The solar investments from Google just keep on comin’, and this time, it’s a biggie. On Monday afternoon, the search giant announced its largest investment in renewable energy to date: $168 million into one of the first utility-scale solar projects being built by startup BrightSource Energy in California’s Mojave Desert.

Even for the clean power fans at Google, the size of the funding is impressive. To date, Google’s investments in solar and wind farms have been considerably smaller, including announcing last week that it would put €3.5 million ($5 million USD) into a solar photovoltaic farm in Brandenburg an der Havel, Germany, which is near Berlin. In May 2010, Google announced it planned to invest $38.8 million into 169.5 megawatts worth of wind projects developed by NextEra Energy Resources in North Dakota. And Google has made a variety of smaller equity investments into greentech startups over the past few years.

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Greenland Ice Sheet Safer

The threat of the Greenland ice sheet slipping ever faster into the sea because of warmer summers has been ruled out by a scientific study.
Until now, it was thought that increased melting could lubricate the ice sheet, causing it to sink ever faster into the sea. The issue was a key unknown in the landmark 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which pinned the blame for climate change firmly on greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.
However, the impact of rising sea temperatures on melting ice sheets is still uncertain, meaning it remains difficult to put an upper limit on potential sea level rises. Understanding the risk is crucial because about 70% of the world's population live in coastal regions, which host many of the world's biggest cities, such as London, New York and Bangkok.
"The Greenland ice sheet is safer than we thought," said Professor Andrew Shepherd of the University of Leeds, who led the research published tomorrow in Nature.
Shepherd's team used satellite imagery to track the progress of the west Greenland ice sheet as it slipped towards the sea each summer, over five years.
Researchers had feared that more melting from the surface of the ice in hotter years would in turn provide more meltwater for a slippery film at the sheet's base. More melting would mean more slippage and a greater rise in the sea level.
But they discovered that, above a certain threshold, the slipping began to slow. On-the-ground studies and work done on alpine glaciers suggest that higher volumes of meltwater form distinct channels under the ice, draining the water more efficiently and reducing the formation of a lubricating film.
The Greenland ice sheet studied by Shepherd's team is up to 1,000m (3,280ft) thick. If the entire ice sheet melted, sea levels would rise by a catastrophic seven metres, but this is likely to take 3,000 years if warm air blowing over the ice is the only way in which the ice melts.
Shepherd said most of the Greenland ice cap was on land and not in contact with the sea, unlike the west Antarctic ice sheet. That ice sheet contains enough water to push up sea level by six metres if it all melted.
He said the next scientific question to answer was whether warmer oceans would erode the edges of ice caps, causing them to fall rapidly into the ocean. "The real threat now is from the oceans melting the west Antarctic ice sheet, which is 3km-4km thick, of which 1km-2km is below sea level."
Shepherd said his work was helping to reduce uncertainties about the consequences of climate change. Asked if he thought his work suggested the wider risks of global warming could be discounted, he said: "Not at all."

AGRICULTURE: Pot growers inhale 1% of U.S. electricity, exhale GHGs of 3M cars

Indoor marijuana cultivation consumes enough electricity to power 2 million average-sized U.S. homes, which corresponds to about 1 percent of national power consumption, according to a study by a staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Researcher Evan Mills’ study notes that cannabis production has largely shifted indoors, especially in California, where medical marijuana growers use high-intensity lights usually reserved for operating rooms that are 500 times more powerful that a standard reading lamp.
The resulting price tag is about $5 billion in annual electricity costs, said Mills, who conducted and published the research independently from the Berkeley lab. The resulting contribution to greenhouse gas emissions equals about 3 million cars on the road, he said.
Narrowing the implications even further reveals some staggering numbers. Mills said a single marijuana cigarette represents 2 pounds of CO2 emissions, an amount equal to running a 100-watt light bulb for 17 hours.
“The added electricity use [to an average home] is equivalent to running about 30 refrigerators,” Mills wrote. “Processed cannabis results in 3,000 times its weight in CO2 emissions. For off-grid production, it requires 70 gallons of diesel fuel to produce one indoor cannabis plant, or 140 gallons with smaller, less-efficient gasoline generators.”
Mills went on to compare an average pot-growing facility to the electric power intensity of a data center. In California, which is the top producing state and one of 17 states to allow medical use of marijuana, cultivation accounts for 3 percent of all electricity use and 8 percent of household use, he said.
Mills added that he completed his research with no external sponsorship, insisting that he does not mean to pass judgment on the merits of cannabis cultivation or use. He also suggested that the minimal amount of information available and the almost complete lack of regulation of the industry mean energy consumption could easily be lowered.
“If improved practices applicable to commercial agricultural greenhouses are any indication, the energy use for indoor cannabis production can be reduced dramatically,” he said. “Cost-effective efficiency improvements of 75 percent are conceivable, which would yield energy savings of about $25,000/year for a generic 10-module growing room.”
Mills, a member of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, drew his data from open literature and interviews with horticultural equipment retailers.
By some estimates, marijuana has long been the largest cash crop in the United States — ahead of corn, soybeans and hay. The industry has been pegged at about $40 billion in value, with California, Tennessee, Kentucky, Hawaii and Washington the top five production states.
Water consumption is also an issue when it comes to environmental impact, with each marijuana plant said to need between 3 and 5 gallons of water per day to grow to fruition.

New York set to be big loser as sea levels rise

New York is a major loser and Reykjavik a winner from new forecasts of sea level rise in different regions.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in 2007 that sea levels would rise at least 28cm (1ft) by the year 2100.
But this is a global average; and now a Dutch team has made what appears to be the first attempt to model all the factors leading to regional variations.
Other researchers say the IPCC's figure is likely to be a huge under-estimate.
Whatever the global figure turns out to be, there will be regional differences.
Ocean currents and differences in the temperature and salinity of seawater are among the factors that mean sea level currently varies by up a metre across the oceans - this does not include short-term changes due to tides or winds.
So if currents change with global warming, which is expected - and if regions such as the Arctic Ocean become less saline as ice sheets discharge their contents into the sea - the regional patterns of peaks and troughs will also change.
"Everybody will still have the impact, and in many places they will get the average rise," said Roderik van der Wal from the University of Utrecht, one of the team presenting their regional projections at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) meeting in Vienna.
"But places like New York are going to have a larger contribution than the average - 20% more in this case - and Reykjavik will be better off."

Of the 13 regions where the team makes specific projections, New York sees the biggest increase from the global average, although Vancouver, Tasmania and The Maldives are also forecast to see above-average impacts.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13011073

Fish carried up a mountain on backs of llamas to escape global warming

The endangered vendace, that has been in Britain since the Ice Age, is in danger of dying out as lakes and rivers warm up because of man made global warming.

To ensure the species survival, the UK's environmental watchdog took eggs from Derwentwater in Cumbria, thought to be the only remaining site where the fish are found in England and Wales.

They then took 25,000 young fish from the hatchery to a cooler lake higher up the mountains of the Lake District, Sprinkler Tarn, to establish a new 'refuge' population that is more likely to survive warming temperatures.

Because the route to the lake is so rocky and uneven, it was impossible to use conventional transport like a 4x4 motorbike or landrover. So, the fish were given a ride during part of the two-hour trek by sure-footed llamas from a local charity. The journey was finished by fisheries officers on foot to ensure none of the smarts were spilt.

Lord Chris Smith, Chairman of the Environment Agency, said British species have to be protected from climate change.

"In addition to the anticipated warming of lakes and rivers, we may also see an increase in the occurrence of extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and heatwaves.

"All of these could have an impact on much of the native wildlife in England, especially aquatic species such as the rare and specialised vendace, so we are taking action now to conserve the existing populations."

Andy Gowans, fisheries technical specialist for the Environment Agency, said the fish are now safe from global warming.

"By introducing these vendace into Sprinkling Tarn, where water temperatures will be lower, it will provide an additional element of safeguarding for this endangered species," he said.

"The fish will be closely monitored, in the hope that a self-sustaining population will be established."

Commentary: Environmental regulations place Brown in a tough spot

 By Jack Torry, Staff Writer 11:27 PM Sunday, April 10, 2011

WASHINGTON — Sen. Sherrod Brown last week faced a tough choice: Vote with the environmentalists or vote with industry.
In the end, the Ohio Democrat sided with the environmentalists. He opposed an effort by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to prohibit the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from issuing new rules to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases believed to cause global warming....

Ireland 'among last lifeboats in climate change crisis'

Professor Brendan Gleeson, of the National University of Ireland (NUI) at Maynooth, was speaking in the first of a series of lectures on the dangers of climate change, entitled "An Urban World at Risk".
He told the audience that if global temperatures rise by three or four degrees, as he predicts they will, Ireland could become one of only a few habitable 'lifeboat' regions. He urged governments to consider the potential consequences of an influx of people from around the world fleeing rising seas, drought and destructive weather. In his speech on Wednesday, Prof Gleeson said: "We cannot know precisely how the disaster will unfold, but the southern megacities in Africa, the sub-continental states and Asia will be the first to go under, taking with them a substantial proportion of our species. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-12998760