Month: March 2017

Uncategorized 24 Mar 2017

More worrying than global warming – report on ‘extreme space weather’ shows risks to Earth

via Watts Up With That?
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Extreme space weather has a global footprint and the potential to damage critical infrastructure on the ground and in space. A new report from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) calls for bridging knowledge gaps and for better coordination at EU level to reduce the potential impact of space weather events.

The sun shapes the space environment around the Earth. This so-called space weather can affect space assets but also critical infrastructure on the ground, potentially causing service disruptions or infrastructure failures. Numerous space weather events affecting the power grid, aviation, communication, and navigation systems have already been documented.

The impact of severe space weather can cross national borders, which means that a crisis in one country can affect the infrastructure in the neighbouring countries. This raises concerns due to the increasing reliance of society on the services that these infrastructures provide.

New report identifies knowledge gaps

The JRC has investigated the impacts of space weather on critical infrastructure in the EU. A new report identifies the gaps in reducing risks linked to space weather and makes recommendations for policy, industry and science on how to close these gaps.

The report summarises the results of a summit organised in partnership with the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency and the UK Met Office, with the support of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in November 2016. Representatives from European infrastructure operators, insurance, academia, ESA, and European and US government agencies attended the event.

Interdependencies and crisis response

The potential failure of critical infrastructures during extreme space weather can lead to cascading effects impacting other sectors.

New methodologies and tools, as well as a multi-risk governance approach are needed to assess these interdependencies and to enable the coordination of the many different actors that often manage risks in isolation from one other.

A pan-European vulnerability assessment of the power grid should be carried out to identify critical issues and transboundary effects in case of extreme space weather. Infrastructure operators should also assess whether their systems could be indirectly vulnerable to space weather, for instance due to dependencies on timing and positioning information provided by the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS).

Better communication between science and industry is also needed to provide relevant and reliable information to operators for decision making.

Space weather forecasting

Early warning and preparedness are essential for limiting the effects of space-weather impacts.

In Europe and the USA, 24/7 space-weather forecasting capabilities are available to support the early warning of government and industry. However, it is important that the consistency of forecasts from different service providers are ensured.

There is a need to enhance forecasting capabilities for regional or local forecasts on the severity and duration of extreme space weather to ensure appropriate response from local operators.

Currently, geomagnetic storm forecasting is hampered by the limited understanding of the magnetic field orientation of Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) before they hit the Earth, and there are still significant knowledge gaps in physical and impact modelling, which affect the early-warning capabilities and preparedness in industry.

The role of the EU

In the EU, the European Programme on Critical Infrastructure Protection provides a policy background for critical infrastructure protection, while the EU disaster risk management policy covers prevention, preparedness and response for all types of disasters.

The Union Civil Protection Mechanism requires EU Member States to prepare a national risk assessment and list the priority risks they are facing. Six countries have included space weather in their risk assessment.

The participants of the summit indicated that there is a need for for improving coordination between the different space weather actors and recommended the establishment of a strategic European decision-making capability to coordinate space-weather risk mitigation and response at pan-European level.

They also advised that the roles and responsibilities of the key players in Europe should be better defined and suggested that coordinated strategic investments for improving the scientific know-how in this area could be explored.

Background

Different types of solar activity can impact the operations of critical infrastructures: Solar flares trigger radio blackouts and affect radar, ground- and space-based communications, as well as the GPS network. Solar radiation storms are a threat to satellite operations, aviation and space flights. Geomagnetic storms, caused by the ejection of magnetised solar plasma which interacts with Earth’s magnetosphere, affect satellite, GPS, aviation, rail transport and power-grid operations.

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JRC Report: http://ift.tt/2oebxwe

via Watts Up With That? http://ift.tt/1Viafi3

March 24, 2017 at 07:12AM

Uncategorized 24 Mar 2017

Environmentalists, tribes promise Dakota Access-style camps, protests to stop Keystone XL pipeline

via Climate Change Dispatch
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The protests and encampments seen in the months-long effort to stop the Dakota Access pipeline will be employed in a new bitter battle to halt Keystone XL, environmentalists and tribal leaders said Friday morning, just hours after President Trump formally green-lighted the pipeline. Keystone opponents held a conference call Friday to outline their new strategy […]

via Climate Change Dispatch http://ift.tt/2jXMFWN

March 24, 2017 at 06:54AM

Uncategorized 24 Mar 2017

Last Year, America’s Major TV Networks Spent Just 50 Minutes On Climate Change. That’s It.

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)
http://www.thegwpf.com

Major TV networks spent just 50 minutes on climate change — combined — last year.

That’s a dramatic, 66-percent drop in coverage from 2015 across evening and Sunday news programs airing on ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox, according to a new study from Media Matters. ABC, for one, spent just six minutes on climate issues in 2016.

The networks can’t claim there was a shortage of important climate stories to cover. Hurricane Matthew, the Great Barrier Reef’s continued slow death, record-shattering heat, and the official beginning of the Paris climate deal all took place last year.

Interestingly, the coverage drop doesn’t seem to be an election-year phenomenon. In fact, climate coverage increased by 43 percent during the previous election cycle, between 2011 and 2012.

Full post

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) http://www.thegwpf.com

March 24, 2017 at 06:46AM

Uncategorized 24 Mar 2017

Businesses paid to cut energy at peak times

via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
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By Paul Homewood

h/t stewgreen

http://ift.tt/2oeiRIb

Emily Gosden seems to be listening to a wider range of views since she joined The Times.

This latest article poses some interesting questions:

Businesses that agree to cut energy use when national supplies are running low will receive subsidies six times higher than plants that guarantee to provide power.

The government this week awarded £14 million in subsidies to businesses to provide demand side response (DSR) capacity for a year from October.

This involves agreeing to reduce electricity demand when supplies are short, such as by temporarily switching off unnecessary lighting or machinery, or shifting processes to a different time of the day.

Subsidies will be awarded to 312 megawatts of capacity at £45 per kilowatt. This contrasts with a scheme last month that awarded power plants just under £7 per kilowatt to guarantee they could generate electricity when supplies were scarce.

Several plants that offered to provide capacity at a fraction of the cost of DSR were deemed surplus to requirements and rejected. Industry experts said that the discrepancy indicated a shortage of businesses that would be willing to reduce energy use.

The results raise questions over the value for money of DSR and highlight the challenges for the nascent energy-saving industry, which ministers hope will form a key part of their plans to help manage Britain’s increasingly intermittent energy system. Yoav Zingher, chief executive of Kiwi Power, which secured contracts on behalf of businesses offering 60MW of energy-saving capacity, said that it was “very hard” to find businesses that could dip their use at any point through the day.

Last year businesses offering to reduce their demand on the grid were awarded subsidy contracts for 2020-21 at £22.50 per kilowatt, the same price as power plants. However, industry experts said that instead of reducing their power usage most of those businesses were instead switching to back-up diesel or gas generators, which have been criticised as polluting. This week’s scheme awarded subsidies only to those genuinely cutting their usage.

UK Power Reserve, which won 10 megawatts of contracts on behalf of businesses this week, said that the risk of not being able to use back-up generation meant that participants were quite difficult to find.

In future, genuine DSR will have to compete directly against power plants and other capacity sources for subsidies. Gareth Miller, a consultant at Cornwall, an energy specialist, said: “£45 per kilowatt indicates that genuine DSR would struggle if it had to compete against other technologies in the capacity market.” He said that while the price “looks very expensive” the two methods could not be compared directly because power plants also enjoyed other sources of income, including the market price for selling power, which means they needed lower subsidies.

DSR also brought other advantages such as helping industrial consumers to cut their energy bills, he said. Winners in this week’s auction included Tata Steel.

The government is understood to believe that DSR requires higher levels of subsidy support while it is still an emerging sector but that costs should fall so it can compete with power plants.

A source said that the total cost worked out at less than 50p per household this winter.

http://ift.tt/2oeiRIb

As she points out, the payment of £45/KW for these new DSRs is very pricey, even compared to the T4 Capacity Market auction for 2020-21, where both DSRs and generators accepted contracts at £22.50/KW.

The difference this time is that contracts are only offered to companies “genuinely cutting their usage”. (I have no idea how we know this is the case).

Not only is the price of £45/KW high, but the capacity bought, 312MW, is a drop in the ocean. If the government wants to buy in a serious quantity in future, it is likely to have to go much higher on price.

As the article says, there appears to be a marked reluctance on the part of companies to interrupt their operations in any meaningful way.