Footnotes: US-China Solution

Hello Reader,
I have created this post to unclutter my primary post: A US-China Solution to Climate Change & the Trade Deficit.

[1] I calculated this figure by taking the average of the year-to-year growth of the US-China trade deficit from 1998-2008 as reported by the US Census Bureau. http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html

[2] According to the US Union of Concerned Scientists, the 2006 CO2 emissions for the US was 5902.75 million MT and for China was 6017.69 million MT. In total this is approximately 1.2x1010 MT. http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/each-countrys-share-of-co2.html

[3] Among well-known options: 1) Solar currently has too low of a MWh/$ ratio. 2) “Clean Coal” technologies to my knowledge are not yet proven if they are even feasible, but if the US and/or China are overly insistent some provisions for research funds could be incorporated into a deal. However, it is unrealistic to put too much stock in such technologies in the short-term. 3) Besides the fact that nuclear power stations can take up to a decade to install, they offer a variety of other issues, some of which I have outlined in a blog post: http://seandiamondsustainability.blogspot.com/2009/11/wind-vs-nuclear-power.html.

[4] I have inferred that this is a reasonable rate based on predictions made by the New Energy Externalities Developments for Sustainability (NEEDS) in their document: Sixth Framework Programme, which can be viewed at http://www.needs-project.org/docs/results/RS1a/Deliverable%20D%203%203%20-%20RS%201a%20(3).pdf.

[5] According to the AWEA, “Although modern utility-scale wind turbines typically operate 65% to 90% of the time, they often run at less than full capacity. Therefore, a capacity factor of 25% to 40% is common, although they may achieve higher capacity factors during windy weeks or months.” http://www.awea.org/faq/wwt_basics.html#What%20is%20capacity%20factor

[6] I calculated this factor using figures from the 2007 IPCC Report (Working Group 1: The Physical Science Basis – Chapter 2, Table 2.14) and from http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oiaf/1605/cdrom/pdf/e-supdoc.pdf.

[7] According to the US EIA, the net electricity production in the US during 2008 was 4,110,000 MWh. http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/pdf/pages/sec8_5.pdf

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