365 Days of Climate Awareness 83 - Industrial Sources of Greenhouse Gases

“There is no free lunch,” states one of the most-worn clichés in environmental science, and the world. Clichés tend to become so because they apply to many things. In the realm of global warming, it means that every human activity—down to going outside and taking a walk, or simply lying in bed—produces carbon dioxide. Energy consumption and CO2 production are constants in our activities, at any scale. To address man-made climate change in any meaningful way will mean to address each of the causes, comprehensively, not piecemeal as we have thus far. And this will require reining in the largest, best-funded, and most recalcitrant source: industry.

Energy production accounts for nearly three-quarters of all greenhouse gas emissions, whether through combustion or fugitive emissions (such as methane escaping from drilled wells). The drive to replace dirty,carbon-intensive fuels like coal and oil with renewables is critical to limiting planetary warming but not enough. Anyone familiar with the 1972 classic “The Limits To Growth” knows that society's shimmering carrot of limitless growth is our most assured path to societal self-destruction. In the nearly fifty years since that book's publication, we have done nothing to avoid its predictions. Any viable path to environmental stability must include reducing overall consumption.

Transportation alone accounted for more than 16% of emissions, and will be perhaps the hardest component to decarbonize. A useful measure for this is energy density. In the metric (SI) system, energy is measured in Joules (J, named for British physicist James Prescott Joule); in British imperial units, the foot-pound force (1.355 J), or British Thermal Unit (BTU, ~1055 J). Energy density measures energy per unit volume (J/L or MJ/L) or mass (J/kg or MJ/kg), though that is better known as specific energy. Liquid hydrocarbons have high energy densities, which has made them the fundamental choice for transportation. A few examples:

 FUEL                       MJ/L 

Propane                 25.3                     

Diesel fuel              38.6

Jet fuel                     35  

Biodiesel                 33  

Bituminous coal   26-49

Crude oil                37

Lithium-ion batt.  0.9-2.63

Carbon capture technology has some potential to mitigate emissions, but must be scaled up by a factor of 100 to start making a serious difference.

Tomorrow: carbon capture.

Be brave, and be well.