ozone and CO2, the tree growth seems normal – except for some stunted maple trees. The leaves of the aspen and birch take in much of the CO2, convert it to sugar which goes to its roots, eventually becoming a natural part of the soil. That suggests forests may help alleviate gases that cause global warming. The Project Director, David Karnosky says CO2 and ozone appear to cancel each other out. But he says it’s too early to draw any firm conclusions. Ultimately, he says governments will be able to look at this glimpse into the future and try to come up with emissions policies that help.


“The whole issue of the Kyoto protocol, our government not signing off on that. There’s been some relaxing of the feelings from what I’ve seen from the President’s report now that they’re beginning to realize that elevated CO2 is having an impact on global warming and could be impacting our plant communities.”


Karnosky says it’s possible that besides reducing emissions, governments might determine that planting more trees might be very helpful in reducing greenhouse gasses worldwide.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mike Simonson.

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Presidential Profile: John Kerry

  • As Kerry and Bush battle it out, different groups examine the candidates' views on the environment. (Photo by Sharon Farmer courtesy of johnkerry.com)

The candidates for president and vice president have spent a lot of time talking about security, the economy, and health care. They have not spent much time talking about the environment. As part of a series on the records of the presidential and vice presidential candidates, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports on Democratic challenger Senator John Kerry:

Transcript

The candidates for president and vice president have spent a lot of time talking about security, the economy, and health care. They have not spent much time talking about the environment. As part of a series on the records of the presidential and vice presidential candidates, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports on Democratic challenger Senator John Kerry:


Senator Kerry considers himself an environmentalist. Kerry’s Senate office website indicates that
30 years ago, he spoke at his home state of Massachusetts’ first Earth Day. The Senator says he
called for “fundamental protections that became the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking
Water Act, Endangered Species Act and Superfund.” However, he doesn’t often talk about how he
would handle the environment. Early in the campaign in this speech in Minnesota, he promised to
be a guardian of the environment and he briefly outlined his energy plan…


“I will set a goal as president that 20 percent of all of our electricity will be provided from
alternatives and renewables by the year 2020. And I will set this country on the course by creating a hydrogen institute, by putting a billion dollars into the effort of conversion of our autos, by moving to a 20 billion dollar support for the conversion of our industry, we are going to guarantee that never will young American men and women in uniform be held hostage to our dependency on Mideast oil. We’re going to give our children the independence they deserve.”


When the topic of the environment came up during the second presidential candidates’ debate,
Senator Kerry didn’t outline his own plans, but instead responded to President George Bush’s
claims that the environment was cleaner and better under the Bush administration.


“They’re going backwards on the definition for wetlands. They’re going backwards on water
quality. They pulled out of the global warming. They declared it ‘dead.’ Didn’t even accept the
science. I’m going to be a president who believes in science.”


During the negotiations on the Kyoto global warming treaty Senator Kerry went to Kyoto and
worked to craft a plan to reduce greenhouse gases that could pass political hurdles in the U.S. He
was a leader in the effort to stop a Bush proposal to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.


Environmental groups like what they see and have been enthusiastic about their support for the
candidate. Betsey Loyless is with the League of Conservation Voters…


“Senator Kerry, who has, by the way, a 92 percent lifetime LCV score, has quite a remarkable
overall consistent record of voting to protect clean air, clean water and protect our natural
resources.”


But while the environmentalists like John Kerry, some business and industry groups that feel the
federal government’s environmental protection efforts have become burdensome and ineffective
aren’t that impressed…


“Well, John Kerry – yeah, he got a stronger LCV rating than even Al Gore. Now, pause and think
about that, okay?”


Chris Horner is a Senior Fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-market think tank. Horner says he doesn’t like many of Kerry’s positions, but adds he doesn’t think Senator Kerry’s environmental record is as strong as the support from environmental groups might indicate…


“Let’s just say that a lot of the support that comes for Kerry is not through leadership he’s shown in the Congress because he really hasn’t. It’s that he says the right things and that his wife certainly puts the money in the right place.”


Horner suggests that Teresa Heinz Kerry has given large sums of money to environmental
groups… and Horner thinks that’s helped her husband’s political career. Whether you give
credence to those kind of conspiracy theories or not… it’s clear that the environmental groups
prefer Kerry over Bush. The Kerry campaign’s Environmental and Energy Policy Director,
Heather Zichal, says the environmentalists like him… because of his record.


“He’s been called an environmental – dubbed an “environmental champion” and has received the
endorsements of everybody from the Sierra Club to Friends of the Earth. And for him, you know,
environmental protection is not only a matter of what’s in the best interest of public health, but it also is what’s in the best interest of our economy going forward. George Bush has given us the
wrong choices when he says you have to have either the environment or a strong economy. John Kerry believes we can have both.”


But the environment has not been a major issue in the campaign. Conventional wisdom seems to
indicate those who are prone to support pro-environment candidates are already on-board with
Kerry… and the undecided voters have weightier issues on their minds.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

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Earlier Spring Thaws to Accelerate Global Warming?

Satellite imaging shows that spring thaws in the northern latitudes are happening almost a day earlier each year. Environmental scientists worry that faster melts could accelerate global warming. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Corbin Sullivan explains:

Transcript

Satellite imaging shows that spring thaws in the northern latitudes are
happening almost a day earlier each year. Environmental scientists worry
that faster melts could accelerate global warming. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Corbin Sullivan explains:


The satellite readings show that the spring thaw in
the Alaskan tundra and northern forests is coming
more than a week earlier than it did in 1988.


John Kimball co-authored a study of the NASA
images. He says the greenhouse effect is responsible
for earlier melting. And he warns that faster thaws
could lead to more greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere.


“The potential here is that this warming will
actually reinforce that greenhouse related warming
trend that we’re seeing. That would occur at a much
faster rate.”


Kimball says microorganisms in the arctic soil are
the reason for the increase in heat-trapping gases.


He says the organisms become active when the soil
thaws, breaking down carbon in the soil and
releasing methane and carbon dioxide.


Kimball says an earlier thaw means more
greenhouse gases will be produced each year. That’s
in addition to the gases produced by human sources
like automobiles and power plants.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Corbin
Sullivan.

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Greener Cleaners

  • Joseph DeSimone, founder and chairman of Micell Technologies, explains the cleaning process that clothes undergo in his Hanger’s store in Morrisville, NC.

Consumers may not realize it, but the simple act of dropping off clothes at the cleaners could end up harming the environment. For decades, dry cleaners have used a toxic solvent to clean clothes. Now there are many contaminated former dry cleaning sites across the country. But a solution to the dry cleaning problem may now be available. A new chain of cleaners is touting a “greener” system that uses a non-toxic everyday substance. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Patty Murray has more:

Dump Generates Creative Power Solution

Methane is one of the main by-products of landfills. It’s also a
fuel, which can be used to create electricity. In 1978, the federal
government began requiring utilities to buy this methane-generated
power. But as energy prices dropped, methane producers found their
profits disappeared as well. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Karen Kelly reports, they’re looking for new alternatives:

Transcript

Methane is one of the main by-products of landfills. It’s also a fuel, which can be used to create

electricity. In 1978, the federal government began requiring utilities to buy this

methane-generated power. But as energy prices dropped, methane producers found their profits

disappeared as well. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports, they’re looking

for new alternatives:


(sound of blower)


Frank Lavadera stands proudly next to a small, green pipe sticking out of the ground. It’s

attached to a fan, which is sucking methane gas out of this landfill in Saratoga Springs, New

York.


“It pulls the gas from the landfill to this particular point and pushes it across the street to

where the engine system is, to where it’s used.”


(sound of skating)


Where it’s used in the town’s skating rink. The landfill produces enough methane to provide

eighty-five percent of the rink’s electricity. The methane is pumped into a generator. That

produces the power that freezes the ice, keeps the rink lit, and heats the water for the showers.

Lavadera designed the project. He’s an engineer at Cluf, Harbor and Associates in nearby Albany.

He was originally hired to close the city’s landfill, which is filled with horse manure from the

nearby racetrack.


“One of the things we found was that this particular landfill had a tremendous amount of methane

gas, above and beyond what would normally be expected. And as a result, we needed to collect this

methane as opposed to just passively venting gas into the atmosphere. But simultaneously, the city

constructed this ice skating rink, and it was very natural connection that we’d match the two up

together to utilize the gas.”


The city is now saving fifty-thousand dollars a year in utility costs. At one time, they probably

would have sold the electricity to a power company and made a profit. Utilities are required to

buy methane-generated electricity from landfills at the same price it costs the utility to make

it. The problem is, the overall price of producing electricity has dropped drastically. In New

York State, it’s gone from six cents per kilowatt-hour in the 1980’s to about two cents today.


Shelley Cohen is head of the EPA’s methane outreach program.


“Utility prices in many states are still very cheap and they’re not able to offer prices for the

landfill gas that make it economical to develop a project. That being said, the landfill and the

landfill developer generally look for other options for developing gas projects.”


Cohen knows about eighty landfills in the U.S. that have found other ways to recycle their

methane. Many simply use it themselves to heat their buildings and run generators. Others sell it

to neighbors. There are asphalt and paper companies that use methane to run their boilers. And in

Canada, the methane from one landfill heats four greenhouses. Cohen says these projects are making

good use of one of the most potent greenhouse gases.


“The environmental benefits are tremendous. Because you’re capturing the methane from the

landfill. You’re reducing those emissions from the landfill and then you’re somehow utilizing it,

which means you’re also offsetting the need to use other forms of polluting energy, such as coal.

So it has this double environmental benefit.”


But Frank Lavadera says landfills still shy away from these projects. For one, they have to build

a system to convert the methane to electricity. In Saratoga Springs, that cost more than a million

dollars. And two, the farther the methane has to travel, the more expensive it’ll be. So, they

need to have a willing neighbor.


“That’s what made this project work very well, is we had the ice skating rink directly across the

street from the landfill. That probably is what will drive methane gas projects in the future as

time goes on, is matching up landfills with high users that might be close by so they could

effectively utilize the electricity.”


There’s another possibility on the horizon. Environmental groups are pushing for a federal tax

credit to make it easier for landfills to produce electricity. John Skinner is president of the

Solid Waste Association of North America.


“Our proposal is for a federal tax credit for landfills that use the methane gas as a fuel and

that will adjust the economics so that it’s economically feasible to do so. There’s probably

another 250 to 300 that would come on-line that won’t come on-line otherwise.”


Skinner says a previous tax credit helped create more than two-hundred new projects. But it

expired two years ago. The current proposal is expected to come to a vote in the House sometime

next year.


(sound of skating)


Meanwhile, the more creative landfill owners are forging ahead. They have to find a way to get rid

of their methane. But rather than seeing it as a waste product, they view it as a resource. Now,

they just have to find someone who’s willing to use it.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Other States to Join New York Lawsuit

Air pollution has always ignored state boundaries. And now, New York’s
top lawyer is crossing state lines, as well. For the first time, an
attorney general in one state is threatening to sue power plants in
another. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports, now
other states are considering joining the lawsuit:

Solving the Farm Odor Problem

The expansion of large scale hog and chicken farms continues to be acontroversial issue throughout much of the Midwest. The foul odor fromthe animal manure has angered rural residents. Now, scientists aretrying to minimize the stench by learning what makes manure smell sobad. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Steve Frenkel reports: