The Green Revolution in China
A couple of weeks ago, China's highest government body published their conclusions from the second research session on continental climate change over a period of twelve months. Due to China's new global role and the number of unprecedented environmental issues in China, the Chinese prime minister was very keen to raise climate change as an important issue at the upcoming G8 summit in Hokkaido, Japan.
It should be highlighted that the Chinese central government also had a similar meeting and that China is a rapidly industrializing country with new coal-fueled power plants opening every week. China is like a terrifying carbon-guzzling monster. As a result of thirty years of industrialization, China now has the highest level of carbon dioxide emissions in the world. Carbon dioxide emissions are increasing up to eight per cent a year. The EU achieved a twenty per cent reduction, but China's emission rate was twice as much approaching the 2010 IPCC deadline for carbon dioxide emissions reduction.
However, it could be misleading to put too much emphasis on these statistics. A non-governmental organization (Climate Group) newspaper report presents a slightly different picture. According to the Clean Revolution in China, China is a nation that is more than aware of its environmental issues but also has the potential to achieve a second miracle in 30 years.
The environmental price of the first "miracle" was that Chinese people always saw their daily lives. That's why most of the policies are related to energy efficiency, energy-saving and other alternative energy sources. Those policies have already been met with some concern.
Whilst the personal sectors are so strong and developing, they are able to aid the central government to introduce laws, like the National Renewable Energy Law in 2006. This has set hard targets, including increasing the amount of energy made from new renewable sources from eight per cent to fifteen per cent until 2020. Also, it has guaranteed at least three per cent of renewable energy sources, such as biomass, solar and wind.
Both wind and solar power are so successful, but their origins are very different. With 6 gigawatts of energy made from wind turbines, surprisingly China is now ranked behind Germany, the US, Spain and India. Also, some believe China will reach 100 GW by 2020.
Wind power successfully shows that with central government aid China is ready for new policies, subsidies and advanced technology. This situation also has a role in the domestic market. The amount of electricity produced by wind farms can be a burden to fund.
Even though western countries invented an open marketplace set to dominate in China, there were few domestic incentives for solar power. In the global solar photovoltaic cell market, it is second only to Japan and growing fast. In China, the solar market has been a small business, because the cells are so expensive. This puts pressure on the government to rapidly follow up on their policies, for example, the role of the Climate Group is important in developing domestic markets.
However, the image of new coal-fueled power stations still looms large as they are opening every week. It is hard to imagine that China has achieved a 10.5 per cent of growth rate without such stations in the last quarter. However, how many people actually know that China has been closing its small power stations over the last couple of years? Step by step China is reducing its small power stations, first the 50-megawatt ones then the 100-megawatt ones and next will be the 300-megawatt power stations.
This policy is operated by the Chinese central government and backs up the new generation of coal station using the most advanced technologies with supercritical and ultra-supercritical improved clean coal. Capture functions and plants of carbon are researched and developed, but advanced thinking for the future is based on the technology of Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) that turn coal materials into synthetic gas to make power.
These days, Chinese consumers demand better homes and vehicles. Public awareness of energy-saving is on the rise. The Chinese government introduced a standard fuel economy for vehicles in 2004 of 15.6 kilometers per litre. This is higher than the US, Canada and Australia but behind Europe and Japan. In the meantime, in spite of a high 20 per cent tax on SUVs (Sport Utility Vehicles), the sale of these sorts of cars continues to increase.
Up to now, China has been the kingdom of the bicycle, importing the electric bike at 1,500 yuan ($220) per vehicle. Some of these vehicles have adopted an intelligent recovery system similar to that of hybrid cars. In 2007, the sale of electric bikes increased considerably and China is estimated to make up three-quarters of the world electric vehicle market.
China, already, is doing a lot on the bottom line. So, could it do more? The answer is yes, China should learn and open its mind through international communities. According to the Climate Group, they report the world should refine their image of China, just not fear it and, constructively, work in unison. At the same time, China's government should develop a clean revolution and maintain internal pressure for improvements.
Space Flight Tourism
Falcon 1's successful launch on 28th of September was an outstanding achievement for the fledgeling space tourism industry. When a rocket made by Space X in Hawthorne, California, reached an orbit of 500 kilometres from the Earth, it became possible for privately developed rocket too.
Two days after the launch, Virgin Galactic started a business with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration which will be accepted by US scientists as a way of researching climate change using a spacecraft.
No doubt the civilian space flight industry is an exciting area and this was apparent at the International Aeronautical Congress in Glasgow last month. It displayed slick promotional videos, and models of the "Nearly Ready" spacecraft in orbit to the people who would be investing money in the project.
However, in spite of increasing confidence, it is also necessary to be cautious: can a civilian spacecraft be safe like holiday airlines? Gerardine Goh, a lawyer at DLR, the German Aerospace Centre in Bonn and a member of Germany's delegation to the UN's Office of Outer Space Affairs reported that as it is not global, there need to be enforceable regulations in place to guarantee the safety of a civilian spacecraft. She said, "Ships should be equipped to be seaworthy, aircraft should be equipped to be airworthy but there is no legislation in place to ensure that a spacecraft is spaceworthy."
At the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety, Goh is planning to press the UN to force civilian space operators to warrant which spacecraft are designed and built to minimum safety standards. She says, "Mass commercial space flight does not currently have international safety regulations." and "We deeply need a UN treaty which offers us this."
One way companies are planning to transport tourists into space is with a "mother ship", an aircraft which carries a rocket at an altitude of 16 kilometres before launching it, says Goh. "But with launching the aircraft, the ICAO's air safety standards only apply to the mother ship and the rocket capsule until they are separated. After that, we do not have any safety standards for the capsule itself. It is a critical problem."
From 16 kilometres to the Karman line, the point of 100 kilometres up where space is considered to start, the rocket will be travelling within a legal vacuum. Here, lawyers cannot agree on whether it is a plane or a rocket. Some insist that if you are in a well-equipped functioning rocket, more strict safety measures should try to be incorporated into the spaceship's design.
The other aspects of the UN's 1967 treaty for outer space exploration may be discussed again if civilian space flight turns out to be successful. For example, countries must consider how to rescue and repatriate astronauts crashing or landing in their land. Also, governments have to decide if the money generated by the space flight industry will be enough to cover the cost of rescuing space tourists.
Civilian space flight companies are very aware of the risks in this field as they have already had the experience of dealing with a tragedy. Unfortunately, three engineers were killed and another three were severely injured in 2007, when nitrous oxide rocket fuel suddenly exploded during fuel flow tests at a Scaled Composites facility in Mojave, California. The company is establishing WhiteKnightTwo, a carrier aircraft and SpaceShip Two, a six-seater rocket for Virgin Galactic. The facility was regulated by California's health and safety regulator, and it has now modified its technology to decrease the risks.
However, space flight's dangers are far from just fuel issues. According to Laurent Gathier of Dassault Aviation developing the VSH of a rocketpowered sub-orbital tourist space plane, other critical safety factors are with depressurization risks, passengers close to the engine and the activities of flight trajectories including cosmic ray shielding.
Civilian space companies should incorporate the safety features into their designs. For instance, the VSH will equip an ejector seat for all tourists and staff. It is a device for bailing out of the spacecraft with a default of 40,000 feet (12 kilometres).
Goh's vision is essentially against the Federal Aviation Administration Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) and does not have any schemes to regulate civilian space flight safety until 2012. The Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004 mentions that George Nield as AST chief said, the civilian space flight regulation must not "stifle" the developing technologies with inconvenient rules.
Before launching, a hands-off approach to civilian space flight could be quite risky. Goh said, "A lack of safety standards and a lot of operational burdens will leave a commercial space flight in the dangerous activity categories in terms of the insurance." It means insurance costs will be very high. Critics who are developing safety standards also insist that the "at-your-own-risk" mentality that is applied to risky sports like scuba-diving should also be applied to civilian space flight.
Putting the brakes on climate change
Are hydrogen cars the answer?
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It is tempting to think that the conservation of coral reefs and rainforests is a separate issue from traffic and air pollution. But it is not. Scientists are now confident that rapid changes in the Earth's climate are already disrupting and altering many wildlife habitats. Pollution from vehicles is a big part of the problem.
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The United Nation's Climate Change Panel has estimated that the global average temperature rise expected by the year 2100 could be as much as 6°C, causing forest fires and dieback on land and coral bleaching in the ocean. Few species, if any, will be immune from the changes in temperature, rainfall and sea levels. The panel believes that if such catastrophic temperature rises are to be avoided, the quantity of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, being released into the atmosphere must be reduced. That will depend on slowing the rate of deforestation and, more crucially, finding alternatives to coal, oil and gas as our principal energy sources.
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Technologies do exist to reduce or eliminate carbon dioxide as a waste product of our energy consumption. Wind power and solar power are both spreading fast, but what are we doing about traffic? Electric cars are one possible option, but their range and the time it takes to charge their batteries pose serious limitations. However, the technology that shows the most potential to make cars climate-friendly is fuel-cell technology. This was actually invented in the late nineteenth century, but because the world's motor industry put its effort into developing the combustion engine, it was never refined for mass production. One of the first prototype fuel-cell-powered vehicles have been built by the Ford Motor Company. It is like a conventional car, only with better acceleration and a smoother ride. Ford engineers expect to be able to produce a virtually silent vehicle in the future.
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So what's the process involved – and is there a catch? Hydrogen goes into the fuel tank, producing electricity. The only emission from the exhaust pipe is water. The fuel-cell is, in some ways similar to a battery, but unlike a battery, it does not run down. As long as hydrogen and oxygen are supplied to the cell, it will keep on generating electricity. Some cells work off methane and a few use liquid fuels such as methanol, but fuel-ceils using hydrogen probably have the most potential. Furthermore, they need not be limited to transport. Fuel-cells can be made in a huge range of size, small enough for portable computers or large enough for power stations. They have no moving parts and therefore need no oil. They just need a supply of hydrogen. The big question, then, is where to get it from.
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One source of hydrogen is water. But to exploit the abundant resource, electricity is needed, and if the electricity is produced by a coal-fired power station or other fossil fuel, then the overall carbon reduction benefit of the fuel-cell disappears. Renewable sources, such as wind and solar power, do not produce enough energy for it to be economically viable to use them in the 'manufacture' of hydrogen as a transport fuel. Another source of hydrogen is, however, available and could provide a supply pending the development of more efficient and cheaper renewable energy technologies. By splitting natural gas (methane) into its constituent parts, hydrogen and carbon dioxide are produced. One way round the problem of what to do with the carbon dioxide could be to store it back below ground – so-called geological sequestration. Oil companies, such as Norway's Statoil, are experimenting with storing carbon dioxide below ground in oil and gas wells.
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With freak weather conditions, arguably caused by global warming, frequently in the headlines, the urgent need to get fuel-cell vehicles will be available in most showrooms. Even now, fuel-cell buses are operating in the US, while in Germany a courier company is planning to take delivery of fuel-cell-powered vans in the near future. The fact that centrally-run fleets of buses and vans are the first fuel-cell vehicles identifies another challenge – fuel distribution. The refueling facilities necessary to top up hydrogen-powered vehicles are available only in a very few places at present. Public transport and delivery firms are logical places to start since their vehicles are operated from central depots.
Fuel-cell technology is being developed right across the automotive industry. This technology could have a major impact in slowing down climate change, but further investment is needed if the industry – and the world's wildlife – is to have a long-term future.
