tagged w/ Clean Energy
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by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
Two disasters flared up this week, one environmental, the other political. Off the coast of Louisiana, oil from a sunken rig is leaking as much as five times faster than scientists originally judged, and the spill reportedly reached land last night. And in Washington, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) jumped from his partnership with Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) just before the scheduled release of the draft of a new Senate climate bill.
The trio had worked for months on bipartisan legislation on climate change. After Graham’s defection, his partners promised to press on, but the bill’s chances of survival are dimmer.
The next Exxon Valdez?
As Grist puts it, the spill off the Louisiana coast is “worse than expected, and getting worser.” The oil rig sank on April 20, and since then, oil has been pouring out of the well and into the Gulf of Mexico.
British Petroleum (BP), which operates the rig, along with the Coast Guard and now the Department of Defense, has pushed to contain and clean up the spill. The problem is deep under water and difficult to measure, but by mid-week, experts estimated that it was gushing 5,000 barrels a day from three different leaks.
Interior department officials said the spill could continue for 90 days. Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum looks at a couple of estimates for how much oil could end up in the Gulf and concludes, “An Exxon Valdez size spill might only be a few days away.”
The federal government has rallied to respond. Administration officials have traveled to Louisiana, and both the executive branch and the legislative branch have announced investigations into the spill. But, as Care2 writes, the White House is saying that the explosion should not derail plans for future drilling.
“In all honesty I doubt this is the first accident that has happened and I doubt it will be the last,” press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters, according to Care2.
New drilling, no regulations
Just a few weeks ago, President Barack Obama announced that the government would open up areas off the East Coast for offshore oil and gas drilling. The proposal already had some opponents, and the spill makes the politics of new drilling that much trickier. Mother Jones’ Kate Sheppard reports that White House energy and climate adviser Carol Browner acknowledged the issue, along with energy experts around Washington.
“This reopens the issue: Is the risk worth the reward?” Lincoln Pratson, a professor of energy and environment at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment, told Sheppard.
And even though BP is relying on the Coast Guard and the Department of Defense for help managing this spill, the company is pushing back on efforts to minimize those risks, Lindsay Beyerstein reports for Working In These Times.
The company “continues to oppose a proposed rule by the Minerals Management Service (the agency that oversees oil leases on federal lands) that would require lessees and operators to develop and audit their own Safety and Emergency Management Plans (SEMP),” Beyerstein writes. “BP and other oil companies insist that voluntary compliance will suffice to keep workers and the environment safe.”
Climate bill catastrophe
The country might also have to rely on companies’ “voluntary compliance” with measures to combat global warming: Congress doesn’t seem likely to pass a bill regulating carbon any time soon. Sen. Kerry and friends were supposed to release their version of climate legislation Monday, but over the weekend, Sen. Graham backed out. His reason? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had floated the idea of prioritizing immigration reform, which Graham argued would undermine work on energy legislation.
“It seems like the senator…has a bit of an attitude problem,” wrote The American Prospect’s Gabriel Arana. “He storms out of climate talks because Democrats have dared consider working on two things at once? The degree to which movement in the Senate hinges on this single, mercurial senator, seemingly the only one whose agenda includes something more than stymieing Democrats, is remarkable.”
Call the clean up crew
After Graham’s announcement (Arana called it a “hissy fit”), congressional democrats scrambled to prove that the climate bill was not knocked entirely off course. On Monday, Sen. Kerry and Sen. Lieberman met with their wayward colleague; by Wednesday, Sen. Reid had promised that he would “move forward on energy first;” and by Thursday, Kerry and Lieberman had asked the EPA to start evaluating the bill’s environmental and economic impacts.
Although a draft of the bill was supposed to come out on Monday, no one has seen it. At Mother Jones, Kate Sheppard reports that even the EPA, which is supposed to analyze the bill, hasn’t received the full draft.
“According to the EPA, the senators submitted a “description of their draft bill” for economic modeling,” she writes. “The agency confirmed in a statement to Mother Jones the senators “have not sent EPA any actual legislative text.” The agency is determining whether it has enough information about the bill to produce an analysis of its economic and environmental impacts.”
Despite assurances from the Senate leadership, it’s not clear if climate legislation will come to the floor this year or, if it does, that it will pass.
Not a disaster
There was one bright spot of news for environmentalists this week: the United States will build its first off-shore wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod. The project, called Cape Wind, has a host of opponents, but Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar decided to approve it. The scale will be smaller than originally planned—130 rather than 170 turbines, the Washington Independent reports—which could mollify critics who worried about its visual impact.
Cape Wind is a prime example of how clean energy projects can still cause harm or anger the people who live in their shadow. The Texas Observer recaps opposition to clean energy projects: A working-class neighborhood fought against efforts to build a biomass plant in their town, and won.
“Despite some activists touting these projects as solutions to global warming, and politicians promoting them as the key to economic prosperity, renewable energy projects tend to have their own sets of problems for local residents,” reports Rusty Middleton.
Biomass is one thing: burning materials like waste wood might produce fewer greenhouse gasses, but a biomass plant still dirties the air around it. But if the choice is between an off-shore wind farm that could mar a pleasant vista or an off-shore drilling operation that could spill gallons of oil onto your coast, it seems clear which is the better option.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
Two disasters flared up this week, one... more
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Makers hopeful that maiden voyage of world's largest solar-powered catamaran will prove that the sun can fuel the world
Considering its 85 tonnes and its potential to shape the future of maritime travel, the launch of Türanor was a surprisingly reserved affair. The world's largest solar-powered boat made a gentle plop as it was lowered by a huge crane on to the waters of the Kiel firth in northern Germany today, and triggered the polite applause of onlookers – mainly fishermen and shipyard workers. "We've made it, she's safe, and she floats," whispered its owner, Immo Ströher, with tears welling in his eyes.
But the real challenges for the gleaming white catamaran still lie ahead, as its makers seek to use it to prove that the sun can fuel our world.
Next year, after an intense testing phase, Türanor – the name, inspired by JRR Tolkein's Lord of the Rings, means "power of the sun" – will embark on her maiden voyage, a round-the-world trip during which her two-man crew will attempt to chase the sun in order to capture as much available solar power as possible and navigate her at an average speed of 7.5 knots.
Ströher's granddaughter christened her today by smashing a bottle of champagne against her teak deck, and pronouncing: "May you always have plenty of water under your bows, and sun on your deck."
The 31-metre-long multi-hull vessel, the brainchild of Swiss former ambulance driver Raphael Domjan, is topped by scores of photovoltaic panels, with a total area of more than 600 sq metres, that covers most of the catamaran's surface. Additional panels are attached to outriggers on its starboard, port and stern sections, that can be retracted in stormy weather. The solar energy, which will be stored in the largest lithium ion battery in the world, will power the vessel's silent, pollution-free electric motor.
"The mission of the skippers will be to chase the sun," said Dany Faigaux, a member of PlanetSolar, the Swiss team behind the ambitious project. "Up until now, sailing navigation has involved working with the three parameters of the waves, wind and tide. But we've added two new dimensions – namely, sunlight and the lithium ion battery. It's a completely new form of energy management."
The £16m catamaran – chosen for its energy-saving ability to "slice" rather than "ride" through waves – will store energy in its batteries by day. It can run on its stored energy in the absence of sunlight for around three days at 7.5 knots, the speed of an average oil tanker. At slower speeds it could run for up to 15 days, according to its makers.
Türanor, which will travel along an equatorial route – to take most advantage of the sunshine – will be helped by French meteorologists who will advise the most efficient path along which to steer it according to current conditions and forecasts.
If it is a particularly cloudy day, they might recommend a diversion to sunnier parts, even if the route turns out to be longer. "Its all about maximising its energy efficiency," said Faigaux.
The 34,000-mile journey will take the vessel across the Atlantic, the Panama Canal, the Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean over a scheduled 160 days. The voyage is intended not so much to revolutionise sea travel – the technology requires the vessel to be as light as possible, so it would not be suitable for heavy container ships – as to prove the under-exploited potential of solar energy.
"We want to be the Phileas Fogg of the 21st century," said 38-year old Domjan, the project's pioneer. "But beyond Jules Verne's dream, our project is meant to serve the environment and to enable solar energy to replace fossil fuels, and to motivate engineers and scientists to develop these technologies," he said. Appropriately, one of the patron's of the project is Jean Verne, the great-grandson of the French author of Around the World in Eighty Days.
"I don't know why no one has tried it before," added Domjan, whose company also boasts what they say is the world's only solar-powered computer server. "But what we want to show is that all the technology that is in this boat is technology you can already find on the market, rather than just in the lab, and all of it can be applied to our normal, everyday lives."
Gerard d'Aboville, his fellow skipper for the forthcoming voyage, is no stranger to maritime challenges, having become the first person to row across the Atlantic Ocean in 1980.
"We'll have to learn a new kind of navigation," he said. "It's very different from any of the other challenges I've faced, which is what makes it so interesting. It's strongly symbolic for the future of solar energy, but I would not dare to say that tomorrow a merchant boat or a passenger plane will be powered by the sun."Makers hopeful that maiden voyage of world's largest solar-powered catamaran will... more
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~Washington Post downplays this amazing show of support~
In its main environmental story today – “On climate bill, Democrats work to overcome Graham’s immigration objections” — the WashPost said:
"In some ways, the problem that proponents of climate legislation face is that they’re pursuing a policy goal that is not much of a hot-button political issue. Environmental activists had a well-attended event Sunday on the Mall, with musical stars Sting and John Legend, but immigration reform advocates are likely to dwarf that turnout with dozens of rallies across the country Saturday."
Yes, the biggest single climate rally in U.S. history is dismissed by comparison with the hypothetical cumulative turnout of dozens of future rallies on immigration. Who says the media isn’t fair? Apparently preserving the health and well-being of countless future generations isn’t “hot-button” enough for the media to be interested [kind of an ironic phrase, considering the rally was for action of global warming].
The “problem” for the White House (and Senate Majority Leader Reid) is that if they push immigration first, they kill both bills — knowingly — and they break a long-standing (and oft-repeated) commitment to three major constituencies: environmentalists, clean energy types (like me), and young voters.
I am not an immigration analyst, so let me quote The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait from Friday, writing about the possibility that “Senate Democratic leaders have decided to try to put immigration reform first on the agenda”:
This strikes me as a terrible idea. First of all, climate legislation is just plain more important than immigration reform. The latter is important, but the former is dire. Given that Republicans may well take control of the House in November, and could easily hold it for a long time, this year could literally be the last chance to pass climate legislation, however watered down.
Now, I suppose I could be persuaded of the merits of this move if it seemed clear that the climate bill had little chance to pass and immigration stood a great chance to pass. But this does not seem to be the case….
It’s true that immigration splits the GOP. But it also splits the Democrats, who have a lot of members representing heavily white, working-class areas. Increasing the political salience of immigration at a time when unemployment is over 9% does not seem like a good strategy to help them. Also keep in mind that the House has already passed a climate bill, but hasn’t passed an immigration bill.
Indeed, Politico persuasively suggests that the cost of shelving climate for immigration is probably to kill both….
If this is Reid’s decision, the White House needs to come down hard on him. It’s outrageous to sacrifice a chance to make progress on the biggest single policy challenge merely to increase the reelection chances of one Senator. This episode also shows, again, why it’s a bad idea to have your Senate leader hail from a state that leans toward the opposing party.
There’s some good background on the timeline of events from Brad Johnson’s WR post, “Whisper Campaign Derails Climate Bill Rollout.” I’ll have more to say about Graham’s role shortly.
Finally, for those who want to read about the Earth Day event in the WashPost, you have to go to the Style section, “Earth Day’s moment in the sun,” which has some great pictures, like the one above. I’ll post more on the event when I get the videos. Earth Day Network put the crowd over 150,000 and others gave me a similar number.~Washington Post downplays this amazing show of support~
In its main environmental... more
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Join the more than one billion people in 190 countries that are taking action for Earth Day.Join the more than one billion people in 190 countries that are taking action for... more
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As economic decisionmakers—whether consumers, corporate planners, government policymakers, or investment bankers—we all depend on the market for guidance. In order for markets to work and economic actors to make sound decisions, the markets must give us good information, including the full cost of the products we buy.
Unfortunately, markets largely ignore the indirect costs of goods and services, thus grossly distorting the structure of the economy. The market price of burning coal, for example, includes only the direct costs, those of mining the coal and transporting it to the power plant. By neglecting the substantial indirect costs of burning coal—the costs of air pollution, acid rain, devastated ecosystems, and climate change—the market is giving us bad information. As a result of this and other distortions, we are making bad decisions.
The most effective way to correct this massive market failure is to restructure taxes—lowering taxes on income while raising those on environmentally destructive activities. Widely endorsed by economists, tax shifting helps make sure the price of products reflects their full costs to society.
The first step in creating an honest market is to calculate these indirect costs. Perhaps the best model for this is a U.S. government study on smoking from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In 2006 the CDC calculated the cost to society of smoking cigarettes—including both the cost of treating smoking-related illnesses and the lost worker productivity from these illnesses—at $10.47 per pack.
This calculation provides a framework for raising taxes on cigarettes. In New York City, smokers now pay $4.25 per pack in state and local cigarette taxes. Since a 10-percent price rise typically reduces smoking by 4 percent, the health benefits of tax increases are substantial.
The many indirect costs of using gasoline—including climate change, oil industry tax breaks and subsidies, oil supply protection, and treatment of auto exhaust-related respiratory illnesses—total around $12 per gallon ($3.17 per liter), based on a conservative estimate by the International Center for Technology Assessment. If this external or social cost were added to the roughly $3 per gallon average price of gasoline in the United States, a gallon would cost $15. These are real costs. Someone bears them. If not us, our children.
Gasoline’s indirect cost of $12 a gallon provides a reference point for raising taxes to where the price reflects the environmental truth. Gasoline taxes in Italy, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom—averaging more than $4 per gallon—are a good start. That the average U.S. gas tax is less than 50¢ per gallon helps explain why the United States uses more gasoline than the next 20 countries combined. The high gasoline taxes in Europe have contributed to an oil-efficient economy and to far greater investment in high-quality public transportation, making it less vulnerable to oil supply disruptions.
Phasing in an incremental gasoline tax rising by 40¢ per gallon per year for the next 10 years and offsetting it with a reduction in income taxes would raise the U.S. gas tax to the $4 per gallon tax prevailing today in Europe. This will still fall short of the $12 per gallon indirect costs, but combined with the rising price of producing gasoline, it should be enough to encourage motorists to use improved public transport and to buy plug-in hybrid and all-electric cars as they come to market.
If gasoline taxes in Europe, which were designed to generate revenue and to discourage excessive dependence on imported oil, were thought of as a carbon tax, the $4 per gallon would translate into a carbon tax of $1,650 per ton. This is a staggering number, one that goes far beyond any carbon emission tax or cap-and-trade carbon-price proposals to date. It suggests that the official discussions of carbon prices in the range of $15 to $50 a ton are clearly on the modest end of the possible range of prices.
Tax shifting is not new in Europe. A four-year plan adopted in Germany in 1999 systematically shifted taxes from labor to energy. By 2003, this plan had reduced annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 20 million tons and helped to create approximately 250,000 jobs. It also accelerated growth in the renewable energy sector.
Between 2001 and 2006, Sweden shifted an estimated $2 billion of taxes from income to environmentally destructive activities. Much of this shift of $500 or so per household was levied on road transport, including hikes in vehicle and fuel taxes. France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom are among the countries also using this policy instrument. In Europe and the United States, polls indicate that at least 70 percent of voters support environmental tax shifting once it is explained to them.
By Lester R. Brown
continuedAs economic decisionmakers—whether consumers, corporate planners, government... more
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A group of 3,000 national and grassroots companies are taking part today in a new national advertising campaign calling for swift action on energy and climate legislation. These businesses, including the groups American Businesses for Clean Energy (ABCE) and the US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), range from national brands — like Google, Nike and Timberland — to mom-and-pop companies.
That’s from a press release from American Businesses for Clean Energy. Here’s more on this groundswell of business support for action on climate change and clean energy jobs:
Appearing in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Carolina and Florida, the print ad, titled “A Question of American Leadership,” calls on Congress to enact bipartisan climate and energy legislation that “…increases our security and limits emissions, as it preserves and creates jobs.”
The ad unites a broad spectrum of American businesses, faith-based groups, national security organizations, labor unions and environmental NGOs who believe that strong action on climate and energy legislation can lead to an improved economy, job creation and energy security.
The organizations appearing on the ad represent more than 11 million American jobs and the companies have combined 2009 revenues of over $2.5 trillion.
With close to 3,000 members, the nonprofit and nonpartisan ABCE is comprised of a diverse group of businesses that support Congressional action to pass clean energy and climate legislation that will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Christopher Van Atten, a spokesperson for American Businesses for Clean Energy said: “This ad push brings together the best of American businesses large and small to send a clear message to our leaders in Washington: We need action on climate and clean energy starting today. The businesses that are part of ABCE represent a range of views and regions, and we stand united behind the need for comprehensive clean energy legislation that will create jobs, unleash innovation and make our nation more secure, while cutting greenhouse gas emissions.”A group of 3,000 national and grassroots companies are taking part today in a new... more
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Employers in the U.S. created more jobs in March than at any time in the past three years, showing the recovery from the worst recession since the 1930s is broadening and becoming more entrenched.
That’s Bloomberg reporting on new data from the Labor Department, which showed that “payrolls rose by 162,000 workers, the third gain in the past five months.”
Since bad economic news would certainly be bad for a climate bill, this must be seen as good news. I have repeatedly written about studies showing how clean energy legislation will create 1.7 million jobs and opportunities for low-income families, including lower energy bills. And Nobel prize-winning NYT columnist Paul Krugman has explained why climate action “now might actually help the economy recover from its current slump” by giving “businesses a reason to invest in new equipment and facilities.”
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Certainly Republicans understand that the good job news is bad news for their agenda of opposing all of Obama’s new legislative efforts and attacking all of his previous ones, including the stimulus, as failures. Indeed, as Think Progress reported, the Republican National committee immediately responded to the Labor report by releasing a falsehood-filled briefing that claims that the job growth occured “mostly” due to hiring Census workers:
~But March Job Growth Is “Disappointment” Because Job Gains Mostly From Census. “CalculatedRisk reports that even if Friday’s employment report shows a gain of 200,000 jobs in March, as expected, it might be viewed as a disappointment: ‘The March report will be distorted by two factors: 1) any bounce back from the snow storms, and 2) the decennial Census hiring that picked up sharply in March. … Also the Census will add something like 100,000 workers to the March report …” (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, Accessed 4/2/10; Ben White and Eamon Javers, Politico’s “Morning Money,” 3/30/10)~
In fact, TP notes, “the RNC’s claim bears little relation to reality. Of the 162,000 jobs added to the economy last month, 123,000 were in the private sector.” Joel Naroff, the president of Naroff Economic Advisors, wrote in a client note that “the federal government didn’t hire nearly as many Census workers as thought. It was the private sector that stepped up to the plate.” The Census Bureau hired only 48,000 workers.Employers in the U.S. created more jobs in March than at any time in the past three... more
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In a move that has drawn criticism from virtually all sides, President Obama today proposed opening up vast areas of previously off-limits ocean to offshore oil and gas drilling.
Interestingly, this comes only a week after the Environmental Protection Agency proposed including the oil and gas industries among those industries that will be required to report carbon dioxide emissions beginning in 2011. When it comes to oil, the administration appears to be opening some doors while closing some windows.
“It’s like saying, ‘You want to quit smoking? Here, have a carton of cigarettes,’” said Jacqueline Savitz, a senior campaign director with environmental non-profit Oceana. “Not only does it make it harder to quit, it increases your chances of getting cancer. ...
http://solveclimate.com/blog/20100331/offshore-drilling-move-muddies-obama-s-relationship-oil-and-gasIn a move that has drawn criticism from virtually all sides, President Obama today... more
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In the closing hours of 2009, people from around the world gathered to witness and attempt to influence the activities of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 5th Meeting of the Parties (COP/MOP 5) to the Kyoto Protocol.
Current Green called into Copenhagen each day to get the perspective of activists, policy experts, and environmental enthusiasts.
We circled 'round and asked the people we interviewed to check back in with us and give us their 20/20 perspective on their experience. Our first entry comes from Kevin Buckland, the art ambassador for 350.org, Kevin was featured in a crowd pleasing segment that featured...dancing penguins.
Kevin's update:
In the cold memory of Copenhagen there is a story the delegates never saw. They missed the story that is writing itself in the arms and eyes of those who shall inherit this earth. And they are not meek. The future is not being written for them, but by them – and they are not waiting for permission because they are not asking permission. You do not need permission to survive.
As the lines of the illiterate UN documents sprawls across the pages of years, as the UN debates, as the oceans warm, as nothing changes the changing – there is no need to wait for permission, because there is no question to be asked. For no question can be asked aloud without the same carbon and oxygen breathe that answers itself. You do not ask about survival, you survive. We survive.
In Copenhagen the past attempted to create the future, but this is not the way things work. The past does not create the future; the future becomes the past –stories get written backwards, and retrospectively. For all their planning and pouring over the careful words that led to a long declaration of nothing, the delegations missed the future slowly claiming the present.
As the delegates rang for room service – the future was sweeping the years from abandoned factory floors. The dust lay deep, but many hands cleaned the many windows and let in the light air of change. They cleaned the floors where thousands of unknown but caring bodies would come to sleep; bodies that had hitched through winter days, slept on trains, piled into cars and across illegal borders. They came because they knew they had to, because the future is in motion, like a flock of birds it steers the wind.
As the delegates’ carbon planes landed and oil limousines idled outside airports, the future walked their backpacks and bodies the last few kilometers to a place where they had been told they could sleep: for the promise of a roof to house their dreams of change.
If the delegates had to clean the floors they slept on – if they had to sweep up the broken glass and cover the broken windows with broken cabinets – would they have come to repair this world?
The past sat at long tables, claiming each day another day of the present to past. Consuming time until it became their own; while their eyes in Peru watched the dry corn leaves brown, their hands in Bangladesh pulled again at the mud, and their feet in Kenya had to walk away; they all breathed in, and that silence resonated loudly throughout the conference center. They breathed out and formed a song that they sang in the streets of Copenhagen, that tells of a story writing itself in brooms and wood-ovens and paint. This is not the story of the UN document – that is a story that doesn’t say anything. It is the story being told in the empty spaces between the lines of their text.
As the delegates were served their foreign fruits and cheeses – fresh from Peru with pesticides from America and picked by barely paid hands, as they cut another slice—all over the city the future was searching - jumping into dumpsters and finding so much fruit it took three trips on the bicycle just to bring it all back.
As the delegates handed their bank card to the waitress, vast and free communal kitchens served long lines waiting in the cold. Who would hold a full plate and sit on the floor of the large hall, and eat with a metal fork the stew and kernels of sharing, where all eat the same and there are more people than plates.
As the delegates signed-off and put their computers to sleep, the future sang and painted shields long into the night – warmed well by so many hearts and a woodstove they had made from the old oil drums of an unimaginably wasteful world.
As the future stood, arms linked and singing within sight of the Convention Center, their songs drifted in to fill the spaces between the lines of the UN document. As the future was beaten by police, as the future was put into cages…
The future is free, because they are the ones who decided to create change. They were not paid like the police to stand in their lines and protect something, they were not chauffeured from dinner to the hotel. They were moving themselves, and moving history. The past cannot hold back the future with their brackets and clauses, because the future is not a question. The future is writing itself already. We are not waiting for a document, we are the document.
Related content:
Kids vs Global Warming: Alex Loors gives the low down from Copenhagen
Youth stage sit in inside the Bella Center: Kimia Ghomeshi calls in from Copenhagen
Photojounalist Kris Krug on documenting the Copenhagen protestsIn the closing hours of 2009, people from around the world gathered to witness and... more
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The following guest post was written by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger (you can also follow them on Twitter).
Nuclear power, biofuels, clean coal: These are the Obama administration's answers to climate change. The 2011 budget, released this week, promised new loans for the construction of nuclear power plants, and on Wednesday the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), White House, and other departments detailed steps to encourage ethanol and clean coal production.
These initiatives may garner support from conservatives, but their ascendancy comes at a price. Support for renewable fuel sources, like wind and solar, has dwindled. President Barack Obama did encourage Senate Democrats to pass a climate change bill, but some moderates are bucking the cap-and-trade provisions that could tamp down carbon emissions. Those moderates are pushing for legislation that leaves carbon caps out entirely.
It hasn't been a good week for climate advocates. On top of the Obama administration's overtures to crusty, old energy industries, Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has had to fend off pressure to resign. The IPCC published a report with a badly sourced fact about the rate at which Himalayan glaciers are melting, and when scientists pointed out the error, Pachauri would not cop to the mistake. (If you missed the beginning of this to-do, Mother Jones' Kate Sheppard covered the controversy back in January.)
Given this country's weak efforts to tamp down carbon emissions, though, perhaps the IPCC's prediction that those glaciers likely will disappeared by 2035 will turn out to be accurate.
New nuclear plants—but at what cost?
Obama’s budget, as Sheppard reports at Mother Jones, is upping funding for nuclear plant development, even though previous nuclear projects have run wildly over budget. The president has always supported increased nuclear production. As an Illinois Senator, Obama had Exelon Corporation, the country’s largest nuclear operator, in his constituency. The company continued to support him as a presidential candidate. The proposed funding runs in the neighborhood of $54.5 billion in loan guarantees for nuclear projects. That's good news for an industry that’s in need of cash. As Sheppard explains, without governmental backing, these plants would have little chance of being built.
“Even as public opinion toward nuclear power has warmed, projected construction costs for new plants have soared, with a single reactor now estimated to cost as much as $12 billion,” she writes. “In fact, the outlook for nuclear plants looks so dire that even Wall Street banks have balked at financing them unless the government underwrites the deal.”
The Obama administration is also backing research into nuclear waste disposal, a prerequisite for nuclear expansion. No matter how "green" nuclear energy production might be, so far there's no safe, sustainable way to deal with its by-products. Finding a long-term solution for nuclear waste disposal will not come cheaply.
Biofuels move us backwards
The administration’s support for biofuels was bigger slap in the face to environmentalists, though. Just a few years ago, ethanol made from corn or switchgrass ranked high on the list of renewable fuels that could spring America from its Middle East oil addiction. In practice, however, biofuels have proven more environmentally destructive and less efficient than advocates had hoped. With farmers in the Midwest knee-deep in corn marked for ethanol production, though, backing away from biofuels is politically dicey.
The consequences are more than political, however. At Grist, Tom Philpott argues that support for biofuels will ultimately drive global carbon emission up, rather than down.
“As ethanol factories continue sucking in more and more corn, plantation owners in places like Brazil and Argentina will put more grassland and even rainforest under the plow to make up for the shortfall, resulting in huge carbon emissions,” Philpott writes. “That dire effect of our ethanol program, known as indirect land-use change, likely nullifies any scant climate benefits from ethanol.”
It’s not just corn and switchgrass that pose a problem, either. As Gina Marie Cheeseman reports at Care2, algae farms, another potential source of biofuel, face their own challenges. Algae demands high energy input and could release more carbon dioxide emissions that it would save, according to a new report from the University of Virginia.
There’s more research to be done before writing algae energy production off, however. In January, the Department of Energy said it would sink $44 million into work on algae pools. Industry players like ExxonMobile are also underwriting research on the subject, Cheeseman writes.
No room for innovation
Moving towards energy sources like nuclear power and ethanol does take the country a step closer to responsible energy production. But right now, the Obama administration is not leaving room for new or ambitious ideas that could do more. Wind and solar, which would form the best foundation for a sustainable energy future, have few advocates in Congress. They also seem to have no role in the near-term energy plan.
Ethanol was the Midwest’s first green industry, for instance, but there are other possibilities for juicing up the region’s clean energy production. In The Nation, Lisa Margonelli lays out the case for “gray power," which is recycled energy produced by the old, dirty smokestacks that ring cities like Cleveland.
In this vision, twentieth century industry can produce twenty-first century energy. Waste energy, Margonelli argues, “can be profitably "recycled" onto the grid to create power as clean as that from solar and wind but far cheaper.”
“In fact, energy now lost as steam and gases by the region's manufacturing plants, as well as municipal and agricultural waste, could create as much energy as sixty-nine nuclear power plants, according to figures commissioned by the Environmental Protection Agency,” she says. “This power could strengthen the region's electrical grid and preserve jobs by making local manufacturing plants more economically stable, while making the region a leader in greener technology.”
A project like Margonelli imagines, however, would require significant commitment and vision from the federal government, both of which are lacking right now.
The following guest post was written by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger (you... more
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The following guest post is by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
In his first State of the Union address, President Barack Obama touched on climate issues only briefly. He called on the Senate to pass a climate bill, but did not give Congress a deadline or promise to veto weak legislation. Nor did he mention the Copenhagen climate conference, where international negotiators struggled to produce an agreement on limiting global carbon emissions.
The Obama administration's attitude towards climate change still represents a remarkable shift from the Bush years, when global warming was treated as little more than a fairy tale. But in the past year, Congressional squabbling has stalled climate legislation, and international negotiators nearly gridlocked in talks over carbon admissions at the multinational Copenhagen conference. Without strong leadership from the president, work to prevent this looming environmental crisis will stall.
Obama did address global warming skeptics, saying that they should support investment in clean energy, “because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy.”
“And America must be that nation,” Obama said.
No push for climate bill
Despite his combative language, the president did not challenge Congress to push for real solutions to ballooning carbon emissions and energy consumption. As Forrest Wilder of The Texas Observer notes, Obama “uttered the phrase 'climate change' precisely once.”
The Senate has already wait-listed the climate bill: Health care came first. With health care reform now in line behind work on jobs and bank regulation, climate legislation has little chance of passing the Senate in the coming months, let alone making it to the president's desk.
If Congress lets this work wait until after the midterm elections, the United States will show up at international negotiations in December 2010 as a leader in carbon emissions yet again, but with little in hand to show a way forward.
Clean energy, not renewable energy
When the president did bring up climate issues, he focused on their connection between climate reform and potential job creation. Obama highlighted areas for growth, not in renewable energy fields like wind or solar power, but in nuclear power, natural gas, and clean coal.
Yes, these fuel sources could decrease the country’s carbon emissions. But they are not solutions that will revolutionize energy production. Grist’s David Roberts was floored that the speech omitted renewable energy entirely and kowtowed to a more conservative litany of energy projects. "I suppose it was done to flatter conservative Senators that will have to vote for the bill Kerry, Lieberman, and Graham are working on," he writes. (The three Senators are working on a version of the climate bill designed to appeal to Republicans.)
"But the SOTU is not a policy negotiation," Roberts says. "It’s a bully pulpit, a chance to shape rather than respond to existing narratives."
Roberts argues that progressive supporters would benefit from a stronger message. If activists knew that the White House stands behind a real shift in America’s energy policy, they could use that prompt to drive action on climate change.
What was missing
While touting the virtues of off-shore drilling, Obama overlooked other policies that could broker real change. Although he admonished Congress to pass a climate bill, he did not pressure the legislature on what he’d like that bill to include. He did not mention cap-and-trade, the mechanism the House bill relies on to tamp down emissions and dirty energy use.
President Obama did touch on transportation reforms that could decrease the country’s use of fossil fuels.
“There's no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains,” Obama said. He cited a high-speed rail project that broke ground on Tuesday in Tampa, FL, as evidence that America could best the rest of the world in creating new energy-efficient technology.
But one or two high-profile projects won't be enough to challenge Europe's network of high-speed trains or China's investments in solar power. The White House could put the country at the forefront of sustainable technologies, but it'll take more money than the president has committed. In AlterNet’s ideal state of the union, projects like the railway would merit sustained attention and funding. Funding for the high-speed train came from this year’s stimulus bill, and there’s no guarantee that similar projects will find federal funding in the future.
“Continued support is still needed" for green jobs and clean energy, Alternet’s editorial staff argues. “It's unclear yet how Obama's new proposal for a three-year spending freeze will apply to this sector, but a boost is what is needed, not cuts.”
Green jobs
Michelle Chen argues for In These Times that the president is right to subordinate climate issues to economic policy. “The jobs angle is more than sugar-coating,” she says. A recent Pew Research Center poll put climate change at the end of Americans’ long list of cares, and a Brookings Institution study found that they’re no longer willing to pay as much for greener products.
Jobless workers need green in their pockets most of all, and so far politicians’ promises haven't made up for the slack economy.
“No matter how slick the marketing, confidence in green jobs may wilt even further absent real investments in the beleaguered blue-collar workforce,” Chen writes.
Copenhagen accord losing momentum
The small role that climate change played in the state of the union address only emphasized the downward momentum of the issue since the United Nations conference on global warming in Copenhagen. Grist’s Jonathan Hiskes talked to six leaders in climate change activism, and none of them offered a different strategy than they had last year.
That same stasis is showing up in Europe, as well. Spain, which currently leads the European Union, proposed that the European Union’s negotiating position should remain the same as its position before the Copenhagen conference, according to Inter Press Service.
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), who’s working on climate change legislation in the Senate, offered advice to climate activists at a clean energy forum in Washington, DC on Wednesday. Mother Jones’ Kate Sheppard reports that Sen. Kerry encouraged his audience to get angrier, louder, and more active, in the mode of the conservative Tea Partiers, who have earned plenty of attention. After his speech, he also recalled the tactics that pushed landmark legislation like the Clean Air Act through Congress.
If climate change is going to play a larger role in the next state of the union, the citizens and groups concerned about this issue need to do something to put it on the agenda. Otherwise, next year, the president may find it just as easy to skim over it again.
Related content:
Morality over Monsanto
Wade Davis: on Magic, Mystism, and putting ancient culture in the context of the modern world
Calling in from Copenhagen: Eco-Adventurer Roz Savage on courage (video)The following guest post is by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
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So you are on twitter. And you tweet for climate change. On Monday you #ecomonday all your fav a la fav green tweeters, on #ClimateTuesday you invite your friends and supporters to get involved in a 350.org's event.
But then comes Wednesday....and Thursday...and you've already RT @current_green a few times today and you're looking for something else to do. So the logical next step is to engage in 1Sky.org's 1Climate, 1Tweet campaign who is asking for your help with the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act of 2009.
Here's how 1sky says it works:
1. Fill out the contest form below with your information.
2. Create a tweet on Twitter that you think best describes the demand for strong climate legislation. It can be anything: a haiku, statement, rally cry, or whatever you can say best in 140 characters -- but, you must use the #1Climate hash tag in your tweet.
3. Ask your friends to re-tweet (or "RT") your post. Three of our five finalists will be chosen by how many times your statement is retweeted (RT'd), and two will be chosen at random.
Of the five finalists, the tweet that receives the most retweets will be the contest winner. The winning tweet will be used by 1Sky and across the Twittverse as a call to action to support bold climate legislation.
The top five finalists will be sent prize packages with contributions from our friends at Age of Stupid, No Impact Project, and more. See our contest rules for details.
Deadline to enter is Friday, October 23rd at 6pm EST. Finalists will be announced on Monday, October 26th.
So you are on twitter. And you tweet for climate change. On Monday you #ecomonday all... more
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It's Obama's last day in China and one of the big headlines of the day was that he and President Hu Jintao promised their countries would work together on clean energy. (posted by WakeUpPeople)
The work will be anchored through a new U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center. The $150 million funding over five years will be shared equally between the countries. "That's more than talking," [Energy Secretary Steven] Chu said.
The research center and other clean-energy projects should help show international negotiators who are working on a global climate-protection treaty that the U.S. and China, the world's two largest sources of greenhouse gases, are serious about reducing emissions, Chu said.
Yes, you could make that argument. However it was also reported today that the Senate is going to put off trying to pass a climate change bill until the spring. Supporters of the Senate bill are worried about economic (read: political) costs of any possible cap and trade schemes. But that means no US climate bill before Copenhagen in December. Which means no global deal. This is what a group of Asian leaders and President Obama offered instead:
United Nations leaders had called for a new, binding global agreement in Copenhagen to set caps on greenhouse-gas emissions. But at a meeting in Asia, leaders including Mr. Obama said they would try instead to use the Copenhagen gathering to forge an agreement that is "politically binding," with specific commitments by countries to reduce emissions and help poor countries fight climate change. A legally binding deal would come later; diplomats point to mid-to-late-2010.
If you want to know more about why Copenhagen is important, Leah at Current Green has a great introductory post on why you should be paying attention to Copenhagen.
Recently on the Current News Blog:
- Did airport slaughter scene get Modern Warfare 2 banned in Russia?
- America's Christmas present: Jobs
- Neda's boyfriend speaks after escaping Iran
- Vladimir Putin loves hip-hop
- Real Recovery: This week's about the freelancersIt's Obama's last day in China and one of the big headlines of the day was... more
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How can 'the Water' be turned into the alternative sustainable source of the energy on the energy-starved Earth?
Let us first see the following two hypothesis:
1.The Water may be turned into a replica of the Sun!
Yes, hypothetically speaking, the water may indeed be turned into a miniature model of the Sun!
The Sun is composed mainly of the Hydrogen and the Helium gases in the ratio 3:1. The water is composed of the Hydrogen and the Oxygen. Now, all one has to do is to somehow replace the Oxygen in the Water with the Helium in the required configuration and one shall have turned the Water into the Sun!
2.The Sun may turn into the water!
Yes, hypothetically speaking, the Sun may indeed turn into the water!
The water is composed of the Hydrogen and the Oxygen. The sun is composed mainly of the Hydrogen and the Helium gases in the ratio 3:1. Now, all one has to do is to replace the Helium with the Oxygen in the required configuration and one shall have turned the Sun into the Water!
The Practical Applications:
Well, we may get plenty of the energy available on the earth if we somehow are able to turn on a fully cheap commercial basis any given amount of the water which is in abundance on the Earth, into the kind of the process that takes place inside the Sun. This shall help us overcome the problems resulting from the already depleting oil/coal reserves on the earth. This may help us colonize other heavenly bodies like the Moon and any other planets having water, by helping us set up the human habitats without worrying about the availability of the energy there.
[ Note: This aricle has been reproduced here in a slightly modified form. It was originally first published somewhere else on the world wide web by me , a few years ago. ]How can 'the Water' be turned into the alternative sustainable source of the... more
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China has overtaken the US for the first time in a league table of investments in low-carbon energy among the G-20, according to a new report by not for profit group the Pew Charitable Trusts published this week.
The report found that despite an overall 6.6 per cent global decline in clean energy investments last year, China invested almost twice as much as the United States in clean energy during 2009.
Pew blamed the worst financial downturn in over half a century for the reduction in clean techinvestments, but echoed growing confidence in the sector, predicting investments will bounce nback to around $200bn this year.
The report, entitled Who's Winning the Clean Energy Race?, said that last year China invested $34.6bn in the clean energy economy, placing it top of the clean energy investment league and well ahead of the US in second place with investment of $18.6bn.
Phyllis Cuttino, director of Pew Environment Group's US Global Warming Campaign, criticised the US government for failing to deliver stronger national policies to support renewable energy. "I'm worried that we are going to fall further down the list next year," she said. "We really need to pass policy."
The US administration has been locked in a year long battle to pass a climate change bill that would impose a national carbon pricing mechanism and introduce new incentives for low carbon projects. However, the bill has faced staunch opposition from Republicans and some Democrats and while a compromise version of the legislation is expected to be unveiled in the next few weeks commentators remain sceptical that the bill can pass this year.
The Pew report also expressed concern about America's competitive position in the clean energy marketplace, noting that relative to the size of its economy the US clean energy finance and investments lag behind many of its G20 partners.
more at link...China has overtaken the US for the first time in a league table of investments in... more
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Forty years ago, nearly 20 million Americans participated in what was the beginning of the modern movement toward environmental awareness. Inspired by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson after witnessing an oil spill off California’s coast, Earth Day was started to spotlight environmental degradation and the need to protect our natural resources.
Though some progress has been made in the decades following its creation, this year we have little room to celebrate – big oil, big coal, and big businesses are holding back our progress in order to maintain the status quo that lines their pockets at the expense of public health.
Since Earth Day began 40 years ago, America has had an energy policy that continues to reward polluters, threatens our national and economic security and keeps us dependent on energy sources from overseas.
Today it’s clearer than ever that the money we send overseas for oil puts America in danger, that it’s time to exchange the “8-track player oil economy” for an MP3 player, and that the American economy needs the new jobs a that comprehensive clean energy bill could create (studies have shown that a transition to a clean energy economy would net America up to 1.9 million new jobs).
(Read the rest on the original post.)Forty years ago, nearly 20 million Americans participated in what was the beginning of... more
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We’ve written at length about how natural gas can be a low-cost game changer in the battle against climate change. Domestic supplies of the fuel that can power electric plants with half the CO2 emissions of coal are 39% higher than previously thought thanks to big discoveries of shale gas (Part 1). Gas can make it far easier to meet carbon emissions targets established in the House-passed climate and energy bill (Part 2). And emissions limits and a price on carbon would lead the electric power industry to stop building new coal plants and switch to gas, which as a load-following fuel means they can mesh with rising levels of clean generation from wind and solar (Part 3).
Now comes some welcome news from Colorado, where even in the absence of federal climate and clean energy legislation the state and its largest utility Xcel Energy are doing some game changing by planning to retire or retrofit existing coal plants that contribute about 900 megawatts to the state’s power supply. That will mean a 30% reduction in Xcel’s Colorado coal fleet.
In a March 5 announcement, Gov. Bill Ritter unveiled proposed legislation – the Colorado Clean Air-Clean Jobs Act — that will by 2017 likely retire at least two coal-fired power plants on the state’s populous Front Range and either retrofit or replace them with natural gas-fired power.
That announcement came just three days before the Colorado legislature took another critical step in moving to a future powered increasingly by clean energy – passing a 30% renewable energy standard by 2020, a 50% increase over the existing RES passed in 2006.
The plan to retire and retrofit some of Xcel Energy’s coal-fired plants, said Ritter, “will keep Colorado at the forefront of America’s energy revolution. It will protect consumers, clean our air and protect public health, and create new jobs by increasing demand for Colorado-produced natural gas.”
more at link...We’ve written at length about how natural gas can be a low-cost game changer in... more
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While Arunava Majumdar says America urgently needs to come up with clean-energy “game changers,” until now there hasn’t been a systematic approach to develop them.
The job of developing really big clean-energy initiatives is perhaps beyond the capacity of the private sector. Lacking any assurance that radically different new products will be accepted by consumers, the market provides few incentives for companies making money from their current products to take the risk to research radical new energy concepts.
And needless to say, companies that don’t have successful products on the market are not likely to have the money to invest in big ideas. Plus, government priorities don’t include developing saleable products for market.
However, countries in Europe and Asia are beginning to move ahead in clean-energy technology with the enthusiastic support of governments, and if that trend continues, the United States could see itself falling irrevocably behind.
Arunava Majumdar, the first director of Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, is leading a ferocious effort to make sure that doesn’t happen. The former University of California, Berkley, professor of mechanical engineering and materials science said he’d like Americans to see ARPA-E as “a beacon of hope,” that the United States can reclaim world leadership in clean energy technology, while pointing the way to real solutions to the world’s tightening energy predicament.
Last week he led ARPA-E on a big step in that direction by convening the first-ever National Energy Innovation Summit just outside of Washington, D.C.
With climate pressures mounting and the prospect of an additional 2 billion people in emerging economies clamoring for energy within the next few decades, the world will need to find some new means of satisfying demand if it is to avoid tripping the circuit breakers of climate change and conflict.
“Incremental change will not be enough to get us there,” Majumdar says.
more at link...While Arunava Majumdar says America urgently needs to come up with clean-energy... more
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While Arunava Majumdar says America urgently needs to come up with clean-energy “game changers,” until now there hasn’t been a systematic approach to develop them.
The job of developing really big clean-energy initiatives is perhaps beyond the capacity of the private sector. Lacking any assurance that radically different new products will be accepted by consumers, the market provides few incentives for companies making money from their current products to take the risk to research radical new energy concepts.
And needless to say, companies that don’t have successful products on the market are not likely to have the money to invest in big ideas. Plus, government priorities don’t include developing saleable products for market.
However, countries in Europe and Asia are beginning to move ahead in clean-energy technology with the enthusiastic support of governments, and if that trend continues, the United States could see itself falling irrevocably behind.
Arunava Majumdar, the first director of Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, is leading a ferocious effort to make sure that doesn’t happen. The former University of California, Berkley, professor of mechanical engineering and materials science said he’d like Americans to see ARPA-E as “a beacon of hope,” that the United States can reclaim world leadership in clean energy technology, while pointing the way to real solutions to the world’s tightening energy predicament.
Last week he led ARPA-E on a big step in that direction by convening the first-ever National Energy Innovation Summit just outside of Washington, D.C.
With climate pressures mounting and the prospect of an additional 2 billion people in emerging economies clamoring for energy within the next few decades, the world will need to find some new means of satisfying demand if it is to avoid tripping the circuit breakers of climate change and conflict.
“Incremental change will not be enough to get us there,” Majumdar says.
more at link...While Arunava Majumdar says America urgently needs to come up with clean-energy... more
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