Climate Change

Tuesday Update - Here’s what “Congressional Quarterly” is reporting as of midafternoon today:  Deal Clears Way For Friday House Vote on Energy Package.  For one thing, the tax package that the Senate rejected is back.  I lamented its exclusion in June in my post, The Morning After.  (See also earlier posts on how close the Senate version came to including it and how it came to be blocked.)  It’s taken a lot of horse trading to get the 786-page omnibus bill, along with the $16 billion tax package, this far.  Here’s another take on where we stand from Reuters.  The tax package (see this summary from the Ways & Means Committee) is not dissimilar to the one that was blocked from a vote in the Senate.  It takes away subsidies from the oil and gas industry and gives that money to renewables.  The last two big-ticket items, as I noted yesterday, are the CAFE standards (included in the Senate bill) and the Renewable Portfolio Standard (not in the Senate bill).  There’s going to be an awful lot of pushing and pulling between now and Thursday when the Rules Committee will determine whether or note the CAFE and the RPS can be offered as floor amendments on Friday. 

Video from the American Wind Energy Association – These good folks (not the FPA, please note) are pushing hard for the Renewable Portfolio Standard.  See their website and their video:

We are poised for a big and hopefully exciting week on energy in the House.  At “CNNMoney.com” there’s a good comprehensive read, Energy debate moves to House, on what to look for this week.  As I’ve pointed out, there are a lot of good things that are not going to be subject to much debate, energy efficiency being among the best.  However, the big-ticket items that are still highly controversial are increased MPG for motor vehicles and a renewable portfolio standard (RPS).  The MPG battle, as you know if you’ve been following the blog, is a pitched battle between Detroit and the people who think we owe it to ourselves to reduce oil consumption for any number of excellent reasons, not the least of which is to reduce our GHG emissions.  What makes Detroit particularly powerful in this case is that the chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee is John Dingell, and he’s a staunch – and effective – battler for what Detroit perceives to be its best interests.

Here’s my question?  Doesn’t anyone in Detroit think that they might sell more cars if they had better gas mileage performance?  It sure seems to work for the Japanese!

Here’s another article from one of Pelosi’s hometown papers, the “SF Chronicle” - Energy bill will test Pelosi’s command.  This article’s got great coverage and input from key players such as the two authors of the RPS bill as well as comment from environmental lobbyists from the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Pew Campaign for Fuel Efficiency.  (See these two websites for some comprehensive looks at the legislation and the issues.)

Meanwhile, the House passed a massive Farm bill last week.  There is a considerable energy component.  You can see this fact sheet, 2007 Farm Bill Energy Title:   Investing in Renewable Energy Programs to Promote Energy Independence, to get a pretty good look at what’s in it. 

Hot off the presses, go here for my Great Decisions Analysis piece on some of the exciting developments in green building across the world. 

Sorry that I’ve been off the airwaves for a few days.  I think I got some sort of food poisoning at lunch on Friday.  It’s not even safe being a vegetarian these days.  Plus I’ve had a few other irons in the fire which needed tending.

Anyway, here are some stories that I think have good bang for the buck:

Advanced Research - Cellulosic Ethanol – The DOE has awarded three major grants for research and development in the important area of cellulosic ethanol, the alternative to corn and wheat-based ethanol.  As you know, the explosion of production of the latter is causing major concerns about rising food prices.  (See Biofuels – “All that glisters is not gold” at my post here from May.)  Cellulosic has a lot of potential to reduce costs of production and to avoid inflated prices for staple foods.  Sources include cornstalks, wood chips and perennial native grasses so there’s a lot with which to work.  The federal Oak Ridge Lab and Lawrence Berkeley Lab are two of the three centers where this research will play out.  The third is my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Here’s the story from UW’s perspective:  Major bioenergy initiative takes flight in Midwest.  There’s a ton of good information here including some audio interviews.  For Wisconsin, there’s a local angle because of the Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative, a “…statewide effort focused on the development of fuel and energy resources from non-food sources in ways that promote regional economic growth in the context of good environmental stewardship.” 

Renewable Energy for the Farm – The very informative AgWeb.com now hosts a Renewable Energy Knowledge Center for farmers.  The web site is sponsored by Farmergy, a consulting service that partners with distributors and installers to create great energy savings for farmers.  This is good stewardship and good business.  The website has news, product reviews, a great Q&A section, and access to information about government grants. 

The Climate Crisis Game – The “Washington Post” ran a story a week or so ago about some Princeton professors who’ve created a game to solve the climate change crisis.  The story, What It Would Take to Put the Brakes on Global Warming, recounts how the professors first came up with their “wedge” approach to reducing warming.  Their paper, Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the next 50 Years with Current Technologies, has produced a lot of serious interest since it first came out three years ago.  Now they’ve produced a game that anyone can play.  Go here for the concepts and the game, including a Flash video introduction.  This will really get you thinking.

Not incidentally, the “Washington Post” has been providing some fantastic coverage on The Threat of Climate Change for some time now.

The Arab World and Solar – This is where one might simply say:  “Duhhhhh.”  After all, what do North Africa and the Middle East have even more of than oil and natural gas?  The sun.  I wrote about some exciting initiatives on the Arabian Peninsula recently under Green Building +.  Well, the “Times of Malta” had a story recently:  Arab countries urge solar future.  Really bold projects are being envisioned here including “trans-Mediterranean High Voltage Direct Current transmission lines” that would connect Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) power plants to the European grid.  CSP plants derive their energy from arrays of curved mirrors reflecting solar radiation onto either absorber tubes or towers to heat liquid to power turbines to turn generators.  I talked about some of these sorts of plants while I was En Vacance in June.  (See under “Largest Solar Thermal Plant…”)  Oh yeah, and massive desalination plants are a component too.  The level of cooperation between the EU, and particularly Germany, and the Arab states is quite breathtaking – and hopeful.  See the Damascus Declaration for the official word on this.

I’m really not kidding – stop me if I’ve said this before – when I say that I feel as if I’ve stepped through some time and space portal into a whole new world of smart, brave and brilliant initiatives.  I keep seeing this stuff and continue to be blissfully amazed.

Party on, Earth.

I’m working on an article now for a print publication on “green airports.”  As Mr. Spock would say:  “Fascinating.”  Here’s an informative video clip from the European Union on aviation and climate change. 

Really well done.  Also, here’s an article from a recent number of “The Economist” - Travelling green tonight. 

National Petroleum Council Report – Okay, I will admit it:  Because this was a report by the National Petroleum Council, from a task force led by ex-Exxon chief and vociferous global warming “skeptic” Lee Raymond, commissioned by a presidential administration that has been famously indifferent, if not hostile, to the environment, I didn’t take much of a look at the news yesterday on this.  However, Facing the Hard Truths About Energy appears to have a few important, timely and surprising, given the source, messages.   An analysis in the “FT” today says the report highlights that we are in “…for a sustained period of tight supply - and that policy needs to start responding to that right now.”  The first and foremost recommendation is to go to the “…fastest technically possible increase in vehicle fuel economy standards.”  Another recommendation is to build an international framework for reducing GHG emissions.  Wow.  Is this really the voice of the oil industry?  The “FT” quotes Daniel Yergin, the task force Vice-Chairman:  “I think it will change the framework of the debate, not just in the US but around the world.”  Yergin is the head of Cambridge Energy Associates and the author of an extraordinary history of the oil industry, The Prize.  If the NPC is serious, they ought to beat the heads of every member of the House of Representatives with a copy of this report, particularly John Dingell.  This report is timely because we are being held up on energy in the House largely because of the MPG problem.  Here’s a major American industry – an understatement if you hadn’t noticed – that says we should be “…doubling miles per gallon by 2030, saving 3m-5m barrels a day of oil demand.”  Yergin also says “The study demonstrates that energy efficiency is a very near-term energy resource, and tapping it is essential to national energy strategy.”

Two Media Notes -  “The Baltimore Sun” has a clear message for Nancy Pelosi:  Bring the fight on MPG to the floor of the House.  Go around John Dingell.  In A fuelish choice, they say “Ms. Pelosi should bring her leadership persuasion to bear…”  Meanwhile, the “L.A. Times” took a big stick to Big John yesterday.  It begins thus:  “A million years of compression and heat may someday convert Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) into petroleum, just as it did the other dinosaurs.”  Ouch.  The editorial centers on Dingell’s cynical offer to introduce carbon tax legislation, admittedly designed to fail, to show that taxes are not going to be embraced by the American people, even if they are to mitigate the climate change crisis.

Center for American Progress – Energy and Congress is at the top of the list today in the daily “Progress Report” from the Center for American Progress.  Here’s an excerpt:  “At least 150 lawmakers have signed onto legislation proposed by Reps. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Todd Platts (R-PA), which would require a combined average of 35 mpg by 2018. While automakers have vigorously opposed these efforts, better fuel standards may be a boon for both them and drivers. ‘Increasing the average fuel economy of America’s new autos to 35 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2018 would save consumers $61 billion at the gas pump and increase U.S. employment by 241,000 jobs in the year 2020, including 23,900 in the auto industry,’ according to a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists, as stricter fuel economy would force large automakers to invest in new, cleaner technologies and machinery.”

Stay tuned.

“Tell the teacher we’re surfin’, surfin’ USA.”

From BlueClimate:  A report on an important analysis of Congress’ draft energy legislation from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

From DeSmogBlog:  Some informative and fun “TV.”    

At TreeHugger:  A good review of Chris Mooney’s new book, Storm World.  Chris is a really interesting thinker and writer and has a great blog his ownself:  The Intersection.

Over at GristMill:  A pretty informed discussion of energy storage from a couple of real experts.  (This follows on the “NY Times” piece from Monday on solar energy which included a discussion of the related problem of storage.)

From The New Security Beat:   This is the blog for the folks who study the critical intersections of environment and conflict at the Environmental Change and Security Program, part of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.  Here’s a very hopeful take on the opportunities inherent in the growth of urban centers internationally.  (This brings you to a podcast.) 

Check these out.

“The best-laid schemes o’ mice an ‘men
Gang aft agley,
An’lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!”

There are a slew of stories that I have been scanning while I’ve been working on some other projects.  Here are some of them now.

“The Washington Post” says Report Warns of a Much Warmer Northeast - Effects Could Be Disastrous, Says Two-Year Study.  As someone who grew up skiing on the blue ice of Vermont, one line in the article grabbed my attention.  If trends continue, the report says:  “The Northeastern ski industry, except for western Maine, would probably go out of business.”  The Union of Concerned Scientists, the venerable Cambridge-based non-profit, does fantastic work on global warming, energy and an array of other subjects. 

“Reading a scientific paper on the train this weekend, I found, to my amazement, that my hands were shaking,” begins a recent commentary from George Monbiot at “The Guardian.”  The report to which he refers comes from Jim Hansen at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University Earth Institute (and several colleagues).  As you know, Hansen is one of the seminal thinkers on global warming and still one of the leading and respected scientists in the world doing this work.  The report, Climate change and trace gases, asserts that the earth’s climate is “remarkably sensitive to global forcings.”  This means, in a nutshell, that a sufficient degree of warming can “flip” the state of ice sheets to provoke a runaway melting. 

Monbiot goes on in his commentary to talk about how we need to pursue renewable energy much more aggressively.  You won’t get any argument from me.  In a report from the Environment News Service, we get some very good news indeed:  Renewable Energy Future Could Save the World Billions of Dollars a Year.  Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council issued a great report on this saying “Investing in a renewable electricity future will save 10 times the fuel costs of a ‘business as usual’ fossil-fuelled scenario, saving $180 billion USD annually and cut CO2 emissions in half by 2030…”  “The energy [r]evolution” is a comprehensive blueprint.

Not incidentally, if you think Greenpeace is still regarded as a bunch of anarchists by governments, corporations and other environmental organizations, you should note, among other evidence, that they’re working with some big multinationals to produce some felicitous environmental outcomes.  In an excellent “FT Report - Corporate Citizenship And Philanthropy,” we learn that “…Coca-Cola, Unilever and others have been working with Greenpeace to develop alternative refrigeration technology and persuade suppliers to make the switch.”  Coke’s director of European public affairs has what I consider a priceless quote:  “It’s very powerful for a company to be associated with an NGO, especially if it’s an activist one.”  Go to the FT for this particular article, Corporate citizenship: More than the sum of the parts, by Sarah Murray, and some other great articles and features including a video and some podcasts.

I like activism – see my post from March of the same name.  So does Coca-Cola apparently.  Who knew?

This week’s “Economist” has a leader (BritSpeak for editorial) and an article on the state of play in Congress on the energy bills and their relationship to climate change legislation.  They are not complimentary.  The editorial, A pale shade of green, is off base in several ways.  I agree with some of what’s being said and find other of it surprisingly naive, or just wrong.  I do think the headlong rush to further underwrite corn-derived ethanol is a waste on several fronts, not the least of which in taxpayer dollars.  But contrary to the assertion here, the Democrats have not “…shelved any plan for limiting greenhouse emissions.”  They seem to me to be, very properly, putting the horse before the cart.  First energy, this summer, then climate change legislation in the fall.  The editorial takes a further - predictable - swipe at the initiatives to promote renewables and efficiency.  These, apparently, ignore and defy “… most of the lessons of economics.”  It’s okay, though, for massive subsidies for oil and nuclear?  There’s more strangely uninformed “tosh” (to use their expression) here.

The article is more useful:  Full of sound and fury.  It includes a chart showing elements of the House and Senate legislation as presently constituted.  It also hits on the mostly politically driven overemphasis on ethanol from corn, and it gives a pretty good picture overall of a very complicated situation.  There are lots of balls in the air and how they’re juggled and where they wind up is still a good question.    To get a sense of how much is going on, just on the House side, you can go here - Energy Independence Day Initiative: By Committee, By Bill - to see all the offerings from the committees so far.  How Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and the other important jugglers manage things remains to be seen.Now, speaking of all the offerings, David Roberts over at the Huffington Post, has a thoughtful piece on what’s been motivating Big John aka Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Dingell:  Dingell Calls our Bluff.  I think he’s got a good take on things here.  As far as what we’ve got to date that is really positive, he quotes Dingell from his C-Span interview from last week, and there is an array of great stuff, some of which has been noted at the blog here and elsewhere: mandates for residential appliance efficiency, stronger building codes to enhance efficiency, support for a “smart grid,” loan guarantees, more R&D money for batteries, more work on a renewable fuels infrastructure.  Roberts very accurately says: “All that stuff kicks ass, and it will all save consumers money.”

There’s a lot more drama left, folks.  In the immortal words of Dan Cook:  “The opera ain’t over until the fat lady sings.”