Category: Global Warming

Nimbly Resilient African Coffee Farmers Switch to Coffee Bean that Withstands Global Warming

(p. A1) First the bad news. The two types of coffee that most of us drink — Arabica and robusta — are at grave risk in the era of climate change.

Now the good news. Farmers in one of Africa’s biggest coffee exporting countries are growing a whole other variety that better withstands the heat, drought and disease supersized by global warming.

. . .

Catherine Kiwuka, a coffee specialist at the National Agricultural Research Organization, called Liberica excelsa “a neglected coffee species.” She is part of an experiment to introduce it to the world.

. . .

(p, A6) In 2016, she invited Aaron Davis, a coffee scientist from the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew, England, to Zirobwe. He was skeptical at first. He had tasted Liberica elsewhere and found it to be like “vegetable soup,” he said.

But then, the next day, he ground the beans from Zirobwe in his hotel room. Yes, a coffee researcher always packs a portable grinder when traveling.

“Actually, this is not bad,” he recalled thinking. It had potential.

. . .

Dr. Kiwuka and Dr. Davis teamed up. They would encourage farmers to improve the harvesting and drying of their Liberica crop. Instead of tossing them in with the robusta beans, they would sell the Libericas separately. If they met certain standards, they would get a higher price.

“In a warming world, and in an era beset with supply chain disruption, Liberica coffee could re-emerge as a major crop plant,” they wrote in Nature, the scientific journal, this past December.

For the full story, see:

Somini Sengupta. “Hardier Brew: African Farmers Bet on Climate-Resistant Coffee.” The New York Times (Saturday, April 29, 2023): A1 & A6.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date April 28, 2023, and has the title “What Climate Change Could Mean for the Coffee You Drink.”)

The article in Nature Plants mentioned above is:

Davis, Aaron P., Catherine Kiwuka, Aisyah Faruk, Mweru J. Walubiri, and James Kalema. “The Re-Emergence of Liberica Coffee as a Major Crop Plant.” Nature Plants 8, no. 12 (Dec. 2022): 1322-28.

Scarce Metals, Batteries, and Factories Needed for EVs Are Very Hard to Quickly Ramp-Up

(p. B1) The Biden administration’s plan to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles — reaching a two-thirds share of new cars in less than a decade — pushes automakers further in a direction they have already been going. But meeting the new timetable will be a challenge.

. . .

But the industry and its customers have a long way to go. While sales of electric vehicles are (p. B3) rising, they accounted for only 5.8 percent of the 13.8 million new cars and trucks sold in the United States last year.

. . .

The owner of a 2018 Ford F-150 pickup truck, he often has to haul around a trailer full of equipment for his job, and he sometimes tows a camper for vacations — driving patterns that are not very suitable for E.V.s. It’s also not unusual for him to have to drive 300 miles on a work trip, and farther when he visits relatives in Michigan.

“I’m a person who likes to go and not have a lot of stops,” he said. “If I’m working, I can’t really wait an hour or more to recharge an E.V.”

On top of that, he lives in an apartment, so he would have no way to charge an E.V. at home.

Whether Americans are willing to accept changes to their work and lifestyle to drive electric vehicles is only one of several hurdles and uncertainties. The biggest is perhaps lithium. The soft, silver-white metal is the key element in E.V. batteries, and the world produces only a small fraction of the amount that will be needed for a majority of car buyers to go electric in the United States, Europe and China, markets where more than 50 million cars were sold last year.

“Can we really produce enough lithium for that?” asked Mike Ramsey, a Gartner analyst who follows the electric car business. “We’re not even at 10 percent now, and it’s difficult for companies to get the lithium they need.”

While mining companies are racing to expand lithium production, the pace at which they can is unclear. In North Carolina, for example, Albemarle is trying to reopen a pit mine along Interstate 85 near Kings Mountain, 32 miles west of Charlotte.

The mine was in operation from the 1940s to the 1980s, and to reopen it the company must work out plans for protecting surrounding groundwater, determining if the mine’s steep walls are suitable for new operations and dealing with any contaminants that may be found in the pit lake at the mine’s bottom.

Extracting lithium from the hard ore at the site involves a more difficult and costly process than other sources, and residents in the area have begun working to block the resumption of mining operations.

The supply and production of other metals — including nickel, rare-earth metals, manganese and cobalt — must also increase to support a tenfold rise in E.V. sales.

On another front, the plants and assembly lines needed to produce millions of E.V.s every year don’t exist yet. While G.M., Ford and other manufacturers have plants under construction, they will have to produce twice or three times as many battery plants to hit their sales targets and those the Biden administration is setting.

Building and ramping up dozens of new plants will take years, and that process can be fraught.

For the full story, see:

Neal E. Boudette. “A Test for Automakers: Meeting Biden’s Deadline.” The New York Times (Tuesday, April 11, 2023): B1 & B3.

(Note: ellipses added.]

(Note: the online version of the story has the same date as the print version, and has the title “Automakers Face Test in Reaching U.S. Target for Electric Vehicles.”)

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Fast Transition Away from Fossil Fuels Requires Fast and Huge Increase in Mining of Lithium, Cobalt, and Copper

(p. A17) The drive toward energy transition will increase demand for lithium, cobalt and other minerals many times over. An offshore wind project uses nine times the minerals of a natural-gas-fired power plant of the same generating capacity.

As countries roll out targets for “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050, it’s becoming clear how difficult it will be to source this huge increase in minerals. The U.S. and Japanese governments, the European Union and a host of multilateral organizations have issued alarming reports about the magnitude of the challenge. The International Monetary Fund warns that striving to achieve net zero by 2050 will “spur unprecedented demand for some of the most crucial metals,” leading to price spikes that “could derail or delay the energy transition itself.”

Consider a recent S&P Global study on copper. Much of the energy transition is predicated on electrifying as much as possible, as fast as possible. That will require a huge amount of copper, as it is the “metal of electrification.” The report concludes that translating the 2050 net zero goals into the equipment and technologies that will be needed—electric-vehicle batteries and charging stations, offshore wind, onshore wind, solar panels, battery storage, etc.—adds up to a doubling of the need for copper by the mid-2030s.

. . .

Two countries mine about 40% of world’s copper supplies—Peru, where the government is in disarray after the president was impeached and arrested, and Chile, whose government is struggling between its populist agenda and the need for economic growth.

. . .

The quest for net zero emissions will face similar challenges with other commodities, where the growth in demand will be much greater. Seventy percent of cobalt, critical for electric-vehicle batteries, comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where large mining operations coexist with small, hand-dug mines in which both adults and children work.

There’s a further complication—about 60% of the world’s lithium is processed in China, and 47% of copper is smelted there. By comparison, the U.S. processes 4% of world copper. Once the U.S. had more than a dozen copper smelters; now it has two.

For the full commentary, see:

Daniel Yergin. “‘Net Zero’ Will Mean a Mining Boom.” The Wall Street Journal (Thursday, April 13, 2023): A17.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date April 12, 2023, and has the same title as the print version.)

The S&P Global study mentioned above is:

Yergin, Daniel (Project Chairman). “The Future of Copper: Will the Looming Supply Gap Short-Circuit the Energy Transition?” S&P Global, July 2022.

Critique of Fed Claim That a Year of Above Average Temps Increases Odds of a Recession

(p. A17) . . . recently I published a critique of a study from the Federal Reserve Board claiming that a year of above-normal temperatures in countries around the world makes economic contraction more likely.

. . .

There are two main reasons why the Fed study appeared at first to show a statistically significant effect of temperatures on economic growth. First, each country in the sample had equal weight in the analysis. China had the same weight as St. Vincent though China’s population is 13,000 times as large. Equal weighting means that some small countries with unusual histories of economic growth greatly influenced the results.

The paper’s results disappeared when countries like Rwanda and Equatorial Guinea—which had economic catastrophes and bonanzas unrelated to climate change—were omitted. Omitting similar countries representing less than 1% of world gross domestic product was enough to eliminate the paper’s result. The complicated statistical techniques used in the Fed study magnified the influence of these unusual countries.

There’s a second reason why the Fed study appears to find that temperature affects growth: Many poor countries have warm climates. A warm climate doesn’t preclude economic growth, as is demonstrated by Florida, Arizona, Taiwan, Singapore and several Persian Gulf states. But the average poor country is warmer than the average rich country. Debate continues as to whether this correlation is random or causal, but the hypothesis of the Fed paper is that year-to-year increases in temperature reduce annual economic growth. The paper claims that its method controls for long-term differences in climate, but using simulated data I found that the Fed paper’s method can be fooled into finding an effect that doesn’t exist.

For the full commentary, see:

David Barker. “The Fed’s Climate Studies Are Full of Hot Air.” The Wall Street Journal (Monday, April 10, 2023): A17.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date April 9, 2023, and has the same title as the print version.)

Barker’s critique mentioned above is:

Barker, David. “Temperature and Economic Growth: Comment on Kiley.” Econ Journal Watch 20, no. 1 (March 2023): 69–84.

Occidental Building Costly Plant to Bury Carbon Dioxide, Hoping to Be the Last Firm Still Allowed to Produce Oil

The “oracle of Omaha,” Warren Buffett, has been investing in Occidental.

(p. A1) About fifty miles southwest of Midland, Texas, deep in the oil-saturated Permian Basin, more than 100 workers are busy laying out roads and water lines, preparing to build an elaborate complex of fans, each as large as a tennis court.

When they start running in 2024, the fans will suck massive amounts of carbon dioxide out of the air. The carbon will be funneled thousands of feet down deep wells into geological formations, where it should remain for centuries.

The company behind this environmental moonshot is Occidental Petroleum Corp., one of the country’s most successful oil-and-gas producers. It hopes the enterprise will give it license to keep operating as a driller decades into the future.

It is spending more than $1 billion to build the first in a planned fleet of plants using direct-air capture to pull the CO2 out of the air, a budding technology with fuzzy economics. Bolstering the move are generous tax incentives included in the climate package President Biden signed into law last year that cover up to 45% of Occidental’s expected initial costs per metric ton.

. . .

(p. 8) To be successful, Occidental will need to bring the cost of capture and containment down by hundreds of dollars per metric ton of CO2, according to energy executives and analysts.

Occidental estimated its initial cost to remove a metric ton of CO2 would be between $400 and $500. It said that as it manufactures more plants and efficiencies kick in, it will be able to roughly halve that to between $200 and $250 a ton by the end of the decade, according to the company. None of the figures include federal tax credits.

The Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law by President Biden last year, rewards companies that capture and store atmospheric CO2 with a $180 tax credit per metric ton contained permanently, up from $50. Credits for capturing atmospheric CO2 and using it in enhanced oil recovery rose to $130 a metric ton, up from $35. The bill also offers incentives to companies that capture CO2 at industrial plants and sequester it, which Occidental also plans to do.

. . .

Howard Herzog, a leading researcher on carbon capture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said he didn’t think bringing the cost of direct-air capture down to around $100 a metric ton was a realistic goal. Occidental is “probably more bullish on direct-air capture than I would be,” he said. But he added that how much buyers of carbon credits are willing to pay will also determine how profitable direct-air capture turns out to be.

Ms. Hollub told The Wall Street Journal in August that Occidental’s efforts on carbon capture and on becoming a net-zero emitter would allow it to keep up its investments in oil and gas. She warned that underinvestment in fossil fuels, which she says will be needed for years even amid the broader transition to clean energy, will lead to a scarcity of supplies. In contrast, she said, other oil majors such as BP PLC and Shell PLC have shrunk their oil segment and invested in renewables.

Oil companies will have to find ways to remove as much carbon dioxide as they emit “if they want to be the last producer standing in the world,” Ms. Hollub said.

For the full story, see:

Benoît Morenne. “Occidental’s Green Bet To Keep Pumping Oil.” The Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, April 11, 2023): A1 & A8.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date April 10, 2023, and has the title “Occidental Makes a Billion-Dollar Climate Moonshot—So It Can Keep Pumping Oil.”)

The Hybrid Trees Weyerhaeuser Plants, Absorb More Carbon Dioxide Than Did the Trees It Cuts Down

(p. A1) KIBBY TOWNSHIP, Maine—Weyerhaeuser Co. has cut down more trees than any other American company since its founder started logging before the Civil War. Environmentalists have long treated it as an enemy.

Now, the new math of carbon emissions is enabling the lumber producer to cast itself as something quite different: a force for environmental good.

Its 10.6 million acres of U.S. timberland act as a giant sponge for carbon dioxide, which Weyerhaeuser says more than compensates for the greenhouse gases it emits by felling trees, sawing them into lumber and distributing wood products.

Although Weyerhaeuser is cutting down as many trees as ever and plans to increase lumber production 5% in the next few years, it says its net carbon footprint is negative—so much so that it is offering carbon dioxide storage capacity to other companies. Weyerhaeuser expects a new unit dedicated to helping other firms offset their emissions to generate $100 million a year in profit by the end of 2025.

“I don’t think there are many companies in the world with a better environmental (p. A8) story than Weyerhaeuser,” said Devin Stockfish, chief executive officer of the Seattle-based company. “The moment is really ripe for us.”

. . .

Weyerhaeuser logs about 2% of its land each year and plants more than 130 million saplings a year to replace much of what it cuts. Company scientists have selectively bred trees over the decades to grow bigger, faster and better for lumber-making than the ones they replace. The company says those new breeds will sock away carbon dioxide faster than the ones cut down, allowing it to boost sequestration and wood production at the same time.

“There is a pretty significant difference in the genetics of the trees that we grow versus what would have grown naturally,” Mr. Stockfish said.

For the full story, see:

Ryan Dezember. “Logger Recasts Itself As Climate Friendly.” The Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, April 18, 2023): A1 & A8.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date April 17, 2023, and has the title “America’s Most Prolific Logger Recasts Itself as Environmental Do-Gooder.”)

Biden EV Goals Depend on “Troubled” Business Model for Fast Charging

(p. A13) President Biden’s EV ambitions will hinge in large part on the availability of public places to plug in and repower cars reliably, a network that largely doesn’t exist. Building it won’t be easy.

While the government is (p. A2) pouring billions of dollars into developing a national highway charging network, many companies aren’t sure how they will make money off the nascent business. Fast charging requires expensive utility infrastructure and projects often encounter supply chain hang ups and long wait times to connect to the grid.

. . .

The business model for fast charging has been troubled because there aren’t enough EVs in most places yet for charging to turn a profit. Yet EV advocates say many drivers will only be comfortable purchasing vehicles if rapid charging is widely available.

Utility companies and gas stations have been arguing across several states about who will own and operate EV chargers. The expensive utility bills that can result from delivering quick jolts of power have been a particular point of contention. Meanwhile, the young companies that provide charging gear and services have struggled with equipment on the fritz, vandalism and driver payment systems, a frequent source of failure.

For the full story, see:

Jennifer Hiller. “Fast Electric-Vehicle Chargers Get Boost, But Hurdles Lurk.” The Wall Street Journal (Friday, April 14, 2023): A1-A2.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated April 13, 2023, and has the title “Fast EV Chargers to Nearly Double on U.S. Highways Under Expansion Plan.” In the first paragraph quoted above, the online version has “Mr. Biden’s” instead of “President Biden’s.”)

Small “Creative” Subsistence Farmers Experiment and Innovate to Adapt to Global Warming

(p. A1) When it comes to growing food, some of the smallest farmers in the world are becoming some of the most creative farmers in the world. Like Judith Harry and her neighbors, they are sowing pigeon peas to shade their soils from a hotter, more scorching sun. They are planting vetiver grass to keep floodwaters at bay.

They are resurrecting old crops, like finger millet and forgotten yams, and planting trees that naturally fertilize the soil. A few are turning away from one legacy of European colonialism, the practice of planting rows and rows of maize, or corn, and saturating the fields with chemical fertilizers.

“One crop might fail. Another crop might do well,” said Ms. Harry, who has abandoned her parents’ tradition of growing just maize and tobacco and added peanuts, sunflowers, and soy to her fields. “That might save your season.”

It’s not just Ms. Harry and her neighbors in Malawi, a largely agrarian nation of 19 million on the front lines of climate hazards. Their scrappy, throw-everything-at-the-wall array of innovations is multiplied by small subsistence farmers elsewhere in the world.

. . .

(p. A10) . . . Mr. Mponda, 26, grows maize. But he no longer counts on maize alone. The soil is degraded from decades of monoculture. The rains don’t come on time. This year, fertilizer didn’t either.

“We are forced to change,” Mr. Mponda said. “Just sticking to one crop isn’t beneficial.”

The total acreage devoted to maize in Mchinji District, in central Malawi, has declined by an estimated 12 percent this year, compared with last year, according to the local agricultural office, mainly because of a shortage of chemical fertilizers.

Mr. Mponda is part of a local group called the Farmer Field Business School that runs experiments on a tiny plot of land. On one ridge, they’ve sown two soy seedlings side by side. On the next, one. Some ridges they’ve treated with manure; others not. Two varieties of peanuts are being tested.

The goal: to see for themselves what works, what doesn’t.

For the full story, see:

Somini Sengupta. “Climate Shocks Force Small Farmers to Reinvent.” The New York Times (Friday, April 28, 2023): A1 & A10.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date April 27, 2023, and has the title “Meet the Climate Hackers of Malawi.”)


Launching Europe’s Largest Nuclear Reactor Gives Finland Electricity Resilience Against Russian Disruptions

(p. A7) Finland has started regular electricity output at Europe’s largest nuclear reactor, a move that contrasts with developments in other European countries, where opposition to nuclear power is stronger.

The long-delayed Olkiluoto 3 reactor is the first European nuclear-power facility to open in 16 years. Alongside two other nuclear reactors on the Olkiluoto island off Finland’s west coast, the new 1.6-gigawatt plant will eventually produce nearly one-third of the country’s electricity.

. . .

Finland’s reliance on nuclear energy, in combination with hydro and wind power, is part of the Nordic nation’s transition toward carbon neutrality, which has helped make Finland resilient against energy-supply disruptions, such as those following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

For the full story, see:

Sune Engel Rasmussen. “Finland Launches Nuclear Reactor.” The Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, April 18, 2023): A7.

(Note: ellipsis added)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date April 17, 2023, and has the title “Europe’s Largest Nuclear Reactor Launches as Continent Splits Over Atomic Energy.”)

Extreme Weather Can Bring Enough Water to Recharge California’s Aquifers

(p. A15) After a long, dry summer, winter has brought the gift of water to California, via a series of atmospheric river storms. Unfortunately, as these sprawling rivers in the sky have met developed areas covered with concrete and rivers locked in by levees, they have brought destruction: floods, mudslides, washed-out roads, blackouts, uprooted trees and at least six deaths.

But California doesn’t have to passively suffer through the whiplash of drought and floods. To reduce risk from both, it can return some of its land to water, working with natural systems.

One way to do this is by making use of unique geologic features called paleo valleys. These buried canyons carved into the state’s Central Valley were formed by Ice Age rivers that flowed down the western flank of the Sierra Nevada and were later filled in with coarse sand and gravel from glacial melt.

. . .

There is enough unmanaged surface water from rain and snow statewide to resupply Central Valley aquifers, making more water available to farmers, urban dwellers and the environment. Even with climate change, the state will most likely have enough water for recharge in the future in part because of more extreme weather, according to a 2021 study.

For the full commentary, see:

Erica Gies. “California Should Capture Its Floodwaters.” The New York Times (Monday, January 9, 2023): A15.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Jan. 7, 2023, and has the title “California Could Capture Its Destructive Floodwaters to Fight Drought.”)

The 2021 study mentioned above is:

He, Xiaogang, Benjamin P. Bryant, Tara Moran, Katharine J. Mach, Zhongwang Wei, and David L. Freyberg. “Climate-Informed Hydrologic Modeling and Policy Typology to Guide Managed Aquifer Recharge.” Science Advances 7, no. 17 (April 21, 2021), doi:10.1126/sciadv.abe6025.

Progressives Want Us to “Reduce Consumption“ Because “They Believe Humans Are a Menace to the Earth”

(p. A15) Replacing all gasoline-powered cars with electric vehicles won’t be enough to prevent the world from overheating. So people will have to give up their cars. That’s the alarming conclusion of a new report from the University of California, Davis and “a network of academics and policy experts” called the Climate and Community Project.

The report offers an honest look at the vast personal, environmental and economic sacrifices needed to meet the left’s net-zero climate goals. Progressives’ dirty little secret is that everyone will have to make do with much less—fewer cars, smaller houses and yards, and a significantly lower standard of living.

. . .

The report concludes that the auto sector’s “current dominant strategy,” which involves replacing gasoline-powered vehicles with EVs without decreasing car ownership and use, “is likely incompatible” with climate activists’ goal to keep the planet from warming by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius compared with preindustrial times. Instead, the report recommends government policies that promote walking, cycling and mass transit.

. . .

Progressives’ ultimate goal is to reduce consumption—and living standards—because they believe humans are a menace to the Earth.

For the full commentary, see:

Allysia Finley. “The Climate Crusaders Are Coming for Electric Cars Too.” The Wall Street Journal (Friday, Feb. 13, 2023): A15.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date February 12, 2023, and has the same title as the print version.)

The U.C. Davis report mentioned above that urges our return to the dark ages is:

Riofrancos, Thea, Alissas Kendall, Matthew Haugen, Batul Hassan, and Xan Lillehei. “Achieving Zero Emissions with More Mobility and Less Mining.” U.C. Davis: The Climate and Community Project, Jan. 2023.