Unofficial Conference Blog | Society of Environmental Journalists

Biomass Conversation Skirts the Science

"The only thing green about biomass are the profits," said Margaret Sheehan at the Energy & Economy Session III this afternoon. Dave Atkins provided a different perspective; "If you don't grow it, you mine it … so biomass power is green, but various shades of green." So this debate is revolving around whether woody biomass (which is distinct from trash-based biomass) is a good thing in the combustion cycle. Does this sound like the complete biomass picture?

I was surprised that this panel of experts didn't touch on the advanced methodologies of the combustion cycle. We can accept the fact that, if you burn a tree, you produce more CO2 and NOX than from the same amount of coal. This is basically a question of the "carbon portfolio" in the host fuel. When I burn it (that is, break the carbon-carbon bonds), I get a different type of energy depending not the type of bonds that I break! But when considering emissions, the process that we use is a much more important variable.

With this in mind, why aren't we talking about carbon capture and sequestration? We have a handful of very effective methods (including gas adsorption, membrane separation, and CO₂-H₂O condensation) to separate carbon dioxide from the system, and we have made significant progress on sequestration technologies (including saline sinks, gas-in-shale injection, clathrate hydrate storage, and deepwater sequestration). If we look at using these technologies with biomass processes, then the carbon output is significantly reduced. Perhaps these folks can't touch that topic because it's outside their expertise, but the current discussion of biomass is incomplete.

More importantly, why aren't we talking about biofuels conversion? There is a new report from NREL that is incredibly exciting on this topic, and I would suggest that anybody interested in biomass read it!

Energy: Hedging and Betting on the Tar Sands' Future Footprint

Some day, all roads will lead to Alberta...that is, if the Canadian province's vast oil reserve known as the tar sands continues its steep development trajectory.

According to Janet Annesley, vice president of communications for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, everything changed for Alberta in 2002, when the U.S. Department of Energy officially declared the Alberta tar sands as an economically and politically feasible source of energy. With a flick of its regulatory pen, the DOE shifted the landscape of the whole energy-consuming world.

As Annesley explained, the tar sands oil reserve constitutes "half the investible oil in the free world."

Oil reserves of unequalled magnitude means environmental impacts and challenges on similar scales. The speakers gathered for the Friday morning session represented voices from all sides of the environmental and regulatory debate:

Oil Sands Lead to Muddy Waters

Quick -- behind Saudi Arabia, which country has the second largest wealth of crude oil? Canada, our neighbors to the North, are sitting on between 60 and 70 billion barrels of oil, according to this morning's Energy & Economy panel. We also heard from Kyle Isakower this afternoon that crude oil is here to stay, at least for the the foreseeable future. So how is Canada planning to reconcile the ever-increasing global demand for oil with its conservative population and moderate regulation? 

Peter Hodson of Queen's University mentioned that the chemical fingerprint of oil sand extraction is inescapable, and to date the environmental science monitoring has been funded through the government and joint industry partners. Preston McEachern, of Alberta Environment, explained that there is a tremendous amount of natural water that runs through the oil sands environment, leading to a natural pollution of downstream waters. By this extension, McEachern argued that there is little to validate concerns over expanded oil sands production, because environmental scientists have not been able to decouple the increased watershed pollution of production from that which occurs naturally in runoff.

As Canada approaches this problem, there are a number of solution pathways available. For one, I have had the chance to interact with Norwegian scientists and engineers -- particularly in the context of Statoil, the national oil company of Norway. Because Statoil is owned by the Norwegian people, they enforce some of the strictest environmental regulations on the planet. Despite this, they are able to produce a phenomenal amount of oil (and profit) for the country, through joint industry projects with other global energy producers. This may not be an entirely appropriate solution for Canada, but it's certainly a model that has been successful in the past.

A Most Intriguing Energy Source: Natural Gas Hydrates

We know that natural gas is defined as the vapor portion of the hydrocarbon (i.e. crude oil) spectrum, and it's commonly called a "cleaner" energy. But what makes it "clean," anyhow?

When we consider something like natural gas, there are just a handful of chemical components (e.g. methane, ethane and so forth). This is very different from substances like coal and crude oil, which can literally have upwards of a thousand components. So when we go to burn these complex substances, we have to worry about the greenhouse gases like CO2 (which are byproducts of combustion) and also the evolution of toxic substances (e.g. particulates, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, and more).

The benefit of natural gas is that it just doesn't contain significant amounts of nitrogen or sulfur, so the production of these gases is greatly reduced (some nitrogen oxide is naturally introduced in the combustion process).

So, in the move to "cleaner" electricity, natural gas is an attractive chemical framework. At yesterday's exhibition, the Sierra Club folks mentioned that they view natural gas as a stepping stone in the new energy landscape. With that in mind, the relevant question is: Where can we make or obtain sufficient quantities of natural gas?

Conservation Biology and Chemical Engineering: Finding the Bridge

Of those "hard science" topics, I would argue that Chemical Engineering and Conservation Biology are about as opposite as they come. That notwithstanding, I joined the Wildlife Tour members for a day filled with the exploration of elk, bears, wolves and hares. What I found was a surprisingly complex world that shares many values with engineering. 

Megan Parker (Working Dogs for Conservation) put it best; "Conservation biologists need to count how many are there, where they are, and are they increasing or decreasing?" We heard similar stories about elk migration in the Missoula area, where the species poses a competitive threat to livestock ranchers.

What I find striking is that each of these Conservation Biologists is using a population sample to elucidate an elaborate causal framework. These scientists are only able to measure the quantity of a species (e.g. snowshoe hares) in a given location at one snapshot in time. From this two-dimensional data, the next step is to evaluate how particular independent variables (e.g. climate shifts) may affect future migration patterns or population balances.

Pertinent to Metcalf's network lunch and beat dinner tomorrow, I see this data strategy as very similar to how scientists and engineers approach a deepwater crude oil flowline. Given that many deepwater lines are at least 5,000 ft. under the ocean, engineers and operators can typically measure only pressure and temperature along the line. They're trying to understand turbulent, multiphase flow (with oil, gas, water and probably gas hydrate) using only these two variables as guideposts. Because these flows are considered "turbulent," they contain random swirling motions ("eddies") that make pure theoretical prediction next to impossible.

Ultimately, the engineers and scientists that work on these flowlines are working on problems shared by their colleagues in Conservation Biology: trying to map highly complex systems based on a few macroscopic measureables. Perhaps we're not so different, after all.

What's Your SEJ 2010 Game Plan?

I’m a pretty direct person, but I was a little shocked with my actions yesterday. I asked an energy scientist from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory if I could meet him at 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning to discuss his research.

You could call it presumptuous, but it's part of my advance planning for the SEJ conference. The Saturday in question is Saturday, Oct. 16, which is the day this scientist, Dr. Jeffery Greenblatt, will speak at a panel I’m moderating on clean energy technology and the environment.

Another motivation for this meeting is fear that I won't be able to take notes during my panel. As moderator, I anticipate my role will look more like traffic control, making sure SEJers line up at the microphone for questions.

So, what’s your conference game plan?

Lisa Palmer's Road to Montana, and SEJ 2010

Hello, all. I'm a freelance writer and editor. I cover science, environment, climate change, and business topics for a variety of national publications and online media. I am also a regular contributor to the Yale Forum, where I write about climate change and its intersection with the media. Earlier this year I worked as a freelance development editor for the America's Climate Choices Advancing the Science of Climate Change study at the National Academy of Sciences, where I had the great opportunity to witness first-hand the challenges scientists face when communicating their work to a broad audience. 

This is my third SEJ conference in as many years. It's one of my favorite professional development events by far because it offers opportunities for stimulating discussion on the environmental issues of our time. This year I will once again moderate a panel. On Saturday, Oct. 16, at 10:45 a.m., you'll want to stop by Clean Energy Economy and the Environment, where we will shed new perspective on these inextricably linked issues.

As for me, I live in the Washington, D.C., area but love to spend my free time hiking in the high mountains and backcountry of Wyoming. I look forward to seeing what Montana's wilderness has to offer! 

Good Morning, SEJ: Hundreds show for 7:30 am plenary on non-profit models for news

Whooping cranes, at the International Crane Foundation. Credit: Emily Gertz

Despite the early hour, there's a very good turnout this morning (a couple hundred at least) for the morning plenary on "Non-Profit News: A sustainable survival strategy for environmental journalism"  -- as moderator Dan Fagin suggested in his opening remarks, a testament to the troubled state of journalism as a business.  

The plenary is underway, with panelists Rob Walker, environmental writer at Voice of San Diego (and newly elected SEJ board member); Melinda Wittstock, founder and executive director of Capitol News Connection; Nick Penniman, executive director of Huffington Post Investigative Fund; and Abraham Lutsgarten, energy reporter at ProPublica.

Conference Speaker Video-Reports from Madison on Environment & Security

How can you use online video in your reporting?  Here's an example: a video report filed from the conference by Geoffrey Dabelko, a speaker on today's 'climate and national security' panel, for the Environmental Change & Security Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

Follow Gore's keynote on Twitter with #SEJ [UPDATED]

Update: Wispolitics.com has a write-up of former Vice President Al Gore's speech; audio of his speech; and audio of the question and answer session.

Other coverage:

Gore, speaking in Madison, congratulates Obama (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Gore says climate change at 'political tipping point' (Wisconsin State Journal)

Al Gore Delivers Speech to Science Journalists in Madison (WISC Madison) 

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If you're not here at the SEJ 2009 annual conference to hear Al Gore and the other speakers in this morning's plenary, follow along with those of us live-tweeting the speeches.  

The twitter tag is #SEJ; there's a link at the top of the right column of this page!