This story originally ran on The Independent Report.

For the past few decades, the U.S. economy has been driven by the spending habits and consumption of the Baby Boomer generation. 

However, as this group nears retirement — a process that will play itself out over the next 18 years — their incomes, savings, investments, and consumption will all decline. 

This trend will significantly alter our economy.

Demographic research shows that people overwhelmingly begin to spend more in their 30s and through their 40s. 

According to the work of demographic trend expert and economic researcher Harry Dent, individuals typically hit their peak spending between the ages of 46 to 50. 

Once a person reaches the age of 50, spending begins to fall. And after the age of 60, the decline in spending is significant, falling below that of young people in the 18-22 demographic.

Unfortunately, the U.S. — like most of the developed world — has a rapidly aging population that is well-past its peak spending years.

Continued...

A climate agreement has been reached by countries at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa.

The agreement would put all countries under the same legal regime enforcing commitments to control greenhouse gases, to take effect by 2020 at the latest. The Kyoto Protocol was agreed to be extended, and a Green Climate Fund was launched.

Links:

Ban welcomes climate change deal reached at UN conference in Durban
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40695

The United Nations Climate Change Conference, Durban 2011
http://unfccc.int/2860.php

This story originally ran on The Independent Report.

Economically speaking, the U.S. remains in the midst of a perfect storm. 

The nation is plagued by a vicious cycle of slower growth, leading to lower tax revenues, followed by spending cuts, ultimately resulting in even slower growth.

The economy grew a meager 0.4 percent in the first quarter and just 1 percent in the second quarter. That amounted to an annual rate of just 0.85 percent in the first half of the year. 

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research — which declares such things — the economy is not officially in a recession. But it couldn't be much closer.

And to huge swaths of this nation, the recession never really ended; it morphed into a depression.

Continued...

Technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere

The Virgin Earth Challenge is a prize of $25m for whoever can demonstrate to the judges' satisfaction a commercially viable design which results in the removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases so as to contribute materially to the stability of Earth’s climate.

Among the 11 shortlisted organizations are:

• biochar (Biochar Solutions, Black Carbon and Full Circle Biochar)
• carbon capture, particularly from ambient air (Carbon Engineering, Kilimanjaro Energy and Climeworks)
• enhanced weathering (Smart Stones)

Above three technologies (biochar, carbon air capture and enhanced weathering) have great potential to help out with carbon dioxide removal (CDR) from the atmosphere. To combat global warming, further technologies should be considered, such as in Solar Radiation Management (SRM) and Arctic Methane Management (AMM).

How effective each technology is in one area is an important consideration; importantly, each such technologies can also have effects in further areas.

Further areas

Global warming is only one out of multiple areas where action is required; an example of another area is the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica; effective action has already been taken in this area, but the growing hole in the ozone layer over the Arctic shows that further action is necessary.

A safe operating space for humanity is a landmark 2009 study that identifies nine essential areas where sustainability is stressed to the limits, in three cases beyond its limits.

The inner green shading represents the proposed safe operating space for nine planetary systems. The red wedges represent an estimate of the current position for each variable. The boundaries in three systems (rate of biodiversity loss, climate change and human interference with the nitrogen cycle), have already been exceeded. From: A safe operating space for humanity, Rockström et al, 2009.

Areas and applicable technologies

The table below shows these nine areas on the left, while technologies that could be helpful in the respective area feature on the right.

As said, each of technologies may be able to help out in multiple areas. As an example, by reducing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, biochar and carbon air capture can also indirectly reduce carbon dioxide in oceans and thus help out with ocean acidification. Enhanced weathering could additionally reduce carbon dioxide in the oceans directly, thus presenting itself even more prominently as a proposal to achieve sustainability in this area.

Similarly, algae bags located in the mouth of a river could help out in multiple areas. They could produce biofuel and thus help reduce aviation emissions, while in the process catching fertilizer runoff, thus reducing emissions of nitrous oxide (the largest ozone-depleting substance emitted through human activities in a 2009 NOAA study) and also reducing depletion of oxygen in oceans.

Implementing the most effective policies

Policy support for such technologies is imperative. Just like some technologies can help out in several areas, some policies can cover multiple areas. As an example, a policy facilitating a shift to cleaner energy can both reduce greenhouse gases and aerosols such as soot and sulfur. Sulfur reflects sunlight back into space, so reducing sulfur emissions results in more global warming, but conversely global warming can be reduced by releasing sulfur over water at higher latitudes.

How many different policies would be needed to support such technologies? What are the best policy instruments to use?

Traditionally, government-funded subsidies and standards have been used to contain pollution, sometimes complemented with levies and refundable deposits; this can also work for chemical pollution. Standards have also proven to be effective in reducing the impact of CFCs on the ozone layer, while - as said - policies could at the same time also be effective in other areas, in this case reducing the impact of CFCs as greenhouse gases.

However, standards don't raise funding for support of such technologies, while taxpayer-funded subsidies make everyone pay for the pollution caused by some. Hybrid methods such as cap-and-trade and offsets are prone to corruption and fraud, which compromises their effectiveness. Local feebates are most effective in facilitating the necessary shifts in many areas.

Two sets of feebates

To facilitate the necessary shift away from fuel toward clean energy, local feebates are most effective. Fees on cargo and flights could fund carbon air capture, while fees on fuel could fund rebates on electricity produced in clean and safe ways. Fees could also be imposed on the engines, ovens, kilns, furnaces and stoves where fuel is burned, to fund rebates on clean alternatives, such as EV batteries and motors, solar cookers and electric appliances. Such feebates are pictured as yellow lines in the top half of the image below.

Support for biochar and olivine sand could be implemented through a second set of feebates, as pictured in the bottom half of the image below. Revenues from these feebates could also be used to support further technologies, as described in the paragraph below.

Further technologies should be considered for their effectiveness in specific areas, including:

• release of oxygen to help combat methane in the Arctic and to help combat loss of stratospheric ozone
• use of plastic sheets to capture methane
• use of radio waves to enhance methane decomposition
• diversion of water from rivers to avoid warm water flowing into the Arctic Ocean
• release of aerosols over water at higher latitudes
• surface & cloud brightening to reflect more sunlight back into space

Further reading:

Feebates
Biomass
Carbon Air Capture and Algae Bags
Enhanced weathering
Oxygenating the Arctic
Ozone hole recovery
Enhanced methane decomposition
Desalination
Vortex towers could vegetate deserts
Carbon-negative building
LEDs: When will we see the light?
Thermal expansion of the Earth's crust necessitates geo-engineering
Towards a Sustainable Economy
The way back to 280 ppm

From the start of 2012, the European Union (EU) wants airplanes entering or leaving its airports to join the EU ETS. Years ago, the European Council decided that including aviation in the EU ETS was the best way to reduce the climate impact of aviation, and the European Commission insists that bringing aviation into the EU ETS was the most cost-efficient and environmentally effective option to control aviation emissions.

On November 2, 2011, a majority of countries in the U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization adopted a declaration describing the EU directive as inconsistent with applicable international law and urging the EU to refrain from including flights by non-EU carriers in the EU emissions trading system.

Late last month, EU climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard told a conference in Brussels in advance of the UN Climate Change conference in Durban, South Africa, later this month, that “innovative schemes” were the way forward. The EU wants to get shipping and aviation “involved in the UNFCCC”, she said, adding that these two sectors, plus the carbon market, were key to future climate funding.

Stefan Agne, from the European Commission's Climate Action directorate, said the EU would prefer a global scheme to tackle emissions from the shipping sector, but noted that it was “necessary for the EU to take the first steps to make things happen”. He insisted that any unilateral action was “not meant to be the end result of the debate, but to trigger the process in other countries”.

Do you have any suggestions as to how to break this deadlock?

The idea behind the "Biochar Economy" is to try to embed biochar production into as many processes as possible, as pictured on above image, from open source ecology.

In carbon-negative 'Biochar Economies', biochar is proposed to also act as a kind of local 'gold standard' for local currency supply.

Your comments are welcome!

Related posts by Sam Carana
Biochar
Fees on Livestock to fund Biochar
The way back to 280 ppm

Ten years ago, I asked some of my friends what most defined the times we live in.

The 2001 Top Ten was:

1. Cars
2. Nuclear disarmament
3. Overpopulation
4. Science and Technology
5. Consumerism
6. Globalization
7. Capitalism and Corporate power
8. Cold War
9. Decreasing relevance of the Nation-State
10. Space Exploration

The 2007 Top Ten was:

1. Global Warming
2. Terrorism
3. Globalization
4. Air Travel
5. Competition
6. Urbanization
7. Drug-resistant diseases
8. Science and Technology
9. Power of the individual
10. Decreasing relevance of the Nation-State

I've got to admit, it's a small sample, but what strikes me - every time - is that most issues mentioned tend to have a global character.

And again, I got that same feeling when I recently asked friends the question again.

The 2011 Top Ten:

1. Global Financial Crisis
2. Climate Collapse
3. China's Economic Power
4. Unemployment
5. Smart Phones
6. Obesity
7. Electric Vehicles & Renewable Energy
8. Organic Farming
9. Geo-engineering
10. Socialist World Government

That last response bothers me a bit. I like to find out more, and I like to discuss such responses further.

As you may know, I'd love to see feebates top the list. After all, when discussing how to act on global warming, feebates come out as the best way to deal with global warming, while they can also revitalize local economies, improve our health, etc.

Feebates can actually guard us against wasteful global bureaucracy, as they:
1. can most effectively rectify decades of perverse support by politicians for fossil fuel; 
2. allow market mechanisms to most economically sort out what works best where; 
3. are most efficiently implemented locally.

One respondent commented: "People don't seem keen to embrace solutions like feebates; people look at everything that sounds like global as a conspiracy to establish socialist world government, precisely because they feel that they lack control over what's going on."

But then again, feebates are the best way to put more control directly into the hands of the individual, optimizing optionality as much as possible, i.e. in terms of consumer choice, investment opportunities and creation of jobs and supplier outlets locally.

What do you think about that? And what do you think defines our times most?

Kyushu University in Japan has developed a wind lens for wind turbines.

When placed around a wind turbine, it can significantly increase output, by 2 to 5 times.

It can also improve safety and reduce acoustic noise and Doppler radar interference.

The Wind Lens creates strong vortices and produces low pressure region behind the turbine, increasing pressure difference that helps the wind flow into the Wind Lens.

Two mid-size (100 kW with wind speed 12m/s) wind-lens turbines have been built at Ito campus of Kyushu University (image right).

The University Team wants to build an 500 MW off-shore sea-floating wind farm with an output of 500 MW, equivalent to a nuclear power plant.

Hexagonal bases will be used, making it easier to link together and enlarge the bases. The interior space can also be used as a fishing ground.

Related posts by Sam Carana
More Wind Power
Clean Energy Standard?
Superb Grid

A magnitude 5.8 earthquake rattled Washington DC on Tuesday, August 23, 2011, at 1.51 PM. It was a relatively mild quake and only minor damage to buildings and cars was reported.

The quake hit along a fault in the Appalachian Mountains, with its epicenter near a nuclear power plant, where four diesel generators began backup operations, reports the LA Times, adding that one of them broke down a couple of hours after the quake.

While the quake was relatively mild, earthquakes are rare on the East Coast. The LA Times quotes the U.S. Geological Survey saying that it could have been the strongest quake to ever hit central Virginia.

What do you think? Does global warming increase the risk of earthquakes?

Dutch Professor Olaf Schuiling has been working on rock grinding for many years. Remember the Virgin Earth Challenge, launched early 2007 with the promise to award $35 million to the best method to remove greenhouse gases? Schuiling said: Let's grind more rocks! Last thing Schuiling heard was that he was among the final ten contenders.

Schuiling's method is simple. Crush olivine rock to small pieces and it will bind with carbon dioxide. This process - called weathering - happens in nature but takes a long time. Crushing and grinding olivine rock will speed up the process and is therefore often called enhanced weathering. It works best in wet tropical countries, but can be done everywhere around the world.

Schuiling proposes to cover beaches, levees and railway tracks with the material, and proposes olivine to be added to building materials like pavement and concrete. It can also be added to soil and water. Adding olivine can fertilize the soil and improve its ability to retain water, and can work well in combination with biochar and other ways to increase organic carbon in the soil. When added to the sea, it can reduce acidification, and stimulate growth of diatoms and other forms of biomass in the sea.

This is a win-win solution, Schuiling says, as it helps grow more food, while combating global warming. To add another win, it can also produce drinking water that is healthier than rain water. Schuiling recommends cities to build olivine hills, to remove carbon dioxide from the air while filtering water.

Below is a video with more background, in Dutch with English subtitles.  Also have a look at this poster.