Obama and the Carbon Emissions

We'll start with looking at power plants. The first proposal the EPA put through in 2012 to change the performance standards for new source emissions of carbon dioxide was withdrawn a year later thanks to the power of the people. Over 2.5 million comments were made on the proposal and ultimately were the reason the proposal had to be withdrawn. The proposal was withdrawn to accommodate for the changes suggested amongst the multitude of comments, in addition to the EPA receiving new information that made them reconsider and alter their original proposal themselves.

The Power Plant
Source: Giphy

The new proposal for change was submitted in September, 2014. It proposed new standards of performance for both "fossil-fuel fired electric utility stream generation units" and "integrated gasification combined cycle units" the latter burn coal and petroleum coke in addition to other fossil fuels. The changing standards of performance will be due to the partial implementation of carbon capture and storage, these have been regarded as the best method of reducing emissions. The action also implements "natural gas combined cycle technology" for improved standards of gas-fired stationary combustion turbines. (EPA, 2014)

Yeah, that was quite a lot of long words for me as well and as a non-geographer i'm just going to pull out some key terms and explain them for myself and you. From what I gather from the 2014 proposal, emissions of CO2 will be reduced using two main systems...

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)

This is a technique that can capture up to 90% of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. CCS captures CO2 from the power generartion stations and other sources such as steel manufacture, cement manufacture and other industrial activities. The CO2 can be captured in three phases; post-combustion, pre-combustion and oxyfuel combustion. It then compresses the gas and transports it either by pipeline or ships to be stored underground safely and permanently- it is usually stored in depleted oil and gas fields or in deep saline fomations. This reduces CO2 emissions at it physcially stops the CO2 from being released into the atmosphere, thus reducing the greenhouse effect should the CO2 have been released. (CCSA, 2014)

and

Natural Gas Combined Cycle Technology

Natural gas as a fossil fuel has a lower carbon content than oil, as a result simply by switching to the use of natural gas from oil (even though this is not ideal as it still involves fossil fuels) this can result in up to a 50% reduction in CO2 emissions per kWh. (ClimateTechWiki, 2014) The best explanation for a natural gas combined cycle technology can be explained in this video...

 

 

But should you not have time to watch that there is a breif definition below:

 



"NGCC is an advanced power generation technology which allows to improve the fuel efficiency of natural gas. Most new gas power plants in North America and Europe are of this type. A gas turbine generator generates electricity and the waste heat is used to make steam to generate additional electricity via a steam turbine" - GreenFacts, 2014

In addition to changes to power plants Obama has also made a big push for "Clean Energy" (renewable energy). During the first term that Obama was in office the power generation from wind and solar energy was doubled. One of the major pushes Obama made towards clean energy was of the utility-scale renewable energy projects and as of this year, the Department of the Interior (DOI) announced the permitting of the 50th project to be launched in California.

“When President Obama first took office in 2009, there were no solar projects approved on public lands, and no process in place to move forward the hundreds of applications pending from businesses that wanted to harness renewable energy to help power our nation, with today’s milestone of 50 utility-scale renewable energy projects approved on public lands since our standing start in 2009, and with a number of those already producing energy for the nation’s electric grid, our clean energy future is bright.” - Sally Jewel, Secritary of DOI

In addition to the Clean Energy push and the changes made to power plants there are several other notable aspects of Obama's Carbon Emission Reduction Plan, I'll summarise these breifly below as I'm aware this post is getting dangerously long!

• Februaury 2014: Obama directs the EPA and Department Of Transport (DOT) to develop and issue the next segment of the "heavy-duty vehicle fuel efficiency" and greenhouse gas standards. This focused on geeting more miles per gallon from every tank of gas and thus improving fuel efficiency. This should be developed by March 2016. The project aims to set the strictest and toughest fuel regulation standards yet. (Utech, 2014)
• Obama does not just focus on reducing CO2 emissions, since taking office methane emissions have been reduced by 11%. In 2014 there was a report released furthur detailing the need for reductions in methane emissions and how to do so (this included the DOT's plans and the Department of Energy issuing energy conservation standards for appliances and eqiupment) (Utech, 2014)

Weirdly, the White House website for Climate Change, which has tended to be full of snippets of information with links to reports backing it up, but includes this...

"Emissions of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) — which are potent greehouse gases — are expected to double by 2020 and nearly triple by 2030 in the U.S."

... without any following information or plans to stop or reduce this, very strange?!

Overall I hope this post has been useful at providing an insight into Obama's current strategies to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, next time we will look at Obama's plan when it comes to preparing for the climate change that's currently underway.

Barack Obama
Source: Giphy