Head for the Hills! Creatures Run from Global Warming

LiveScience.com, Yahoo News 12 Jun 08;

Global warming is forcing 30 species of reptiles and amphibians to move uphill as habitats shift upward, but they may soon run out of room to run.

The shift could cause at least two toad species and one species of gecko in Madagascar to go extinct by the end of this century, a biologist says.

Uphill movement is a predicted response to increased temperatures, researcher Christopher Raxworthy of the American Museum of Natural History says. Earlier studies in Costa Rica have provided evidence of how tropical animals respond to climate change.

The new research - based on surveys of Madagascar's amphibians and reptiles conducted in 1993 and 2003 and announced this week - extends that work, expanding the number and diversity of species that the trend affects, making a stronger link with meteorological changes, dealing with relatively large shifts in elevation, and assessing the extinction vulnerability for tropical communities in the mountains.

Nowhere to run

The animals that could go extinct are two species of narrow-mouth toads (Plethodontohyla tsarartananensis and Plethodontohyla sp. Z) and one species of gecko (Phelsuma l. punctulata) found in Madagascar's mountainous north, Raxworthy said.

Two of these species were not found again during the most recent 2003 survey. (And for the 30 species that were re-sampled between 1993 and 2003, the majority are already moving upslope to compensate for habitat loss at lower and warmer altitudes.) Extinction is expected to occur between 2050 and 2100 if current trends persist, because there will eventually be no higher ground, predict Raxworthy and his colleagues from the Universite d'Antananarivo in Madagascar, National Chung-Hsing University in Taiwan, University of Michigan and University of Oxford.

The prediction is based on a conservative scenario in which warming remains below 2 degrees C (3 degrees F). Warming above 2 degrees C is considered to be dangerous in terms of impacts on biodiversity.

"Obviously, more warming will put more species at risk," Raxworthy told LiveScience.

The results are detailed in a recent online issue of the journal Global Change Biology.

"Two things together - highly localized distribution close to the very highest summits, and the magnitude of these upslope shifts in response to ongoing warming - make a poisonous cocktail for extinction," Raxworthy said.

Almost-by-chance discovery

Raxworthy discovered the uphill migration almost by chance while in the field. On repeated surveys of northern Madagascar's mountains, the Tsaratanana Massif, he noticed that some species were missing from camps where they'd been previously observed.

Moreover, some of these "missing" species popped up at the next higher elevation surveyed.

"I noted this in the field as strange, but when I later sat down and looked at the data, the trend persisted," Raxworthy said. He culled elevation records and was able to compare surveys of animals over a 10-year period.

The results were dramatic. Among 30 species of geckos, skinks, chameleons and frogs, an average shift uphill of 62 to 167 feet (19 to 51 meters) was observed over the decade. When these results were compared with meteorological records and climate change simulations, the movement of animals could be linked to temperature increases of 0.18°F to 0.67°F (0.1°C to 0.37°C) over the same decade, which corresponds to an expected upslope movement of 59 to 243 feet (17 to 74 meters).

The results are strong because of the diversity of species included in the analyses, Raxworthy said.

The surveyed animals come from five different families of amphibians and reptiles - narrow-mouthed toads, mantelline frogs, chameleons, geckos and skinks (a large, diverse group of lizards).

"When you see a general trend across all these groups of organisms, it is likely to be related to a broad explanation like general temperature warming, not something more subtle such as seasonal variation," Raxworthy said.

Planning ahead

The direct link between observed movement up mountains, possible extinction and climate change has consequences for Madagascar's network of national parks.

The government of Madagascar currently plans to set aside 10 percent of its landmass for conservation purposes, and earlier research this year by Raxworthy and colleagues used the distribution of 2,300 species of animals to map the areas of this island nation that provide adequate habitat for all species.

"The Malagasy government is creating important new reserves and protecting forests. Sadly, however, with a phenomenon like global warming, species will move upslope, and so eventually may still lose all their habitat and go extinct," Raxworthy said. "This conservation problem thus requires a global solution."

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation.

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The ebb and flow of tidal power

Mark Kinver, BBC News 12 Jun 08;

In January, the UK government and Welsh Assembly launched a two-year feasibility study into the possibility of harnessing tidal energy in the Severn estuary in order to generate electricity.

It has the second largest tidal range in the world, which could be used to meet up to 5% of the UK's electricity needs.

Two forms of technology are being assessed by the study: tidal barrages and tidal lagoons.

The concepts are not new and there have been plans to tap into the river's resource since the middle of the 19th Century.

The big tidal range also makes the area an internationally important habitat for migrating birds.

Environmentalists say that a 16km (10 mile) barrage stretching from Cardiff to Weston-Super-Mare would destroy vital feeding sites.

The feasibility study, which is expected to conclude early in 2010, is tasked with identifying a "single preferred tidal range project" from a number of options proposed.

TIDAL ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES

There are two different types of systems that use tidal energy to generate electricity: tidal stream and tidal range.

Tidal stream systems utilise the energy in fast-flowing current to turn the blades of free-standing turbines, in a similar way that the wind turns turbines on land.

This technology is gaining favour because it has lower capital costs and is deemed to have a lower environmental impact than tidal range systems.

Tidal range technology, such as barrages and lagoons, exploits the potential energy in the height difference between high and low tides (known as the tidal range).

It works by impounding a large volume of water at high tide, which is then released at low tide through a bank of turbines.Because the tidal range of up to 14m (46ft) in the Severn estuary is the second largest in the world, technologies that can exploit the energy of the twice-daily tide, such as barrages and lagoons, are seen as the preferred option.

Also, engineers say that the relatively shallow waters within the estuary make it unsuitable for tidal stream devices, which need to be placed within depths of about 30m (100ft) or more in order to operate most effectively.

SEVERN BARRAGE PROPOSALS

Although there are a number of proposals for tidal barrages stretching across the Bristol Channel, the feasibility study is likely to concentrate on two options.

The first is the widely reported scheme that plans to build a 16.1km (10 mile) barrage from just south of Cardiff across to the Somerset coast, near Weston-Super-Mare.
The other is the "Shoots" proposal, a much smaller project that would see a 4.1km (2.5 mile) barrage stretch across the Severn at roughly the same point at the current two road crossings.

The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC), the government's independent advisers, published a report in October 2007 that examined the potential of tidal power around the UK's coastline.

In it, The SDC compared the two proposals:
(Source: Sustainable Development Commission)

The Commission's report estimated that the large Cardiff-Weston plan would cost in the region of £15bn to construct, while the smaller Shoots scheme would require £1.5bn.

If given the green light, the barrage is expected to take about 12 years to build.

Although the construction of a barrage would be a complex undertaking, engineers say the basic concept is well understood and the technology is also commercially available.

The La Rance barrage in northern France, which has been generating electricity since the 1960s, is often used as an example of how tidal power can be successfully utilised.

SEVERN LAGOON PROPOSALS

Tidal lagoons operate in a similar way to barrages in that they exploit the difference in tidal height to generate electricity.

However, the structures do not fully obstruct the estuary; they are either free standing offshore or use the shoreline to form part of the lagoon's edge.
The schemes are generally considered to be technically feasible from an engineering point of view, but there are currently no examples of an operating lagoon in the world.

Although the feasibility study will consider possible locations for the lagoons, the most well-known proposal in the past was the "Russell lagoon" concept, which was a series of three enclosures built against the banks of the Severn.

The SDC estimated that the Russell scheme would have been capable of generating about 6.5 gigawatt hours of electricity each year.

Because there are no operational lagoons, there is a degree of uncertainty over how much electricity they can produce.

For the same reason, experts say that it is also difficult to estimate how much it would cost to construct a tidal energy lagoon.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS

The Severn estuary is subject to a series of national and international designations that are aimed at protecting the area's unique habitat.

In its 2003 Energy White Paper, the UK government even decided that the construction of a tidal barrage was not a good idea because the project raised "strong environmental concerns".

However, it did add that officials would continue to explore opportunities.

The key concern relates to the loss of inter-tidal feeding areas for water birds.

Groups such as the RSPB and WWF say that if the Cardiff-Weston project went ahead, much of this vital feeding area that currently supports tens of thousands of migrating and wintering birds would be permanently submerged.

Recognising this concern, the SDC recommended that any project given the green light would have to be in "full compliance" with EU habitat and wildlife directives.

The Commission also stated that it was vital compensatory habitat was provided "on an unprecedented scale" in order to replace the lost feeding sites.

The SDC added that it was essential for the scheme to be publicly funded and publicly owned in order to ensure compliance to the environmental legislation.

A report commissioned by a number of organisations, including the RSPB and WWF, said that it would be a waste of public money because other renewable energy sources, such as wind, would be more efficient and effective.

Friends of the Earth Wales compiled a report backing the use of tidal lagoons in the area.

Although a scheme such as the Russell lagoons would cover about 60% of area affected by the Cardiff-Weston proposal, the environmental group argued that it would leave much of the inter-tidal mudflats and salt marshes unaffected.

However, the SDC report concluded that it did not "consider that a large-scale tidal lagoon development in the Severn estuary would offer any environmental or economic advantage over a tidal barrage".

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UK Severn barrage will be costly ecological disaster, say environment groups

John Vidal, The Guardian 12 Jun 08;

Britain's largest environment groups have strongly rejected plans for a massive £15bn tidal barrage across the Severn that would provide about 5% of the UK's annual electricity demand and help the government meet climate-change targets.

In the first shots of what is expected to become one of the fiercest environmental battles in years, the groups, which include the National Trust, the RSPB and WWF, but not Greenpeace, have challenged the government to find cheaper and less destructive ways of generating renewable electricity from the estuary.

Britain will need to generate nearly 40% of its electricity from renewable resources by 2020 to meet its EU targets, and a 10-mile long tidal barrage with 200 turbines between Cardiff and Weston-super-Mare is widely seen in government as one of the most attractive options. Plans for a barrage have been proposed for more than 100 years.

But the coalition of 10 groups, with a membership of more than 5 million people, says a barrage would be economically dubious and ecologically disastrous. It would, the coalition says, destroy nearly 86,486 acres (35,000 ha) of highly protected wetlands across the estuary. More power could be generated more cheaply by using other green technologies, the group says.

Their report, commissioned from the economics consultancy Frontier Economics, follows a study last year by the government's environmental advisers, the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC).

The commission found in favour of a barrage on condition that it be state funded and that the lost wetlands be compensated for elsewhere. The government is now doing its own feasibility studies.

The report challenges the idea that tidal energy from the Severn would be best for Britain. "The cycle of the tides in the Severn means that a barrage would not necessarily provide electricity at peak times."

It also suggests 5m tonnes of CO2 will be emitted during construction and another 5m tonnes emitted during transport of the materials - undermining claims that the barrage would help reduce emissions.

The group says that the real cost could be much higher than the widely quoted £15bn. "This does not take into account costs of land acquisition in Cardiff and Weston or the creation of new wildlife habitats to compensate for the lost land."

The coalition also rejects the SDC condition that the barrage be built and run by the state as it would be of such national importance. This, says the report's author, Matthew Bell, would not be permitted under Treasury rules, and would not, anyway, warrant special government subsidies or other forms of public investment. Bell said: "It is hard to think of reasons for the public sector to build or operate a barrage which would not be equally applicable to many other projects and assets that sit in the private sector. Not only is the private sector more than able to finance a scheme of this scale but, even using the most conservative estimates of costs, the barrage is one of the most expensive options for clean energy generation there is."

Graham Wynne, chief executive of the RSPB, said: "There are good reasons for trying to harness the energy potential of the Severn estuary. But the estuary is truly exceptional for its ecological value. The [SDC] has already confirmed that a barrage would fundamentally change the nature of the estuary. Frontier's report shows that this exorbitantly expensive and massively damaging proposal cannot be justified on economic grounds - there are simply too many cheaper options for clean energy generation."

Tony Burton, strategy director at the National Trust, said: "The Severn estuary is a unique and valuable asset, rich in wildlife and striking landscapes. While we support strong action to tackle climate change, we need to do this in a cost-effective way and respect the importance of our natural environment. This study demonstrates that the government should consider other ways of meeting our renewable targets which make better use of public money and are at less cost to the environment."

The land that would be submerged hosts about 68,000 birds in winter, including huge flocks of dunlins and shelducks, together with Bewick's swans, curlews, pintails, wigeons and redshanks. Breeding birds feeding on the estuary in summer include curlews, shelducks and oystercatchers. At least 30,000 salmon and tens of thousands of shads, lampreys and sea trout use the estuary to reach spawning grounds in the Usk and Wye rivers. Eels swim back down these rivers to reach spawning grounds at sea and millions of elvers return in the spring.

Severn barrage cost 'cannot be justified'
Paul Eccleston, The Telegraph 12 Jun 08;

The huge cost of building a controversial barrage across the Severn Estuary to produce electricity cannot be justified, a new economic study concludes.

It would be wrong to use £15bn of taxpayers' money to build the barrier when as much power could be produced more cheaply from other renewable sources.

Conservation groups have warned construction of the proposed 10-mile barrage from Cardiff to Weston-Super-Mare would cause an environmental disaster at an internationally important wetlands site which supports a wide variety of wildlife.

But supporters, including the government's advisory group, the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC), say it could supply almost five per cent of the UK's total energy needs and would be a big step in meeting the target of 20 per cent of all energy from renewable sources by 2020.

Ten UK environment groups commissioned Frontier Economics, Europe's leading economic consultancy, to look at the economics of building the barrage and whether it would deliver value for money.

Their study concluded that it would be wrong to use public funds to build the barrage and that under current Treasury rules it would not qualify for special Government subsidies or any other form of public investment.

And a barrage harnessing the tidal power of the Severn estuary would be a much more expensive way of generating power than developing other renewable technologies such as wind and biomass.

There were enough resources in wind alone to meet the Government's target of obtaining 20 per cent of electricity from renewables by 2020 and big offshore wind farms could generate the same amount of energy at around half the annual cost of a barrage.

While wind alone could not deliver on the overall target of 20 per cent of all energy from renewables it could be met from using a range of sustainable sources.

The Frontier analysis will now feed into the Government's multi-million pound study on the feasibility of building a barrage.

The report's author, Matthew Bell, said: "It is hard to think of reasons for the public sector to build or operate a barrage which would not be equally applicable to many other projects and assets that sit in the private sector.

"Not only is the private sector more than able to finance a scheme of this scale but, even using the most conservative estimates of costs, the barrage is one of the most expensive options for clean energy generation there is."

A smaller alternative scheme is for a "shoots" barrage further upriver which would cost around £1.5 billion but it would have a capacity of 1.05GW compared to 8.6GW from the larger scheme equivalent to 4.4 per cent of the UK's total electricity needs.

The SDC study released last year said any such barrage should be publicly built and owned to ensure it was sustainable and was of public benefit.

Graham Wynne, Chief Executive of the RSPB, one of the groups which commissioned the study, said: "There are good reasons for trying to harness the energy potential of the Severn estuary. But the estuary is truly exceptional for its ecological value.

The SDC has already confirmed that a barrage would fundamentally change the nature of the Severn Estuary. Frontier's report shows that this exorbitantly expensive and massively damaging proposal cannot be justified on economic grounds - there are simply too many cheaper options for clean energy generation."

Dr Stephen Marsh-Smith, Chief Executive of the Wye and Usk Foundation, said: "Construction of this barrage would wipe out all the migratory fish including salmon and shad using the Severn estuary.

"It will be a disaster if this barrage is chosen to generate electricity when we know it isn't the best way of doing so. There are so many other options that would spare what is a unique pair of rivers and the huge rural economies attached to them."

Concern over tidal barrage cost
BBC News 12 Jun 08;

The power generated by the proposed Severn Barrage could be produced more cheaply using other green technologies, a report says.

The £15bn dam across the Severn estuary from Cardiff to Weston-Super-Mare in Somerset could supply 5% of the UK's electricity within 14 years.

But an independent report commissioned by 10 environmental groups said it was not a good use of taxpayers' money.

Campaigners have also spelt out the damage to wildlife it could cause.

A feasibility study by the Welsh Assembly Government and the UK Government into the barrage, which could stretch from Lavernock Point, near Cardiff, to Brean Down, near Weston-Super-Mare, was announced in January.

It would harness the tidal power of the estuary using a hydro-electric dam, but filled by the incoming tide rather than by water flowing downstream.

The government previously said the scale of the 10-mile barrage and the impact it could have on securing energy supplies and tackling climate change was "breathtaking".

But a report published by Frontier Economics, an economic consultancy, said the barrage would be an expensive option compared to other renewable energy and the government's renewable energy target could probably be met using cheaper green technologies.

It said: "Considerable new evidence would be needed to make a large barrage in the Severn estuary an attractive option."

The research comes after a report in October by the Sustainable Development Commission which said if the barrage was built, it should be state-funded and state-run.

But Frontier said under existing Treasury rules this would mean it would not be eligible for special government subsidies or public investment.

Matthew Bell, author of the report, said: "Not only is the private sector more than able to finance a scheme of this scale but, even using the most conservative estimates of costs, the barrage is one of the most expensive options for clean energy there is."

It is not just the economic cost that environmentalists are concerned about.

They have also warned of the "ecological destruction" a barrage could bring.

Campaigners say some 14,000 hectares of saltmarsh and mudflats would be lost through the building of a large barrage, resulting in the loss of migratory birds that nest there.

It would also hit the fish populations of the Severn, Wye and Usk rivers, which all flow into the estuary above the point where the dam would be built.

Mark Lloyd, director of the Anglers' Conservation Association, said salmon in particular would be lost.

"The salmon population of the Wye and Usk is very important in maintaining a species but also economically, the Wye and Usk rely really heavily on salmon fishing for income," he said.

He added migratory fish would be playing "Russian roulette" with the barrage's turbines at every tide.

The Frontier Economics report was commissioned by the Anglers' Conservation Association, RSPB, Salmon & Trout Association, The National Trust, The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, The Wildlife Trusts, United Usk Fisherman's Association, WWF-UK, Wye Salmon Fishery Owners Group, Wye and Usk Foundation.

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Water squabbles irrigate tensions in Central Asia

Maria Golovnina, Reuters 12 Jun 08;

VAKHDAT, Tajikistan (Reuters) - Under a scorching sun, an exhausted Tajik woman looks at a drying trickle of irrigation water running across her cotton field.

"Water is all we have," said Gulbakhor, a 55-year-old mother of nine, pointing at swathes of parched land stretching towards the austere mountains of central Tajikistan. She did not want to give her last name.

"But all the ponds and rivers are dry. We need to water our crop but we don't have enough even for ourselves."

Gulbakhor's despair, shared by millions of Tajiks in this tiny ex-Soviet nation north of Afghanistan, reflects a growing sense of alarm throughout Central Asia where stability depends on the region's scarcest and most precious commodity: water.

From tiny irrigation canals such as Gulbakhor's to the powerful Soviet-era hydroelectric plants, water is the source of misery and celebration in a poor region already overflowing with political and ethnic tension.

Central Asia is one of the world's driest places where, thanks to 70 years of Soviet planning, thirsty crops such as cotton and grain remain the main livelihood for most of the 58 million people.

Disputes over cross-border water use have simmered for years in this sprawling mass of land wedged between Iran, Russia and China. Afghanistan, linked to Central Asia by the Amu Daria river, is adding to the tension by claiming its own share of the water.

Water shortages are causing concern the world over, because of rising demand, climate change and swelling populations.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said water scarcity is a "potent fuel for wars and conflict".

Analysts say this year's severe weather fluctuations in Central Asia -- from a record cold winter to devastating spring floods and now drought -- are causing extra friction.

"Water is very political. It's very sensitive. It can be a pretext for disputes or conflicts," said Christophe Bosch, a Central Asia water expert at the World Bank. "It is one of the major irritants between countries in Central Asia."

WASTE

In the Tajik village of Sangtuda, a scattering of huts in a dusty, sun-puckered valley near the border with Afghanistan, villagers showed their only source of water: a rusty pipe pumping muddy water from a Soviet-era reservoir.

"We are lucky. There are villages around with no water at all," said Khikoyat Shamsiddinova, an elderly farmer who said she had started planting drought-tolerant peas and watermelons -- a small boost to her household income.

Water scarcity is particularly painful for Tajikistan since its glaciers and rivers contain some of the world's biggest untapped water resources. A Soviet-era legacy of waste and decaying pipe networks are hampering sustainable distribution.

The World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and a host of European non-governmental organizations are helping Tajikistan build new canals and wells and repair the old ones.

Efficient water management requires advanced engineering expertise in water saving and resource planning in a region where most water simply vanishes into the ground if the irrigation timing is incorrect, experts say.

"If you look at quantity, yes, you have a lot of it, but it is not a question of quantity but quality and timing," said the World Bank's Bosch. "That's the problem in Central Asia."

The problems are having an effect far beyond farming. Lacking oil and gas reserves like some of its neighbors, Tajikistan depends on its sole Soviet-era hydroelectric plant, Nurek, to generate power.

Its crumbling power grid -- ruined by civil war in the 1990s -- finally gave out last winter, throwing hospitals, schools and millions of people into the dark and cold for weeks.

Makhmadnabi, a villager with a tired, weather-beaten faced, said people were becoming impatient. "The government must do something about it. People are gloomy," he said.

With a foreign debt worth 40 percent of the economy and state coffers empty, Tajikistan is unable to finance urgent sector reform, adding to discontent and potential unrest in an otherwise tightly run country where dissent is not tolerated.

"There is definitely a build-up of dissatisfaction," said one Western diplomat who asked not be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. "People will have to go through another winter of dark and cold and then they will realize that something's wrong."

WORRYING TREND

There have been no outward signs of anger, but the trend is a worry for Western powers watching the strategically placed country for signs of trouble.

In April, parliament urged Tajiks to give up half their wages in May and June to help finish construction of the $3 billion Rogun hydroelectric plant -- a project seen as key to solving energy shortages but which has been frozen since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

"I urge all the patriots and sons of our land to take active part in constructing the first phase of the plant and add your contribution to the country's energy independence," Tajik President Imomali Rakhmon was quoted as saying in local media on May 31.

In Soviet days, water management was unified under Moscow's control, which linked Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, whose rivers and glaciers contain more than 90 percent of Central Asian water, with the arid plains of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.

The system fell apart when Soviet rule collapsed. With national rivalries on the rise, the new states have been unable to agree on how to share their water effectively.

Uzbekistan, Central Asia's most populous nation and a big gas producer, is angry that poor Tajikistan has the leverage to influence water levels in its cotton plains -- a powerful political tool.

Farmers in Kazakhstan, for their part, accuse Uzbekistan of dumping fertiliser in its rivers. Tajik officials complain that foreign investment in its hydroelectric sector has stalled because of fears of conflict with Uzbekistan.

A Chinese company pulled out of a project to build a power station on a Tajik river last year because of what Tajik industry sources said was China's reluctance to get involved in Central Asian bickering.

Observers agree that only cooperation between the five "stans" of Central Asia can provide sustainable water use.

"Countries should be able to do this as independent entities," said another Western diplomat, who also preferred not to be identified. "They're not children. They are grown-up members of the international community."

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U.S. cities promote bicycling as gas prices soar

Jon Hurdle, Reuters 12 Jun 08;

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - U.S. cities that have long promoted bicycle use by commuters are now seeing a steady rise in the popularity of pedal power as gasoline prices soar.

Campaigns originally designed to cut down on traffic and pollution are now paying off for people looking for an option to driving with national gas prices averaging a record $4 per gallon.

People in cities such as Chicago, Washington and Portland, Oregon, can take advantage of bicycle lanes, bike-friendly transit systems and bike-parking locations built in recent years.

"Twelve years ago, I would bike down to City Hall and often it was a lonely ride," said Ben Gomberg, Chicago's bicycle program coordinator. "Today, there are often 17 or 18 riders stopped at the intersections."

Unlike Europeans, Americans use bikes for transport sparingly, even though 40 percent of personal trips in the United States are two miles or less, according to bicycle advocates.

In a country famous for its love of cars and driving, less than 1 percent of personal trips are by bike compared with up to 30 percent in some parts of Europe, campaigners say.

But rates of bike use in some U.S. cities are significantly higher thanks to recognition by urban planners of the environmental, economic and health benefits.

In Portland, widely regarded as America's most bike-friendly city, 5.4 percent of people said in a 2006 survey that the bicycle was their primary means of getting to work.

"In the last three years, we reached another acceleration point," said Scott Bricker, executive director of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, an advocacy group. "Ridership is increasing exponentially."

GETTING INTO GEAR

The relative popularity of bicycling in Portland may be linked to bike lanes, locking facilities and programs that encourage public bicycling and safety education for children.

The city has 171 miles of bike lanes along its 2,568 miles of roadways and plans to increase that to 434 miles. Portland has 71 miles of bike trails and a third of its arterial roads have bike lanes or paved shoulders.

Portland's network includes 114 miles of "bicycle boulevards" -- quiet streets where bikes have priority over cars and where traffic speed is restricted.

Those boulevards may be a better way of encouraging riding than traditional bike lanes where riders are still close to speeding cars, Bricker said.

In Chicago, pro-bike policies have resulted in 115 miles

of bike lanes, more than 11,000 bike racks and 50 miles of dedicated bike paths along Lake Michigan, Gomberg said.

Around 1.5 percent of personal trips in Chicago are made by bike and the city aims to boost that to 5 percent by 2015.

In Washington, the proportion of people biking to work rose from 1.2 percent in 2000 to an estimated 2 percent in 2006, said Jim Sebastian, who heads the U.S. capital's bicycle and pedestrian program.

Bike lanes in Washington now stretch to 33 miles -- 11 times longer than in 2001 -- and more than half of the city's subway stops now have bike racks.

Later this summer, Washington plans to launch the first U.S. bike-sharing program in which users will pay $40 a year for a swipe card enabling them to pick up a bike from racks around the city and then return them to any other rack.

(Editing by Daniel Trotta and John O'Callaghan)

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High oil price a good way to reduce global warming

Anthony Rowley, Business Times 13 Jun 08;

COMING from a former diplomat, the call last weekend by Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd to G-8 energy ministers meeting in Japan to 'hold a blow-torch' to Opec and force the cartel to increase production could not have been less diplomatic, if not to say less egregious. A return to cheaper oil might boost economic growth in the short term but it would also set our already sick planet on a course towards destruction.

A high oil price is the most effective form of 'carbon tax' and the only one likely to bring about what Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda described this week as a needed 'carbon revolution'. It is the ultimate market solution and, as advocates of economic liberalism are so fond of telling us, markets operate more efficiently than governments in allocating resources.

Consider what is happening already as a result of the de-facto tax imposed on energy consumption by the sharp rise in oil prices. Airlines are being forced to cut flight schedules, gas-guzzling SUVs are being abandoned in favour of smaller vehicles and, most importantly, the search for non-carbon or minimum carbon forms of power generation and transport has moved into high gear.

Painful and costly though such a transition may be in the short to medium term, it is surely better that it be enforced through the price mechanism than through more complex forms of bureaucratically administered carbon taxes, through carbon trading mechanisms by which industrial firms can 'buy' the right to emit carbon in return for offsetting actions elsewhere, or through 'cap and trade systems' etc.

Thanks to the efforts of environmental champions from Al Gore downwards, a great many people now take the problem of global warming very seriously. Many, indeed, are already suffering from its effects. But they are confused about how to respond to it, and many fail to understand the complexities of proposed official solutions.

Take, for example, the fat (640-page) report issued last week by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris. Bursting though this was with data on global warming, energy conservation, alternative energy sources and so on, it was hardly the kind of document that will have popular appeal. It is based largely on the premise that a high 'price' must be put on carbon, so that the cost of emitting carbon dioxide or CO2 becomes prohibitive.

But pricing carbon via specially created markets is a complex exercise and one which, if the recent past is any guide, could take a long time - too long - to be accepted, let alone implemented.

For the moment, the market is pricing carbon through the cost of oil, and Mr Rudd's simplistic suggestions could only damage this process, if indeed they had any affect at all. As the G-8 energy ministers acknowledged, a host of factors including the lack of investment in new refinery capacity is limiting the supply of oil.

Other factors such as commodity speculation and the weak American dollar are contributing to the high cost of oil but none of these could have caused the dramatic surge in prices that we have seen over the past year had not the demand side been conducive to this rise. It is not so much extraordinary that the price of oil should have catapulted to current levels as that this was not foreseen, in the light of industrial revolutions in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries and in other parts of the developing world.

The market is intermediating between the new balance of supply and demand via the price mechanism and it is no more possible to mask this effect for any length of time than it was possible for governments in Asia and elsewhere to try to shield their populations from market reality by subsidising the cost of energy in various ways. The high oil prices focus our minds on the need to conserve energy and to find alternative sources in a way that no end of official reports and contrived carbon pricing mechanisms can.

Yes, the oil price represents a 'regressive' tax in the sense that high energy costs weigh most heavily on the poor in terms of cooking and heating costs. But the impact on petrol prices strikes also at the more wealthy, especially those whose consumption is profligate by virtue of using gas-guzzling vehicles, or jet-setting around the world leaving a trail of pollution in their wake.

Some may argue that the world can better afford the cost of energy conservation (US$45 trillion if CO2 emissions are to be reduced to half their current levels by the year 2050, according to the IEA) if the global economy is growing strongly, and that high oil prices prevent this. But against this, one can argue that nothing focuses the mind like the threat of execution (effective destruction of the planet) and that the greatest innovations come in time of war (against global warming).

If we seek to 'kill the messenger' (high oil prices), we will fail to see the enemy at our gates until it is too late.

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How Truckers Could Save 2.4 Billion Gallons of Fuel Per Year

Robert Roy Britt, LiveScience.com Yahoo News 12 Jun 08;

Old technology could get a new lease on life as fuel prices skyrocket.

In the late 1990s, researchers at Georgia Tech Research Institute began drawing from 1980s aerospace technology to develop several diesel-saving aerodynamic tricks for 18-wheelers. Their results were announced in 2005. Back then, however, diesel was cheap so the tricks never became part of the trade.

Today, the leader of all that research said the trucking companies are calling him.

"The dramatic increase in diesel prices has led the trucking industry to reconsider aerodynamic fuel efficiency improvements that might not have been cost effective only a few years ago," said Georgia Tech's Robert Englar.

"Though there are technical challenges ahead, we believe our techniques for improving fuel efficiency offer significant potential to reduce the impact of these fuel cost increases. Beyond the trucking industry, that would help consumers who see the effects of fuel costs in everything they buy."

What a drag

Englar's team, with support from the U.S. Department of Energy, came up with several simple solutions to reduce aerodynamic drag and improve fuel efficiency by 8 to 12 percent in the heavy trucks. All told, the tricks could save between 1.6 billion and 2.4 billion gallons of fuel per year, they estimate.

The focus was on trailers. While trucks already have fairings and other streamlining parts, little has been done to address drag on trailers, the researchers say.

Englar and colleagues developed pneumatic devices that blow air from slots at the rear of the trailers. The jets smooth the flow of air to eliminate bad things such as air-flow separation, vorticity and suction on the aft doors.

Other improvements include rounding aft trailer corners and installing fairings around wheels.

Englar said that lately he has received numerous inquiries from trucking companies large and small as well as from railroads.

Ongoing research

The research has continued, using wind tunnels and drawing on studies of military jets done in the 1980s. The scientists also run real trucks for 45 miles at highway speeds on a test track to gauge fuel savings. Aerodynamic drag can be cut by up to 31 percent, they found.

"Aerodynamically, we have resolved unknowns raised in earlier testing, and the next step is to get this into a fleet of trucks for more extensive testing," Englar said. "At highway speeds, each one percent improvement in fuel economy would result in saving about 200 million gallons of fuel for the U.S. heavy truck fleet."

Englar still needs to figure out a more efficient air compressor setup to run the pneumatic system.

An interesting added benefit: The pneumatic system can also act like brakes.

"The pneumatic systems can turn a low-drag configuration into a high-drag configuration very rapidly, providing a lot more braking power," Englar said. "By turning the trailer into a non-moving pneumatic rudder, blowing can also restore directional stability should the truck be operating in destabilizing high side winds."

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Climate chaos is inevitable. We can only avert oblivion

At best we will limit the extent of global warming, but Kyoto barely helps. Does humanity have the foresight to save itself?

Mark Lynas, The Guardian 12 Jun 08;

Sometimes we need to think the unthinkable, particularly when dealing with a problem as dangerous as climate change - there is no room for dogma when considering the future habitability of our planet.

It was in this spirit that I and a panel of other specialists in climate, economics and policy-making met under the aegis of the Stockholm Network thinktank to map out future scenarios for how international policy might evolve - and what the eventual impact might be on the earth's climate.

We came up with three alternative visions of the future, and asked experts at the Met Office Hadley Centre to run them through its climate models to give each a projected temperature rise. The results were both surprising, and profoundly disturbing.

We gave each scenario a name. The most pessimistic was labelled "agree and ignore" - a world where governments meet to make commitments on climate change, but then backtrack or fail to comply with them. Sound familiar? It should: this scenario most closely resembles the past 10 years, and it projects emissions on an upward trend until 2045. A more optimistic scenario was termed "Kyoto plus": here governments make a strong agreement in Copenhagen in 2009, binding industrialised countries into a new round of Kyoto-style targets, with developing countries joining successively as they achieve "first world" status. This scenario represents the best outcome that can plausibly result from the current process - but ominously, it still sees emissions rising until 2030.

The third scenario - called "step change" - is worth a closer look. Here we envisaged massive climate disasters around the world in 2010 and 2011 causing a sudden increase in the sense of urgency surrounding global warming. Energised, world leaders ditch Kyoto, abandoning efforts to regulate emissions at a national level. Instead, they focus on the companies that produce fossil fuels in the first place - from oil and gas wells and coal mines - with the UN setting a global "upstream" production cap and auctioning tradable permits to carbon producers. Instead of all the complexity of regulating squabbling nations and billions of people, the price mechanism does the work: companies simply pass on their increased costs to consumers, and demand for carbon-intensive products begins to fall. The auctioning of permits raises trillions of dollars to be spent smoothing the transition to a low-carbon economy and offsetting the impact of price rises on the poor. A clear long-term framework puts a price on carbon, giving business a strong incentive to shift investment into renewable energy and low-carbon manufacturing. Most importantly, a strong carbon cap means that global emissions peak as early as 2017.

This "upstream cap" approach is not a new idea, and our approach draws in particular on a forthcoming book by the environmental writer Oliver Tickell. However, conventional wisdom from governments and environmental groups alike insists that "Kyoto is the only game in town", and that proposing any alternative is dangerous heresy.

But let's look at the modelled temperature increases associated with each scenario. "Agree and ignore" sees temperatures rise by 4.85C by 2100 (with a 90% probability); for "Kyoto plus", it's 3.31C; and "step change" 2.89C. This is the depressing bit: no politically plausible scenario we could envisage will now keep the world below the danger threshold of two degrees, the official target of both the EU and UK. This means that all scenarios see the total disappearance of Arctic sea ice; spreading deserts and water stress in the sub-tropics; extreme weather and floods; and melting glaciers in the Andes and Himalayas. Hence the need to focus far more on adaptation: these are impacts that humanity is going to have to deal with whatever now happens at the policy level.

But the other great lesson is that sticking with current policy is actually a very risky option, rather than a safe bet. Betting on Kyoto could mean triggering the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet and crossing thresholds that involve massive methane release from melting Siberian permafrost. If current policy continues to fail - along the lines of the "agree and ignore" scenario - then 50% to 80% of all species on earth could be driven to extinction by the magnitude and rapidity of warming, and much of the planet's surface left uninhabitable to humans. Billions, not millions, of people would be displaced.

So which way will it go? Ultimately the difference between the scenarios is one of political will: the question now is whether humanity can summon up the courage and foresight to save itself, or whether business as usual - on climate policy as much as economics - will condemn us all to climatic oblivion.

· Mark Lynas is the author of Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet

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U.N. climate talks seek clearer ideas

Alister Doyle, Reuters 12 Jun 08;

BONN (Reuters) - A U.N. climate conference urged governments on Thursday to come up with clearer ideas for a new treaty to slow global warming after criticism from delegates that progress was too slow.

The June 2-13 talks are the second this year in a series meant to end in Copenhagen in December 2009 with a new climate treaty. Debate covered issues such as green technology, financing the fight against climate change and helping poor nations to adapt.

Hoping to speed work on the building blocks of a hugely complex treaty, the 170-nation talks agreed to "invite parties to submit ideas and proposals", especially in writing to sharpen focus. A next session will be held in Ghana in August.

"You are going to pin down people to say exactly what they want," said Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat. He told reporters the talks needed more details, for instance on how to raise funds to help developing nations.

Many nations said progress was too sluggish after the U.N. Climate Panel warned the world last year that rising temperatures are set to bring more droughts, higher sea levels, crop failures, melting glaciers and more heatwaves.

"This is going too slowly," the European Union said in a statement read by Thomas Becker of Denmark. "We could easily intensify the way we have been working."

"While the scientific evidence is universally recognized, we are yet to see the urgency in the response of the parties," Byron Blake of Antigua and Barbuda said on behalf of the group of 77 developing countries and China.

Environmentalists also said there was a lack of initiatives in Bonn with 536 days left before the Copenhagen conference.

FEEBLE

"Progress at the end of this second round in a series of U.N. Climate negotiations is feeble," the WWF environmental group said. "The EU has not shown any substantial initiative or move forward."

Still, some saw progress in the talks on a deal to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which obliges 37 developed nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases up to 2012.

"This is the first time people are really getting down to serious business ... zooming in on technology, finance and adaptation," de Boer told reporters. "It's a negotiation, not just a friendly discussion any more."

The United States is largely on the sidelines -- President George W. Bush will leave office in January 2009 and has been at odds with his main allies by staying out of the Kyoto Protocol, rating it too costly and flawed for omitting developing nations.

The United States, roughly even with China as the top emitter of greenhouse gases, has agreed to join a new treaty.

The meeting also asked the U.N. climate experts to prepare technical papers about the agriculture sector, mechanisms such as insurance to offset climate risks, and more information about likely investments needed in financial flows.

Among proposals, favored by India and Canada, were to help developing nations to build nuclear power plants as part of a plan to expand a fast-growing U.N. scheme for curbing greenhouse gases.

Nuclear power is the most contentious option for widening a U.N. mechanism under which rich nations can invest abroad, for instance in an Indian wind farm or a hydropower dam in Peru, and get credit at home for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

"It's one of the issues that needs to be considered," de Boer said of nuclear power.

(Editing by Robert Woodward)

UN climate chief spurs talks on new global warming pact
Richard Ingham, Yahoo News 12 Jun 08;

UN climate chief Yvo de Boer called on industrialised countries on Thursday to start showing some of their cards in a slow-paced poker game whose prize is a new pact to tackle global warming.

De Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said talks unfolding among senior officials here marked "the first time that people are getting down to serious negotiations" for a historic deal in Copenhagen in December next year.

But, he warned, many positions had so far been "incredibly generic" and this problem of vagueness among industrialised countries was especially worrying.

The June 3-13 Bonn talks should issue "a very clear call on governments to start submitting their ideas on what should be the key elements of a Copenhagen outcome," said de Boer.

He warned: "Politically, if Copenhagen fails we would be in huge trouble. I think that people would then begin to question the utility of this process."

Last December, parties to the UNFCCC set down a "Bali Roadmap" of talks designed to climax in the most ambitious and complex environmental treaty ever attempted.

The post-2012 pact would succeed the current pledges made under the UNFCCC's cornerstone accord, the Kyoto Protocol.

It would commit countries to deeper curbs on the heat-trapping gases that are driving climate change.

And it would beef up the transfer of clean technology to poorer economies and strengthen financial support for those countries most at risk from water stress, rising sea levels and other damage.

The green group WWF cautioned on Thursday that "only" 536 days remained until Copenhagen.

"The ideas put on the table are only (being) translated into shopping lists rather than blueprints for negotiations," it said.

WWF urged Japan, as host of next month's summit in Hokkaido, gathering the Group of Eight (G8) and the five major economies of the developing world, to give the flagging process a boost.

Looking at specifics, de Boer said developing countries were still awaiting a signal from industrialised economies about what they intended to put on the table, especially "the critical ingredient" of money.

According to UNFCCC figures, 150 billion euros -- more than 200 billion dollars -- will have to be mustered each year by 2030.

One potential cash cow is the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), under which rich countries help environmentally-friendly projects in poor countries, in such fields as cleaner energy and waste handling.

The carbon pollution averted through the scheme is transformed into credits that can be sold or deducted from the rich country's emissions quota under Kyoto.

A levy of two percent is applied to the CDM to help mobilise resources for developing countries.

A total of 1,081 CDM projects worth 13 billion dollars have been registered in 49 countries, with the potential to avert 152 million tonnes of carbon pollution by 2012.

On present trends, the two-percent levy should provide between 10 and 50 million dollars a year in resources by 2012.

But this income could rise to "some 100 billion dollars annually" if, for the post-2012 period, industrialised countries agree to reduce their emissions by 60 to 80 percent by 2050, de Boer said.

He described this as a "back-of-an-envelope calculation" based on a price for carbon dioxide (CO2) that stays above 10 dollars per tonne. On Friday, CO2 was changing hands in the EU's emissions trading system at 27.5 euros (around 40 dollars) a tonne.

Scientists say time is running out for avoiding lasting damage to the climate system.

Under one scenario sketched last year by the UN's Nobel-winning expert group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), industrialised nations would have to slash their emissions by 25-40 percent by 2020 compared to the 1990 level to help peg warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

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Ozone Recovery Could Increase Warming

Andrea Thompson, LiveScience.com Yahoo News 12 Jun 08;

The recovery of Earth's protective ozone layer, expected to heal gradually over the next half-century or so, may be good news for your skin, but it could also put the brakes on a fast-moving wind current, further exacerbating global warming, a new study suggests.

The ozone layer protects Earth's inhabitants from harmful ultraviolet rays, which can cause skin cancer in humans as well as mutations in other organisms. This layer sits in the lower portion of the stratosphere, the layer of the atmosphere above the troposphere, where Earth's weather occurs (and we live). Ozone absorbs the sun's UV light here before it can reach the planet's surface.

The gaping hole in the ozone layer was discovered in 1985, eventually leading to the signing of the Montreal Protocol in 1987, which moved to ban the substances, such as chlorofluorcarbons (CFCs), which destroy stratospheric ozone. (The hole isn't a total absence of ozone, but a severe reduction in the concentration of ozone that occurs seasonally.)

The new study, detailed in the June 13 issue of the journal Science, compares current climate models used by the International Panel on Climate Change to predict the potential long-term consequences of global warming to another set of models that better account for chemical reactions in the stratosphere.

Study leader S-W. Son, of Columbia University in New York, and an international team of scientists found that the IPCC models fail to adequately model ozone recovery and its possible consequences. The other set of models they used showed that the healing of the ozone layer will warm the stratosphere, disrupting an important westerly wind jet closer to Earth's surface.

This jet would slow near the South Pole, which could affect surface temperatures, the extent of sea ice, storm tracks, the location of arid regions and wind-driven ocean circulation in the Southern Hemisphere, the authors of the study said.

Another recent study , detailed in the April 26 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters, also found that the recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole would warm up the atmosphere, subjecting the southernmost continent to the full effects of the warming pattern already affecting the rest of the world.

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Fade to black: Is this the end of oil?

The Independent 12 Jun 08;

For generations, we've taken it for granted. But as prices soar and reserves dwindle, the time is fast approaching when mankind will have to live without oil. Are we ready to confront some really inconvenient truths? Michael Savage reports from the North Sea

Aberdeen heliport is heaving. Dozens of rig men are waiting to board helicopters and begin a two-week stint in the middle of the North Sea. It appears that business out on the rigs, known simply as "the job" in these parts, is booming. Eventually, it's our turn to board a cramped chopper, shoulder to shoulder with the solidly built workers who sit silently, psyching themselves up for a fortnight surrounded by cold, crashing waves.

Two hours later, we land at a rusting rig named Alwyn, 440 kilometres off the coast of Aberdeen. Ollie Bradshaw, the rig's burly production supervisor, meets the new arrivals.

"What's life like offshore? Busy. Very busy," he says. He's not joking. As we traipse around the rig's two platforms, perched 200 feet above the (thankfully) calm waters of the North Sea, we navigate between the numerous piles of scaffolding, timber and new equipment that take up almost every last square inch of space. The on-board population has swollen to 250 people lately. In some cases, three men are having to share a room, while new digs are built next to the rig's busy helipad, where several flights land and take off each day, delivering a conveyer belt of fresh workers – from painters and decorators to extra scaffolders and, of course, the men whose expertise lies in harvesting fossil fuels from beneath the sea bed.

Even in the common room, no one is standing idle – not around the television, nor the snooker table. The on-board gym is empty. In the canteen, a few men grab bacon rolls before heading off to start their 4pm shift. Those on an earlier shift have just had their lunch – there's been a run on lemon tart. Yet the hive of activity that Alwyn has become of late is not down to all the oil it is producing. Far from it.

"Alwyn started out as an oil well and platform more than two decades ago. As oil production has fallen, it has been adapted and changed," says Bradshaw, a man who seems devoted to his life here in the middle of nowhere. The rig's expanding team is having to work harder than ever to keep it going. A vast network of underground pipes has linked it to new pockets of oil and gas – some of the neighbouring platforms seem like they are just touching distance away. New techniques have been used to boost the quality of the last dregs of oil coming out of the ground. Empty reservoirs are being drained of natural gas. Now, a major discovery of a field of natural gas has meant that, after 21 years of work, Alwyn's creaking infrastructure is being given a facelift to keep going for another 20 years. But it will also mean its conversion from the oil platform it once was will be complete.

The end of Alwyn's oil well days is a familiar story in the North Sea. The rig men may be working as hard as ever, but UK oil production has been falling rapidly ever since 1999. In the past, that hasn't been such a problem – other producers around the world have always been able to produce more of the black stuff to keep the wheels of world industry lubricated. But according to some, that may be about to change. Oil prices are so high – $137 a barrel – and predicted by Alexey Miller, head of Gazprom, the Russian state energy giant, to rise as high as $250 a barrel – that social tensions have begun to emerge, while the world's leaders have been going cap in hand to oil producers, asking them to squeeze a few more barrels out of their wells. And as prices have kept on breaking records, an ever-growing worry looms in the background, the elephant in the room of the oil price rise: what if they can't produce any more? What if, this time, the oil taps really are running dry?

Worryingly, for a world reliant on the dirt-cheap energy that oil provided throughout the last century, the idea that oil production in all nations may soon start to decline just as in the North Sea has been seeping into the mainstream. The "peak oil" theory – that oil production has reached its maximum and will soon begin its decline, bringing potentially catastrophic consequences to the modern world – no longer just comes from internet crackpots and conspiracy theorists; now geologists, market analysts and oil prospectors believe that this scenario is becoming reality. And within the past year, there have been signs that the major oil companies are admitting this themselves. If they are right, high petrol prices could be the least of the world's problems.

The idea is simple enough. Those warning against an imminent peak oil crisis – the "peakists" – say that while the world will not totally run out of oil, all of the oil that is easy to reach has been all but used up, meaning that producing enough oil to meet the growing world demand is becoming an ever harder task. Worse, we now stand at the high water mark of oil production. That means that not only will we never be able to produce much more oil than the 87 million barrels a day we now consume, but world oil production will actually begin to fall very soon, causing not only ever higher prices, but also creating the prospect of shortages, industrial upheaval, battles over ever-depleting resources, and even an end to the modern world built upon the assumption of a plentiful supply of cheap oil.

"A lot of people keep talking about 'this peak oil theory' – but there's nothing theoretical about it. It's just a very obvious fact of nature," says Colin Campbell, a geologist who searched for oil on behalf of several oil companies, and is the high priest of the peakists. "Oil is formed in the geological past. That means it's a finite resource. That means production begins and ends, and passes a peak in between. So the fact that there is a peak is beyond dispute. We've had the first half of the age of oil, which has changed the world in every conceivable way. We now face a decline."

Campbell is in no doubt that the world's oil production is as high as it is ever going to get. "The result of the latest update I made using industry data was that the regular, conventional oil peaked in 2005 and if you put all the other types in – the heavy oils, the gas liquids, the Arctic oil, the deep water projects – I have it this year," he says, in a softly spoken, matter-of-fact tone. "That's not cast in stone. It could slip a year or two. But I'm absolutely confident that it's in the right area."

Whereas Campbell's fears once branded him a wacky radical, as the years have gone by he has been joined by a growing band of industry experts who have reached a similarly grim conclusion. One of those was an American investment banker examining "flow rates" – the speed at which oil was being taken out of the ground. After being asked to advise Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush on energy policy during the 2000 election campaign, Matthew Simmons found that more and more oil fields had begun to decline. That was because, though new technology was helping to extract oil faster than ever before, it was also causing the fields to run dry more quickly, too. "All of a sudden there were fields that were declining by as much as 30 per cent per year," he says. "But I didn't call it 'peak oil' – I didn't even know what that was back then."

Simmons came across peak oil in 2002, when he attended the first meeting of a new group founded by Colin Campbell. Only around 45 people showed up to the first meeting of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (Aspo), but since then, its findings have convinced a lot more people around the world. Aspo now has branches in 36 countries, with Kuwait the latest wanting to found one. And some serious analysts have also made the mental journey from dissenters to peak-oil prophets.

"I've been on that journey," says Chris Skrebowski, who spent half his career in the oil industry and now edits the UK oil industry's publication of record, Petroleum Review. He admits to having been dismissive of the idea that the world's wells were running dry. It was a visit from Campbell in 1996 that made him change his mind. "I didn't quite believe him, but I didn't think he was the average nutter," he says. Skrebowski began to take a look at the issue himself. The numbers told a clear story. "You can just about struggle through to 2011, if everything goes to plan – which, of course, it won't – but after that, the numbers don't add up. And that's taking a reasonably conservative rate of decline. If you wind it up to a 5 or 6 per cent annual decline, then you are at this peak or plateau now."

One man who believes that could be the real rate of decline is the archetypal US oilman, T Boone Pickens, otherwise known as the "Oracle of Oil". Having made a fortune in the oil industry, Pickens now invests heavily in the oil alternatives he believes will be necessary to fill the gap left by falling oil production.

From the window of helicopter, flying above the uninviting waves of the North Sea, it seems hard to believe that the world could really be running low on easy oil. Dozens of rigs pepper the vast expanse of water, their burning flares making them look like floating candles. Spiralling wisps of smoke fill the North Sea sky – a reminder that there is still oil churning around. Despite the pedigree of the peakists, it's hard not to think we've heard it all before, that it's just the usual doomsayers predicting that the oilfields would run out, and that more will be found somewhere. But for the peakists, the North Sea is a great case study. Its rapid decline has come despite all the advantages the modern world could throw at it.

"The North Sea has the benefit of all the investment anybody could need," says Campbell. "It's got the most modern technology, and it's got a political environment that's stable. There's no reason why it would be producing less oil than is possible, yet it has been declining at a rate of 7 per cent a year." Perhaps even more worryingly, the last year has seen major oil companies begin to make more noises about potential problems ahead. Foremost among them has been head of the French oil company Total, Christophe de Margerie, who has declared that world production will never exceed 100 billion barrels a day, a level of demand expected in less than a decade. "The oil companies are changing their tune," says Campbell. "They can't quite say 'peak' in so many words. They don't want to rock the boat."

Back on dry land, in a seafood restaurant in Aberdeen, a senior oil executive talks freely about a future. "We can try to slow the decline, but we will never stop it," he says casually, over a plate of scallops. "All we can do is get as much oil out of the ground as possible." Meanwhile, Colin Campbell is flirting with official approval. He is already advising a Norwegian oil firm, and has recently been invited to give informal presentations to executives from two of the world's biggest oil companies. A clear momentum has been built up around peak oil fears. For Simmons, it is the peak oil deniers that are now the ones sounding shrill. "I daily read these shrill sounding experts who still believe that oil should be at $40 a barrel," he says. "It's just unbelievable. It's still cheap."

Not everyone is convinced by the peak oil theory, though. This week, The Independent reported that, according to Richard Pike, a former oil industry man, now chief executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry, there is more than twice as much oil in the ground than producers claim. But the most notable peak oil refusnik is the International Energy Agency (IEA), the oil supply watchdog set up by the world's richest nations. It has said that not only is the world not running out of oil, but that production will continue to match the 135 million barrels a day that is forecast to be needed by 2050. It says that while conventional sources of oil may only provide around 92 million barrels a day of that, investment in Saudi Arabia's fields and the growth of new sources of oil will provide the rest.

To the peakists, these standard oil industry ripostes are starting to wear a little thin, and have been damaged by the crashing and burning of some great white hopes. Not a single barrel of commercially viable shale oil, made from oil-rich sedimentary rock, has yet been produced. Oil made from tar sands found in northern Canada is near the top of the list of innovative sources of oil, but even the oil companies themselves admit that the amount of energy currently needed to produce a single barrel of it makes it very inefficient. And while drilling into ever-deeper waters might keep world production on its current plateau, the peakists say the days of "easy oil" are over.

As for the comforting idea that Saudi Arabia could simply turn up its taps and produce far more oil if it felt like it – the preferred belief of President Bush and Gordon Brown – the peakists have some pretty big problems with that, too. "The one thing that made peak oil a bogus issue was the supposedly proven fact that in the Middle East, we had 200 years of oil supply," says Simmons. "Because of that, we obviously couldn't have peaked. I'd just assumed it had to be true. Then I started doing my research." After poring over more than 200 technical papers, he made the grim conclusion that, just like elsewhere, production in Saudi Arabia was either at or very near its peak.

And even the conservative estimates of the IEA have not been unaffected by the spectre of peak oil. It has decided to review how it sources its data on oil reserves, which is widely expected to lead to a lowering of its predictions of future oil supplies when it publishes its overview of the industry in November. If it, too, reveals that the days of free flowing oil could be over, the halls of power might begin to take notice.

None of this will make any difference to life on the Alwyn rig in the near future. For the next 20 years, it will be producing natural gas, and making low-grade oil from some of it. "We'll be here until every last drop of oil is out of the ground," Ollie Bradshaw reassures me.

But unlike Alwyn, more rigs will be decommissioned than refurbished if the peak oil theorists turn out to be right – and they warn that the effects on the world could be dramatic.

A world without plentiful oil, as described by the peakists, looks very different from today's. The peakists are in no doubt about the aspect of modern living that would have to change. With transport soaking up the vast majority of the world's oil, they maintain that our addiction to the car will have to go. According to Chris Skrebowski, large-scale electrification will be needed in all vehicles, perhaps with pylons placed down motorways to provide power. Diesel-powered public transport needs to be replaced with electric trains, trams, and trolley buses. That would create breathing space to make more profound societal changes, such as a growth of working from home. Matthew Simmons also sees the current global economy soon becoming unsustainable. "Local farms are now coming back," he says. "We have all the technology in place to do that."

That's just for starters. According to Campbell, a wholesale change in the western lifestyle will be needed a little further down the road. "Cities will face massive challenges," he says. "By the end of the century, when there really isn't very much oil left, the world will be a very different one – much more rural, probably with fewer people. It's a sort of doomsday message, but in some ways, it's just a change from the modern mindset. There are people in the world who live a simple life like that and are very happy." But that's nothing compared with what could happen if we attempt to carry on regardless with ever-growing oil consumption. "If we don't make changes, we're going to have a resource war and blow ourselves up," says Simmons. "I think that would be a really inconvenient way to end the world."

So will the end of the oil age herald in a new dark age? Are we doomed to go back to sheltering in mud huts and living off a diet of turnips and water? Not necessarily. Thankfully, other peakists are optimistic that we can cope with a world without such vast quantities of cheap oil – if we act now. "Humanity is very ingenious," says Skrebowski. "But at the moment, it doesn't yet see a crisis. We're just acting like a spoilt child who has had its lollipop taken away. At some point, some politician has got to come out and state clearly that the world is going to be different. It's not the end of the world, but we're all going to have to change the way we do things. And the sooner we get on with it, the better. The anticipation is probably worse than the reality."

Let's hope he's right.

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Nuclear power among options for UN greenhouse cuts

Alister Doyle, Reuters 12 Jun 08;

BONN (Reuters) - Developing nations might get help to build nuclear power plants under proposals at 170-nation climate talks in Bonn for expanding a fast-growing U.N. scheme for curbing greenhouse gases.

Nuclear power is the most contentious option for widening a U.N. mechanism under which rich nations can invest abroad, for instance in an Indian wind farm or a hydropower dam in Peru, and get credit at home for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

"It's one of the issues that needs to be considered," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said on Thursday of suggestions by countries including India and Canada at the June 2-13 talks of aid for atomic energy.

Other proposals at the talks include giving credits for capturing and burying carbon dioxide, for instance from coal-fired power plants, or to do far more to encourage planting of forests that soak up carbon as they grow.

Many nations and environmentalists oppose expanding the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to include nuclear power. The CDM is part of the United Nations' Kyoto Protocol for curbing emissions of greenhouse gases running until 2012.

"Nuclear power is not the energy of the future," said Martin Hiller of the WWF conservation group. "It should not be in the CDM. The CDM should be about renewable energy."

He said nuclear power was too dangerous although it emitted almost none of the greenhouse gases associated with burning coal, oil and gas and which are blamed for heating the planet.

KYOTO

No decisions on overhauling the CDM will be taken at the Bonn talks, part of a series of negotiations meant to end with a new long-term U.N. climate treaty by the end of 2009 to succeed the existing Kyoto Protocol.

"I think nuclear power in the CDM is a non-starter for most delegations," one European delegate said.

The debate reflects wide uncertainty about whether to turn to nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels in a fight to avert rising temperatures that could bring heatwaves, droughts, rising seas and more powerful cyclones.

De Boer projected that the CDM could channel up to $100 billion a year towards developing nations in coming decades if industrialized countries agreed sweeping cuts in emissions and made half their reductions abroad.

That was also based on the assumption that credits for averting greenhouse gas emissions would average $10 a tonne.

So far the CDM has projects approved or under consideration that would avert a combined total of 2.7 billion tonnes of emissions by 2012, roughly equivalent to the combined annual emissions of Japan, Germany and Britain.

De Boer rejected criticisms that the CDM was badly flawed, for instance for handing huge profits to carbon traders and companies in China that destroy HFC 23, a powerful greenhouse gas that is a waste product from making refrigerants.

"The fact that people have found a way to remove a powerful greenhouse gas and make a profit is not morally wrong," he said. "We've created a market mechanism and, guess what, it's working."

Other criticisms of the scheme focus on whether or not funding has led to emissions cuts, or whether these would have happened anyway -- for example because of existing state support for wind power in China or India.

(Editing by Alison Williams)

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