Welcome to another Friday edition of ClimateRoots. We'll be kicking of the weekend this morning with our featured writer, Sarah Pokelwaldt! She has shared two short pieces about living in the Rocky Mountains, an area that has been uniquely impacted by climate change in recent years. Following that, we'll learn about the most recent greenwashing attempt by large corporations and some sad updates on everyone's favorite woodpecker in our weekly headlines section. Lastly, today's education piece will focus on some of the lesser known uses for geothermal power! We hope you learn a thing or two and have a great Friday!

Colorado's Rocky Mountains as the leaves change in Autumn / Image courtesy of  Sarah Pokelwaldt

Featured Writer - Sarah Pokelwaldt

Sarah is an ecologist who graduated from Colorado College with a bachelors in Organismal Biology and Ecology. As an ecologist, she studies the interactions of organisms with each other and their environments, which leads to the unique lens through which she views nature. Currently, Sarah is located in Denver, Colorado, where she works as a research assistant at Colorado College. Through her work, she is launching permaculture initiatives at a local mountain retreat. 

Today, we are featuring two of Sarah’s pieces. Her first piece is a short excerpt describing the feeling of fall in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. Over the past five years living in Colorado, she has developed a love for the land, and is working as a conservationist to protect it. Additionally, she is an avid trail runner and can often be found weaving from trail to trail, taking in the beauty of the landscape. In her second short excerpt, Sarah dives into what it is like living as a young adult in a region of the country that has been hit extremely hard by climate change. Like many of us she is plagued day in and day out by dooming headlines, unsettling weather events and difficult decisions. From her accounts, it is clear that climate change is going to impact everybody but especially those of us in already climate stressed areas.
 

Click below to read both of Sarah's short pieces on our blog!

Interested in being a Featured Writer? Fill out this survey and let us know!

Weekly Headlines

Major Oil Pipeline Burst in Southern California Harms Wildlife and Closes Beaches (Associated Press, Washington Post, CBS, The Guardian)

• A major oil spill released a minimum of 126,000 gallons of crude oil after a pipe burst late last week.

• The Amplify Energy pipeline burst shut down beaches and has already killed wildlife while threatening many bird species in the Talbert Marsh Wetland.

• Amplify Energy took over 7 hours to report the spill to authorities after first receiving a safety notice of a possible spill, slowing down any rapid response to the incident.

US Declares the Ivory-billed Woodpecker and 22 Other Species Extinct (Associated Press, New York Post, CBS News)

• The US government has listed over twenty species as officially extinct, with the list consisting mostly of small bird species.

• It is uncommon for ecologists to give up hope on so many species; only eleven other species have been declared extinct since the Endangered Species Act was enacted in the 1960’s.

• It is commonly accepted among the scientific community that the Earth is currently in an extinction crisis, with extinctions occurring at 1,000 times the natural rate.

Major Corporations are Lying about their Commitment to Fighting Climate Change (The Guardian)

• Large corporations and household names who have set ambitious climate goals are in reality funding groups that are fighting climate action.

• Companies including Apple, Amazon, Disney and Microsoft all support groups aimed at blocking the Biden administration’s reconciliation plan, which is widely considered our last chance to take meaningful action before it is too late.

• The most prominent of these groups is the US Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable that has pledged to do everything they can to fight the reconciliation package.

To read more headlines from this week, click below.

After effects of the Oil Spill by Newport Beach / Image Courtesy of Associated Press via Ringo H.W. Chiu

Hidden Perks of Geothermal Power

Hello again and happy Friday! Last issue we talked all about how we can use Geothermal to create power, but today we’re going to be talking about a couple other really cool applications for Geothermal.

First up on the list are geothermal heat pumps. Recently there has been a rise in using geothermal as a climate control supplement or alternative for homes. While air temperatures may vary greatly throughout the year, just a few feet below ground temperatures remain fairly consistent year round.  In the summer, the ground is cooler than the air, and in the winter, it’s warmer than the air. Depending on the time of year, a heat pump will work in one of two ways.

Let’s start by looking at a typical home in the summer:

Using a standard forced air system, warm air from the home is supplied to a heat exchanger, where cold water will suck the heat out of it.  The now cool air is returned to the home, and the now warm water is pumped through a series of underground pipes, where the extra heat will dissipate off. The cold water is then returned to the heat exchanger to remove more heat from the warm supply air, starting the cycle over again.

Now let’s look at the same house in the winter:

With colder air in the home, the cycle just works in reverse. Cold air is supplied to the heat exchanger where warm water will heat it up. The now cold water is pumped underground where it will warm up again and be used to start the cycle again.

Geothermal heat pumps are a great solution to a nearly carbon free heating system.  With an alternative of natural gas, biofuels, or electric heating systems (which may or may not be clean energy), geothermal is just another step in the right direction towards a carbon free lifestyle.  Pair it with solar to power the system and you have carbon-free climate control!

To explore some other really cool applications of geothermal, let’s take a look at Iceland, a country that has defined their energy sector by geothermal. With over 200 volcanoes and an abundance of hot springs, there is no shortage of hot ground water to go around. The vast majority of homes, hotels, and other businesses get their water directly from underground sources or from water that has been used in a geothermal power plant. This water is used for showers, baths, cleaning or radiators, just to name a few, but it isn’t recommended for cooking or drinking due to some of the several minerals in the water. 

When I took a trip to Iceland in the Spring of 2019, I had the same thought that almost every tourist does when they visit for the first time: wow that hot water smells bad! The horrible, rotten egg smell that exists in Iceland’s hot water is sulphuric dioxide. This, as well as a number of other minerals, comes from basalt lava that the water drips through before being pumped across the country. This makes for some soft, stinky water, but also virtually free hot water for the majority of Iceland’s hot water needs.

Just east of the capital city, Reykjavik, lives the Nesjavellir geothermal power plant.  After water is used to produce electricity, it is pumped into an accumulator tank, before gravity flow sends it on a long 27 km (16.7 mi) journey back to Reykjavik, where it will supply up to 40% of the city’s hot water needs. Along the way, it travels through an ultra insulated pipeline, losing only 0.5 degrees Celsius (about 1 degree Fahrenheit) from start to finish!

Personally, I think geothermal is super interesting.  Unlike other renewable methods we have talked about, there are plenty of other applications for geothermal, and the two we talked about today are just a sample.  Geothermal has been used for hundreds of years for cooking, cleaning, and more, but we are just starting to see its place in the modern world.

Thanks for reading along with us today, next issue we’ll be back with the next chapter in our renewable series: biomass!

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

Diagram of a Heat Pump in cooling mode / Image Courtesy of  Energy Environmental

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