Climate and Energy: ABOUT THE GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE LECTURE:
When Professor Ron Prinn spins one “Wheel of Fortune,” he arrives at a one in four chance of the Earth warming up at least 3 degrees centigrade, and the beginning of an irreversible melting of polar ice sheets. When he spins the other wheel, the odds of this level of dangerous warming fall to one in 40. The first wheel, Prinn suggests, represents the risks involved in doing nothing about climate change. The second wheel is attainable only by enacting a climate policy that stabilizes carbon dioxide levels in the near future.
Prinn arrives at this casino scenario by way of an enormously complex climate model, the Integrated Global System Model (IGSM), which takes into account man made and natural activities forcing climate change, to generate a “probability range of forecasts.” Data come from measuring variables in the atmosphere, ocean, and land ecosystems, as well as from human emissions. GDP, energy use, policy costs, agricultural and health impacts get factored in as well.
Research using 400-thousand-year-old ice samples shows that while temperatures and greenhouse gases have fluctuated, the temperatures today are the highest in the last 1200 years. 1998 and 2005 were the warmest years ever recorded. Given the current rise in carbon dioxide levels, polar regions are warming up at much faster rates than other parts of the world, which will exacerbate warming. As ocean ice melts, there’s less sunlight reflected back and more heat trapped at the poles; tundra thawing will release more gases as well. There are feedbacks in the system: small changes in gases such as methane can trigger very rapid changes in temperature.
Prinn admits to big uncertainties in the IGSM: clouds, which play a large role, are difficult to model. There are also uncertainties about emissions, and ocean-mixing, the churning of cooler and warmer waters, which can bring carbon buried on the ocean floor to the surface. Prinn’s caveat is “never seriously believe any single forecast of the climate going into the future.” However, by running the IGSM hundreds of thousands of times to estimate the probability of various amounts of climate change, Prinn and colleagues are, “in the Monte Carlo sense, building up a set of forecasts on which we can put a measure of the odds of being correct or incorrect.”
If we want better odds, we’ll need to prevent any major increase in carbon dioxide emissions from current levels (and no more than twice preindustrial levels). This is a tall order, given the growth of developing countries and the anemic response by the U.S. and other countries to the gathering crisis. Prinn adds to this dismal picture, noting that new energy solutions must permit scaling up on a global basis. “To get three terawatts out of windmills, you’d need 21 million of the current-style windmills.” Solutions that look good on a small scale “may be going in the wrong direction on a large scale.”
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Ronald Prinn's research interests incorporate the chemistry, dynamics, and physics of the atmospheres of the Earth and other planets, and the chemical evolution of atmospheres. He is currently involved in a wide range of projects in atmospheric chemistry and biogeochemistry, planetary science, climate science, and integrated assessment of science and policy regarding climate change.
He leads the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE), in which the rates of change of the concentrations of the trace gases involved in the greenhouse effect and ozone depletion have been measured continuously over the globe for the past two decades. He is pioneering the use of inverse methods, which use such measurements and three-dimensional models to determine trace gas emissions and understand atmospheric chemical processes, especially those processes involving the oxidation capacity of the atmosphere. Prinn is also working extensively with social scientists to link the science and policy aspects of global change. He has made significant contributions to the development of national and international scientific research programs in global change.
Prinn is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), a recipient of AGU's Macelwane Medal, and a Fellow of the AAAS. He co-authored Planets and their Atmospheres: Origin and Evolution, and edited Global Atmospheric-Biospheric Chemistry. Prinn received his Sc.D. in 1971 from MIT; and his M.S. and B.S. from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
NOTES ON THE VIDEO (Time Index): Video length is 1:01:47.
Ronald Prinn begins with no introduction. He takes frequent questions from the audience.
MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
The information on this page was accurate as of the day the video was added to MIT World. This video was added to MIT World on 2007-03-19.
Climate and Energy:
The role of Geothermal Energy as a source of Electrical power.
Uncertainties in Forecasts and the Problems of Scale.
The opportunities | the threat
"diversify the portfolio of options"
Pollution in the form of sulfur dioxide (SO2) is a consequence of burning coal to generate electricity, an active component of acid rain.
Recent national focus on the value of increasing our supply of indigenous, renewable energy underscores the need for reevaluating all alternatives, particularly those that are large and well distributed nationally.…One such option that is often ignored is geothermal energy, produced from both conventional hydrothermal and Enhanced (or engineered) Geothermal Systems (EGS). An 18-member assessment panel was assembled in September 2005 to evaluate the technical and economic feasibility of EGS becoming a major supplier of primary energy for U.S. base-load generation capacity by 2050.
http://geothermal.inel.gov and
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/geothermal/egs_technology.html
SYNOPSIS
"A comprehensive assessment of enhanced, or engineered, geothermal systems was carried out by an 18-member panel assembled by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to evaluate the potential of geothermal energy becoming a major energy source for the United States."
"Geothermal resources span a wide range of heat sources from the Earth, including not only the more easily developed, currently economic hydrothermal resources; but also the Earth’s deeper, stored thermal energy, which is present anywhere."
The Future of Geothermal Energy. © 2006 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. p. 1-1.
"Although geothermal energy has provided commercial base-load electricity around the world for more than a century, it is often ignored in national projections of evolving U.S. energy supply. This could be a result of the widespread perception that the total geothermal resource is often associated with identified high-grade, hydrothermal systems that are too few and too limited in their distribution in the United States to make a long-term, major impact at a national level. This perception has led to undervaluing the long-term potential of geothermal energy by missing an opportunity to develop technologies for sustainable heat mining from large volumes of accessible hot rock anywhere in the United States. In fact, many attributes of geothermal energy, namely its widespread distribution, base-load dispatchability without storage, small footprint, and low emissions, are desirable for reaching a sustainable energy future for the United States."
Expanding our energy supply portfolio to include more indigenous and renewable resources is a sound approach that will increase energy security . . . ."
The Future of Geothermal Energy. © 2006 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. p. 1-2.
The opportunities | the threat | words & terms
Climate change odds much worse than thought.
New analysis shows warming could be double previous estimates
David Chandler, MIT News Office
The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth's climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago - and could be even worse than that.
The study uses the MIT Integrated Global Systems Model, a detailed computer simulation of global economic activity and climate processes that has been developed and refined by the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change since the early 1990s.
"Without action, 'there is significantly more risk than we previously estimated,' Ron Prinn says. 'This increases the urgency for significant policy action.'
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on May 20, 2009 (download PDF).
ABOUT THE LECTURE:
When Ron Prinn spins one “Wheel of Fortune.”
The first wheel, Prinn suggests, represents the risks involved in doing nothing about climate change. The second wheel is attainable only by enacting a climate policy that stabilizes carbon dioxide levels in the near future.
Prinn arrives at this casino scenario by way of an enormously complex climate model, the Integrated Global System Model (IGSM), which takes into account man made and natural activities forcing climate change, to generate a “probability range of forecasts.” Data come from measuring variables in the atmosphere, ocean, and land ecosystems, as well as from human emissions. GDP, energy use, policy costs, agricultural and health impacts get factored in as well.
Ronald G. Prinn is the TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Science, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. Director, Center for Global Change Science; Co-Director of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.
Research using 400-thousand-year-old ice samples shows that while temperatures and greenhouse gases have fluctuated, the temperatures today are the highest in the last 1200 years. 1998 and 2005 were the warmest years ever recorded. Given the current rise in carbon dioxide levels, polar regions are warming up at much faster rates than other parts of the world, which will exacerbate warming. As ocean ice melts, there’s less sunlight reflected back and more heat trapped at the poles; tundra thawing will release more gases as well. There are feedbacks in the system: small changes in gases such as methane can trigger very rapid changes in temperature.
Prinn admits to big uncertainties in the IGSM: clouds, which play a large role, are difficult to model. There are also uncertainties about emissions, and ocean-mixing, the churning of cooler and warmer waters, which can bring carbon buried on the ocean floor to the surface. Prinn’s caveat is “never seriously believe any single forecast of the climate going into the future.” However, by running the IGSM hundreds of thousands of times to estimate the probability of various amounts of climate change, Prinn and colleagues are, “in the Monte Carlo sense, building up a set of forecasts on which we can put a measure of the odds of being correct or incorrect.”
If we want better odds, we’ll need to prevent any major increase in carbon dioxide emissions from current levels (and no more than twice preindustrial levels). This is a tall order, given the growth of developing countries and the anemic response by the U.S. and other countries to the gathering crisis. Prinn adds to this dismal picture, noting that new energy solutions must permit scaling up on a global basis. “To get three terawatts out of windmills, you’d need 21 million of the current-style windmills.” Solutions that look good on a small scale “may be going in the wrong direction on a large scale.”
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Ronald Prinn's research interests incorporate the chemistry, dynamics, and physics of the atmospheres of the Earth and other planets, and the chemical evolution of atmospheres. He is currently involved in a wide range of projects in atmospheric chemistry and biogeochemistry, planetary science, climate science, and integrated assessment of science and policy regarding climate change.
He leads the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE), in which the rates of change of the concentrations of the trace gases involved in the greenhouse effect and ozone depletion have been measured continuously over the globe for the past two decades. He is pioneering the use of inverse methods, which use such measurements and three-dimensional models to determine trace gas emissions and understand atmospheric chemical processes, especially those processes involving the oxidation capacity of the atmosphere. Prinn is also working extensively with social scientists to link the science and policy aspects of global change. He has made significant contributions to the development of national and international scientific research programs in global change.
Prinn is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), a recipient of AGU's Macelwane Medal, and a Fellow of the AAAS. He co-authored Planets and their Atmospheres: Origin and Evolution, and edited Global Atmospheric-Biospheric Chemistry. Prinn received his Sc.D. in 1971 from MIT; and his M.S. and B.S. from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
The opportunities | the threat | words & terms
What is a geothermal resource?
Geothermal energy resources means two related but different forms of power. Energy from the earth's mass is used for both modulating temperature (heat/cool) fluctuations and electricity generated out of the rising heat from the earth's crust (Geothermal Energy). Geothermal driven electrical power is currently generated and used in 24 countries in the world [about 10,715 megawatts (MW)] Particularly in California, Hawaii, Iceland, and Japan the supplies of geothermal energy are closer to the surface, but at greater depth are available around the world.
In 20th century Prince Piero Ginori Conti tested the first geothermal power generator on 4 July 1904 in Larderello, Italy. It successfully lit four light bulbs.It was small generator Later, in 1911, the world's first geothermal power plant was built there. In 1911, the world's first geothermal power plant was built in the Valle del Diavolo ("Devil's Valley"), named for the boiling water that rises there. It was the world's only industrial producer of geothermal electricity until 1958. So long as the earth is hot, geothermal sources can provide thermal regularity and electricity.
See geothermal energy –Solcomhouse provides information on environmental & world issues.
base-load, this refers to the capacity of an electrical generating facility to always provide power at a minimum level (base) for all its customers at the lowest demand periods.
peak power, this refers to both the daily and annual periods in which the greatest demand for electricity from customers is at it highest or "peak" need.
Small footprint?
"With geothermal energy, there is no need to physically mine materials from a subsurface resource, or to modify the earth’s surface to a significant degree as, for example, in strip mining of coal or uranium. Unlike fossil and biomass fuels, geothermal energy is not processed and transported over great distances (an energy-consuming and potentially environmentally damaging process), there are minimal discharges of nitrogen or sulfur oxides or particulate matter resulting from its use, and there is no need to dispose of radioactive materials. However, there still are impacts that must be considered and managed if this energy resource is to be developed as part of a more environmentally sound, sustainable energy portfolio for the future."
"The major environmental issues for EGS [engineered geothermal systems] are associated with ground-water use and contamination, with related concerns about induced seismicity or subsidence as a result of water injection and production. Issues of noise, safety, visual impacts, and land use associated with drilling and production operations are also important but fully manageable.
As geothermal technology moves away from hydrothermal and more toward larger EGS developments, it is likely that environmental impacts and risks will be further reduced relative to those associated with hydrothermal systems. For example, EGS plants should only rarely have a need for abatement of hydrogen sulfide (H2S), ammonia (NH3), and other chemical emissions."
The Future of Geothermal Energy. © 2006 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. pp. 1-26 & 1-27.
The opportunities | the threat | the misinformation
