Happy Friday everyone! We're starting out this edition with our featured writer, Ian McGinnis, who is sharing with us part of his research on ecosystem and hydrological services in Mexico. Our headlines this week include a new pledge from the Chinese Government, but also a reason to be wary about whether big promises can be kept. We'll wrap up the issue with the first part of our Geothermal series where we'll tell you about quite a HOT topic in the renewable energy world.

Ian McGinnis during his research period in Mexico / Image courtesy of Ian McGinnis

Featured Writer - Ian McGinnis

Hello ClimateRoots readers! This week’s featured writer is Ian McGinnis, a Consultant in the Power, Renewables and Energy Transition group at FTI Consulting. In his current role, Ian advises clients across the power and utilities sector on matters such as financial restructuring, regulatory strategy, market entry, and wholesale electricity market design. Prior to starting at FTI, Ian completed a master’s degree at University of New Hampshire in Environmental Economics and received his undergraduate degree at Lebanon Valley College near Hershey, Pennsylvania. Outside of the office, you can find him chopping it up with Nick Moore on the soccer field and just generally vibin’ around Boston looking for a good burrito (suggestions welcome).

Ian's education and career has allowed him to be exposed to a number of topics that could fit the bill of “climate” and today, he will be sharing about ecosystem services and, more specifically, hydrological services, and the mechanisms that scientists, economists, and government officials have used to help improve their provision. This is a topic that is near and dear to his heart because it is what he wrote his master’s thesis on, which is forthcoming in the Journal of Environmental Management! We hope that you find it informative and relevant as we work toward smart and creative solutions to the climate crisis; one of the greatest and most urgent challenges our generation is facing as we enter the workforce and look to make our impact on the world. Enjoy!

Click below to read Ian's piece on our blog.

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Weekly Headlines

Study Finds that all but One Nation are Falling Short on their Climate Pledges (Associated Press)

• Only the tiny nation of The Gambia is on track to meet their Paris Agreement climate goals.
• According to a report by the Climate Action Tracker, the United Kingdom is the only country that even comes close to meeting their goals and finance clean energy for poorer nations.
• Among the countries called in the report for a lack of financing for poorer nations was the United States and many EU countries, whereas China and India have made little to no progress on achieving their goals.

Summer 2021 is the Hottest Summer on Record, Beating out the Dust Bowl Summer of 1936 (New York Times, CNN, The Hill)

• According to a recent report by NOAA, June-August 2021 had a national average temperature of 74 degrees fahrenheit, which is 2.6 degrees higher than average summer temperatures. 
• 2021 now holds the record of hottest meteorological summer, beating the Dust Bowl summer of 1936 by less than .01 degree fahrenheit. 
• Almost 20% of the contiguous United States experienced record warm temperatures, with five states (California, Idaho, Utah, Nevada and Oregon) experiencing their hottest summer on record. 

China Pledges to Stop Building Coal Plants Abroad (NPR, NRDC, New York Times)

• China’s president, Xi Jinping, announced that China will stop funding the construction of coal power plants abroad, adding pressure to other nations and creating momentum ahead of the COP 26 Climate Summit in Glasgow in November. 
• This is a big commitment, as China is currently funding about half the coal power plants worldwide, according to a report by E3G.
• President XI Jinping did not specify if the announcement applied to both government and private projects, and did not give a set timeline on when funding would cease. 

To read more headlines from this week, click below.

Gambian Farmers Battling the Effects of Climate Change / Image Courtesy of The Gambia

Education Piece - Geothermal 101

Welcome back to another issue of ClimateRoots! These next two issues we are going to be talking about a super interesting method of energy production: Geothermal!

Before we dive too deep, let’s take a step back and talk about the planet we call home.  Harnessed in the Earth is an insane amount of heat and pressure, thanks to billions of years of radioactive decay and non-stop heat loss from the planet’s formation. The steep temperature gradient near the surface means that going down into the crust even just a bit will reward us with enough thermal energy to do a lot of cool things! Geothermal relies on using steam to spin a turbine to produce power (check out our piece on steam turbines to see how generators work).  There are three ways of doing this that are widely used in power plants scattered across the world: dry steam, flash steam, and binary steam.

Dry Steam
The oldest and arguably easiest form of geothermal production, dry steam power plants work by directly pumping steam from underground reservoirs up into a turbine/generator.  From there, the steam is condensed into water and pumped back into the ground to become steam again. Northern California lays host to the largest dry steam energy production in the world, a site known as “The Geysers”. 

Flash steam
Flash steam production is much harder to come by as it requires an underground reservoir of fluid in excess of ~182 degrees celsius, although it is currently the most common method used globally.  At greater depths, the higher pressure will allow fluids to remain in a liquid state at warmer than normal temperatures because its boiling point will be greater as well. Flash steam power plants will pump this fluid up to the surface where the pressure is much lower, and thus its boiling point is as well, causing the fluid to “flash” into a vaporized state. This vapor is then pumped into a turbine and later condensed to be pumped back into the reservoir.

Binary cycle
Finally we have binary cycle, which sounds way more technical than it actually is.  This process takes advantage of a heat exchange to vaporize a secondary fluid, instead of relying on the primary underground fluid itself. This secondary fluid has a much lower boiling point than that of water, so it can more easily vaporize.

So what’s the catch?
Geothermal energy is often touted as the future of carbon-free power generation, and while it’s true that there is only a fraction of carbon emissions compared to other energy production methods like fossil fuels, there are still of course some drawbacks.

For starters, the process of geothermal power production can cause harmful gases to enter the atmosphere that would have otherwise been trapped underground. Additionally, geothermal energy is very location-specific. With most geothermal power plants existing on or near a tectonic fault line, not only does this severely limit the potential for expansion, there also comes problems with seismic instability.

At the end of the day, it is important to remember that no method of power production is perfect. Renewable energy is naturally very fickle, but any step away from fossil fuels is a good one. Geothermal is also by no means a perfect solution to our power crisis, but there is little doubt that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. There are even some rather cool applications of geothermal on a small scale that we didn’t touch on today that are being used in homes worldwide.  

To read this full piece with works cited, check it out on our blog!

Dry Steam Power Plant Diagram  / Image Courtesy of  US Department of Energy

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