CARMA: website reveals emissions from more than 50,000 power plants worldwide
CARMA's database includes more than 50,000 power plants of different sizes, 4,000 power companies, and nearly 200,000 geographic regions in every country on Earth. Users can view carbon emissions data for the year 2000, the present, and future plans. And all of CARMA’s data is updated quarterly to reflect changes in plant ownership and planned construction. The maps and database show each power facility in a region and give the plant its own page that reveals its location, ownership, power production, and CO2 emissions. Users can select individual plants from interactive maps or lists, search for specific plants, or filter and sort the data in multiple ways. The data also show which type of fuel or primary energy input the power facility utilizes to generate electricity.
CARMA thus provides the world’s most detailed and comprehensive information on carbon emissions resulting from the production of electricity. Judging by the sheer number of red dots on the maps, the database shows that a transition to a cleaner, low carbon future is a tall order indeed. On a lighter note, CARMA, with its satellites and eyes in the skies, also offers the perfect place to indulge in power plant voyeurism.
We hope that CARMA will equip millions of concerned global citizens – consumers, investors, political leaders, managers, professionals, and community organizers – with the information they need to take action and build a low-carbon future. - CARMAThe initiative is based on the notion that public disclosure of critical information can have powerful effects on environmental performance. CGDev believes that the time is ripe for rapid reduction of carbon emissions, and CARMA is intended to be its contribution to this effort. As a think tank involved in addressing development questions, the CGDev is particularly concerned because global warming threatens to undermine the poverty-reduction efforts of many developing countries.
First results: Australians worst emitters
A first study based on CARMA has already yielded interesting results. It shows the extent to which developed countries produce more carbon dioxide per head than emerging economies. Australians were found to be the world's worst polluters per capita, producing five times as much CO2 from generating power as China. The US came second with eight tonnes of the greenhouse gas per head - 16 times more than that produced by India. The US also produced the most CO2 in total, followed by China:
energy :: sustainability :: fossil fuels :: biomass :: bioenergy :: nuclear :: renewables :: power plants :: climate change :: carbon emissions ::
CARMA points out that while US power plants emit the most CO2, releasing 2.5 billion tonnes into the atmosphere each year, Australian power stations are the least efficient on a per capita basis, with emissions of 10 tonnes, compared with the US's 8.2 tonnes.
China's power sector emits the second-highest total amount of carbon dioxide, pumping 2.4bn tonnes of the gas into the atmosphere annually. However, its emissions are only one fifth of Australia's when measured on a per capita basis.
CARMA's carbon worries
The bulk of humanity’s energy needs are currently met through the combustion of fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas. About 60% of global electricity generation relies upon fossil fuels to generate the heat needed to power steam-driven turbines. Burning these fuels results in the production of carbon dioxide (CO2) – the primary heat-trapping, “greenhouse gas” responsible for global warming.
Over the past two centuries, mankind has increased the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere from 280 to more than 380 parts per million volume, and it is growing faster every day. The atmospheric concentration of CO2 has not been this high for at least the past 650,000 years. As the concentration of CO2 has risen, so has the average temperature of the planet. Over the past century, the average surface temperature of Earth has increased by more than 1.3°F (0.74°C). If we continue to emit carbon without restraint, temperatures are expected to rise by an additional 6°F (3.4°C) by the end of this century.
Climate change of that magnitude would likely have serious consequences for life on Earth. Sea level rise, droughts, floods, intense storms, forest fires, water scarcity, and cardiorespiratory and tropical diseases would be exacerbated. Agricultural systems would be stressed – possibly decimated in some parts of the world. A conservative estimate suggests that 30% of all species are at risk of extinction given current trends. It would be the greatest extinction of life on Earth since the K-T extinction event that destroyed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. No one can imagine, never mind predict, the ecological consequences of such a radical loss of life.
Despite mounting evidence of the dangers posed by climate change, efforts to limit carbon emissions remain insufficient, ineffective, and, in most countries, non-existent. If the world is to avert the worst consequences of an altered climate, the status quo must change quickly. Given current trends and the best available scientific evidence, mankind probably needs to reduce total CO2 emissions by at least 80% by 2050. Yet each day emissions continue to grow.
In the absence of action on the part of governments, hundreds of millions of increasingly climate-conscious citizens can promote low-carbon alternatives by changing the ways they purchase, invest, vote, think, and live. CARMA thinks all we need is timely, accurate, publicly-available information about the choices we face. The Carbon Monitoring for Action website offers this information.
References:
CARMA project.
Center for Global Development: Confronting Climate Change Initiative.
BBCNews: Australians named worst emitters - November 14, 2007.
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Thursday, November 15, 2007
Large European ethanol maker hit by cheap Brazilian imports
Under such a Biopact, poor countries with large land and labor resources and urgently in need of economic and agricultural opportunities can help lift millions of the rural poor out of misery (previous post). Objectively speaking, they have all the resources needed to produce a very large amount of biofuels, in an explicitly sustainable manner (more here and here). With good policies and trade reform, such a mutually beneficial exchange relationship is possible. Important think tanks and international organisations - the FAO, the IEA (and here), the Global Bioenergy Partnership (and here), the UNIDO, the WorldWatch Institute and many others - have called for such a win-win situation. What is more, it would make an end to the unnecessary 'food versus fuel' debate, which is precisely driven by the fact that EU/US producers use grains like corn and wheat to make ethanol, while blocking far more efficient and less costly biofuels from the South.
Verbio posted [*German] a €600,000 net loss in January-September 2007 against a €25.7 million net profit in the same year-ago period. Nine month 2007 sales fell to €307.1 million from €325.7 million. The company said it had only produced on average about 50 percent of its total 300,000 tonnes annual German bioethanol production capacity in the first nine months of 2007. Bioethanol was produced at a loss because it could not compete with imports from Brazil and because its grain feedstock had reached record prices - the result of Europe's very own biofuel sector which utilizes grains instead of efficient tropical energy crops.
Brazilian ethanol thus pushes inefficient biofuels out of the European market, despite a high import tariff and despite massive subsidies for European producers:
Brazil's ethanol is highly competitive - currently about a third to fifty percent less costly than oil - and made from sugarcane, grown in the South of the country (more here). The International Energy Agency analysed the way in which the fuel is produced and deemed it to be largely sustainable (previous post). Sugarcane ethanol also has a much stronger energy and greenhouse gas balance than ethanol made from corn or wheat. Whereas corn ethanol reduces carbon emissions by only a fraction compared to gasoline (some say it can even add more), sugarcane ethanol reduces emissions by up to 80 percent. Likewise, whereas the energy balance for corn ethanol is barely positive (1 to 1 / 1.2), that of Brazilian ethanol is very strong (between 1 to 8 and 1 to 10).
What is more, according to the FAO's latest Food Outlook sugar prices have actually declined during 2006 and 2007, despite a record output of ethanol (more here). All other major agricultural commodities have seen their prices increase, partly because US/EU producers use them to make inefficient biofuels. In short, ethanol from wheat and corn pushes up food prices, ethanol from sugarcane does not:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: ethanol :: grain :: wheat :: corn :: efficiency :: Brazil :: Germany ::
In September, Verbio had said it was cutting bioethanol production at its 200,000 tonne plant in Schwedt in east Germany because of high grain prices and low bioethanol demand. The spokesperson declined to say how much the Schwedt plant was now working under capacity but it was less than 50 percent. But she said Schwedt will continue some production.
The company also has a second bioethanol plant in Zoerbig in east Germany producing about 100,000 tonnes annually which is not affected by the decision to run down output at Schwedt. Verbio has also been hit by rising prices for German grain which it uses as feedstock for both plants.
Verbio has successfully tested use of untreated alcohol, sugar syrup and sugar molasses as alternatives feedstocks to the grain currently used. The problem is that the major oil companies do not really want to use bioethanol and that the compulsory blending quotas are so low, the spokesperson added. This meant it was not worthwhile changing to new feedstocks.
German biofuel industry associations are pressing the government to raise minimum 2008 blending levels to 2.6 percent from 2 percent. If demand is increased the German ethanol industry could produce the fuel using alternative raw materials.
References:
Verbio: Biodieselgeschäft profitabel, EBIT-Marge 5,9% – Ethanol weiterhin deutlich unter den Erwartungen – Ausblick bestätigt - November 14, 2007.
Guardian: German bioethanol firm hit by cheap Brazil imports - November 14, 2007.
Biopact: Worldwatch Institute: biofuels may bring major benefits to world's rural poor - August 06, 2007
Biopact: Brazilian ethanol is sustainable and has a very positive energy balance - IEA report - October 08, 2006
Biopact: Nature sets the record straight on Brazilian ethanol - December 09, 2006
Biopact: FAO forecasts continued high cereal prices: bad weather, low stocks, soaring demand, biofuels, high oil prices cited as causes - November 07, 2007
Biopact: NREL: Brazilian ethanol does not harm the Amazon - July 12, 2007
Biopact: Worldwatch Institute chief: biofuels could end global malnourishment - August 23, 2007
Biopact: FAO chief calls for a 'Biopact' between the North and the South - August 15, 2007
Biopact: Report: biofuels key to achieving Millennium Development Goals in Africa - August 02, 2007
Biopact: IEA chief: Europe and United States should import ethanol from developing world - October 16, 2006
Biopact: IEA chief economist: EU, US should scrap tariffs and subsidies, import biofuels from the South - March 06, 2007
Biopact: Stiglitz explains reasons behind the demise of the Doha development round - August 15, 2006
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