Climate Good News
Around the world people are taking the initiative to mitigate climate change.
Here are some good news briefs compiled by the Climate Issue group of the
League of Women Voters of Bellingham/Whatcom.
Trains for the Future Come to California
The first zero-emission, hydrogen-powered hybrid train in the United States has arrived in San Bernardino, with an aim to start passenger service later this year. The hybrid FLIRT H2 train broke a Guinness World Record earlier this year for the longest distance traveled by a train of its kind on a single charge — 1,741 kilometers.
The state plans to use them all across its Metrolink system if it goes well. And, with only water vapor for emissions, passengers will enjoy a cleaner, planet- and people-friendly commute starting later this year. Not only that, the trains fight air pollution in one of the most polluted air environments in California.
As transit agencies start to look for cleaner vehicle options — especially as California moves toward new emission standards for trains — Tim Watkins, San Bernardino County Transportation Authority’s chief of legislative and public affairs, hopes these trains can be used far beyond Southern California.
“The fact that it can run on existing infrastructure basically means this vehicle type, this clean option of a passenger rail train can be implemented anywhere in the country, which makes it even more exciting that San Bernardino County is being first in this endeavor,” Watkins said.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/the-first-zero-emission-hydrogen-train-in-the-us-is-setting-off-in-late-2024/
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Renewables Exceeded 100 Percent of Energy Demand in California for 30 of the Past 38 Days
California just set a major new benchmark for clean energy: For 30 of the past 38 days (and counting!), renewables have exceeded 100 percent of energy demand on its main grid.
This consistent level of clean energies meeting energy demands — not necessarily 24/7, but for an extended number of consecutive days — has never been achieved … until now.
California also has the world’s largest grid-connected battery storage facility that just came online in January. So, while renewables were exceeding energy demand during the day — that was all getting stored to be utilized later.
This benchmark is so significant that one expert predicted the state will run entirely on renewables and battery storage by 2035 — 10 years ahead of its self-imposed deadline.
Stanford University professor of civil and environmental engineering, Mark Z. Jacobson, continues to track California’s renewables’ performance — and it’s still exciting. Jacobson notes that supply exceeds demand for “0.25-6 hours per day,” and that’s an important fact. The continuity lies not in renewables running the grid for the entire day, but in the fact that it’s happening on a consistent daily basis, which has never been achieved before.
What makes it even better is that California has the largest grid-connected battery storage facility in the world (which came online in January …), meaning those batteries were filling up with excess energy from the sun all afternoon each day and deploy that energy to offset a good chunk of the methane gas generation that California still uses overnight.
California passed a law that commits to achieving 100 percent net zero electricity by 2045, but Jacobson predicted on April 4 that California will entirely be on renewables and battery storage 24/7 by 2035. Will California beat its own goal by a decade? It’s going to be exciting to watch.
“California achieves 100 days of 100% electricity demand met by renewables” by Michelle Lewis, Electrek, July 29, 2024.
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Paris Olympics Aimed To Be Carbon Neutral
We heard many comments about the rainstorm that caused overflows of dirty water into the Seine — so polluted the relay races were postponed. Luckily, after a few days, the water, with some gentler rain and treatment, became safe enough for the relay.
What we didn’t hear was that the Seine was featured in the organizers’ plan to be more sustainable than previous Olympics. The last three Olympic Games produced an average of 3.5 million tons of CO2, which is more than the annual emissions of India and Germany combined.
As early as the candidature phase, the organizers pledged to cut carbon emissions by half compared to London 2012 and Rio 2016, and align with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change — a goal they have sought to achieve by understanding how they can do more with less, and for longer. This has meant mapping out all the resources needed to stage the Games, right down to the last tennis ball, all with the aim of controlling their life cycle before, during and after the Games, and reducing the Games’ material footprint.
One real highlight of their plan was to use water from the Seine as part of a whole new system to cool the Olympic Village. Originally designed without any air-conditioners, the eco-friendly Paris Olympic Village had a geothermal cooling system that pumps the river’s cold water from deep beneath the ground to keep indoor temps at least 6°C lower than outside. Unfortunately, this was not enough for the participants. With the French meteorological service Météo France forecasting higher than normal temperatures for summer across the country, athletes expressed concern about the potential effects of extreme heat, including cramps, exhaustion, heat stroke and even death.
After this pushback from Olympic delegations, Paris organizers allowed countries to order portable air-con units at their own expense, which were installed for the duration of the Games. Twenty-five hundred units were ordered. It remains to be seen just how far this set their goal back.
Still, the rest of the Olympics ran on 100 percent green energy generated from new sources of wind and solar energy like windmills on the Normandy coast to solar panels on the roofs of venues in Paris.
Hosting the Olympics in the past has typically brought big spending on new venues. But 95 percent of Paris 2024 was hosted in existing buildings or temporary infrastructure. The Stade de France, which was originally built for the 1998 football World Cup, hosted most events. Only one new competition venue, the Aquatics Centre in Saint-Denis, was built for the 2024 Olympic Games. It is solar-powered, uses natural bio-based building materials and is fitted out with recycled materials.
Then take the two million pieces of sports equipment used at Paris 2024, 75 per cent of which were rented or loaned out by sports federations. Three-quarters of the screens, computers and printers used at the Games were rented, a reflection of the circular-economy strategy employed by the organizers. By adhering to a core principle of using fewer resources and utilizing them better, they have cut the estimated number of furniture items needed at the Games from 800,000 to 600,000, while ensuring their second life after athletes and spectators have gone home.
Other sustainability innovations to achieve the carbon cuts included reducing the number of new buildings and using wood, low-carbon cement and salvaged materials for unavoidable construction — and other sustainable features of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games include 1,000 km of new cycle lanes and 200,000 new trees in the streets.
Catering was 80 percent locally sourced and 60 percent plant based. There were low-carbon transport options to all venues, and surfing was outsourced to Tahiti, to encourage people to watch on TV rather than fly to the event.
Paris certainly achieved most of their goals to prove that sustainability works with good research and planning.
Boston News 24/7: by Mike Gavin, May 7, 2024
World Economic Forum Sustainability “Paris Aims to Host the Most Sustainable Olympics Ever”
by Victoria Masterson, May 26, 2024:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/03/paris-most-sustainable-olympics-2024/
