Dems on Global Cooling

In an article in Salon, an energy expert gives a favorable review to plans Clinton and Obama have put forward for dealing with climate and energy issues, and speculates on how their leadership styles might play out on the issue. The article is short on definitive conclusions, but heartening to those who hope a Democratic administration might bring significant change on the issue. Read an excerpt below:

The gravest threat to the American way of life is posed by unrestricted greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Global warming threatens to put the Southwest into a permanent drought, raise sea levels by 6 or more inches a decade, generate hundreds of millions of environmental refugees at home and abroad, wipe out half the planet's species, and increase average temperatures in the nation's interior 10-20 degrees Fahrenheit. And these impacts would likely get steadily worse for hundreds of years or longer.
No enemy, foreign or domestic, poses a threat to us that is so devastating, so irreversible. Top climate scientists tell us the threat might be all but unstoppable if the nation and the world don't take serious steps over the next decade to restrict GHG emissions. For all the urgent crises the next president has to deal with in the middle of the night, the most important calls he or she will have to make concern how to stop global warming.
We've seen that a President McCain is not likely to be the leader this country and the world need to maintain the planet's livability for our children and the next 50 generations. What about a President Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama? Both would be a giant step forward. Unlike McCain, they have both put out detailed and comprehensive plans. (Obama's is here. Clinton's is here.) Although you wouldn't know it from the media coverage, these plans are more important to the long-term health and well-being of future generations than the candidates' healthcare or Iraq plans.


Before I look in depth at them, the first thing to make clear is that no president, not even a modern-day Lincoln or FDR, could possibly stop global warming even by their second term. The increase in concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases is primarily what determines how much humans will increase the planet's temperature. To stop concentrations from rising further, the entire planet will have to reduce total annual emissions at least 60 percent or more from current levels, including carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels. Absent a World War II-type mobilization, that kind of dramatic change in the planet's energy system will take a few decades.
Even when concentrations stop rising, global temperatures will continue to increase for many decades because it takes a long time for the planet's temperature to come into equilibrium with any new level of GHG concentrations. Ultimately, by 2100, we will probably need net human GHG emissions to be close to zero, if not negative, to avert catastrophe. We can't stop global warming in the next decade.
Humanity's great challenge is to stop the warming before we cross key thresholds or tipping points, in which amplifying feedbacks in the carbon cycle start to seriously kick in and overwhelm human efforts to reduce emissions. A typical feedback would be the melting of the permafrost or tundra, which currently has locked away some 1,000 gigatons of carbon -- more carbon than the atmosphere is holding today.
If the permafrost stops being perma, that would release tens of billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere, much of it in the form of methane -- a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. That, in turn, would speed the temperature increase and the thaw of additional permafrost. In short, passing such a tipping point would set the planet on an all-but-unstoppable path to high concentrations of GHGs, destroying the planet's livability for centuries if not millennia, according to the latest research.
So we must sharply reduce emissions even as the population keeps growing, and do it in a way that increases, rather than hinders, economic development, particularly in undeveloped nations already wracked by poverty, disease, dirty water, hunger and other scourges.
This necessitates deploying all existing or near-term clean energy technologies today as rapidly as possibly, while shutting down or capturing the emissions of at least half of the dirty technologies. At the same time, we must accelerate the development and introduction of the next generation of clean technologies, which can ultimately take global emissions as low as possible by century's end.
A mandatory GHG control system that establishes a price for carbon dioxide emissions, such as a cap-and-trade system, is necessary. Both Clinton and Obama endorse a cap-and-trade system, requiring an 80 percent reduction in U.S. GHGs by 2050 compared to 1990 levels, much deeper than McCain has so far endorsed and close to what is currently believed necessary for our country and planet. Recently, McCain has also begun waffling about just how "mandatory" his program would be. Voluntary caps don't work and must be rejected.
Yet cap and trade is not enough. The next president has a great many important calls to make:
Appoint judges who will uphold laws to reduce emissions against challenges from the big polluters.
Appoint leaders and staff of key federal agencies who take climate change seriously and believe in the necessary solutions.
Embrace an aggressive and broad-based technology deployment strategy to keep the cost of the cap-and-trade system as low as possible.
Lead a change in utility regulations to encourage, rather than discourage, energy efficiency and clean energy.
Offer strong public advocacy to reverse the years of muzzling and misinformation of the Bush administration.
McCain is unlikely to do any of these five things. Obama and Clinton are likely to do them all. In particular, at least from my perspective as a former Energy Department official, the most important news is that both of them understand the necessity of the technology side.

Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 26 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.

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Cleaning Canton

The Tri-Town News has published an article about the work of the Canton (Connecticut) Energy Task Force. Check out this excerpt:

The Energy Task Force has also researched the status of two local dams, one in Canton and one in Burlington. The Energy Task Force is attempting to assist in the regulatory hurdles of revamping the dams and powerhouses to capture the energy of the Farmington River. Delany said years ago, Canton had an option to buy the energy rights to those two dams, energy sites that could potentially supply enough electricity for 1,500 houses. Delany said simple acts of energy conservation can make a difference, too. "Six compact fluorescents can reduce your consumption," said Delany. "Check out the local light bulb store in Collinsville, they have 200 different types of light bulbs." Delany said the Energy Task Force wants the town to install a special recycling bin at the transfer station for the new energy efficient light bulbs since the new bulbs contain mercury. As the town and individual residents switch over to clean renewable energy, the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund will purchase solar panels for municipal buildings. Delany said any new roofs on Canton buildings should be installed with solar panels to both capture the energy of the sun and to absorb heat, in return, requiring less energy to cool the building. "The electricity from solar panels is a third part source and will not cost the town anything," said Delany. "It will reduce the burden on the grid."With a $5,000 grant from the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund, the Energy Task Force is actively promoting clean renewable energy awareness and education through grants to local citizens, businesses, civic organizations, and non-profits. Residents interested in joining the committee should call Delany at 693-2561.

Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 25 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.htm
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Here Comes the Solution?

The sun is the only viable solution to the world's energy crisis, according to a prominent scientist, but if the world doesn't wake up, realize this, and start investing in solar energy soon, it will be to late, according to this article on ABC News (see excerpt below):

There is a potential solution, and possibly only one, to the global energy crisis. It will require a huge investment, several scientific breakthroughs and a little luck. But unless we give it the very highest priority, it will soon be too late.

That's the message that a highly respected professor of chemistry at the California Institute of Technology has been delivering for several years now, but it's not clear whether anyone is listening. Nate Lewis isn't your typical prophet of doom. He has won a list of awards as long as the beard he wore years ago as a young scientist when I first met him. And to hear him tell it, the solution to the energy crisis is as clear as the nose on your face, or at least the shadow it casts.
Lewis quips that he belongs to the "Willie Sutton school of energy management." When asked why he robbed banks, Sutton responded "because that's where the money is."
"I believe in that too," Lewis told an energy symposium at Caltech earlier this year.
In his case, however, Lewis is banking on the sun.
"More solar energy hits the earth in one hour than all the energy the world consumes in a year," he told the symposium. So if you want to solve the energy crisis, he argued, go to the bank where the energy is kept — the sun.
None of the other sources of energy, including fossil fuels that threaten our planet, or nuclear energy that has never lived up to its potential, can do the job, Lewis maintains. He isn't arguing in favor of those huge water bladders we are supposed to have atop our houses to capture heat from the sun. Lewis sees an entirely different solution. He sees cheap ways to convert solar energy directly into electricity, which can be used to convert water into fuel, like hydrogen, that can be turned back into electricity on demand.
What we need, he argues, is something as basic as paint that is engineered to capture electrons from the sun and make the electrons march into our utility lines. Go to your local home center, buy a bucket of paint and brush it on your roof to power all those gadgets and heat your domicile and create the fuel to run your scooter. Sounds pretty far out, but Lewis is dead serious.

Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 25 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.htm

Enjoy discounts on energy saving products at http://www.shopipl.org/

Coal is Out, Conservation is In

A story on Marketplace talks about how rising construction costs and concerns over global warming legislation have caused utilities to cancel plans for 16 new coal-fired power plants in recent months. Instead, they're opting for something much cheaper -- conservation. Listen or read transcript here.
Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 25 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.htm
Enjoy discounts on energy saving products at http://www.shopipl.org/

The Future Is Electric

The future of cars, that is, according to the New York Times article excerpted below:

Trading the internal combustion engine for batteries could bring well-publicized advantages: reducing pollution, raising mileage, promoting energy independence. E.V.’s and plug-in hybrids could deliver the gasoline equivalent of 100 miles a gallon or more. For consumers, that would in effect roll back the clock to buck-a-gallon gas. Car owners could save money in their sleep, recharging in the off hours when electricity is cheapest.
And compared with hydrogen fuel-cell cars, the infrastructure for electric cars already exists, requiring only more plugs in more places. Aside from home recharging, it would be easier to install pay-per-use outlets at curbsides and in parking lots than to spawn a network of hydrogen filling stations. Wal-Mart and McDonald’s might offer convenient electricity for customers or employees.
Sounds good? There is one problem. There is still not a single E.V. or plug-in hybrid available that can approach the driving range, interior room and performance of a typical gas-powered family sedan, at anywhere near the price that an average consumer would pay.
From a technical standpoint, the Tesla Roadster may well be the most impressive E.V. yet. But this plug-in two-seater, based on the Lotus Elise, is cramped and has near-zero cargo space. Its $100,000 price is well beyond the budget of even most sports car buyers.
So automakers, including Tesla, are again assuring Americans that practical, affordable E.V.’s are on the way.
Experts say the cars’ arrival hinges on two make-or-break issues:
Developing safe, affordable lithium-ion batteries lasting 100,000 miles.
Overcoming a psychological barrier among people who can imagine the benefits — but who can also see themselves stranded with a dead battery and no place or time to recharge.
As for batteries, progress has been made, but more is needed. The EV1 started with old-school lead-acid batteries; today’s hybrids have more robust nickel-metal-hydride units. But the most efficient batteries are lithium-ion, the kind found in cellphones and laptops. These cells would double or triple the power of, say, a Toyota Prius battery pack, but at half the weight or size.
Prabhakar Patil is chief executive of Compact Power, a company vying to power a G.M. plug-in hybrid based on the Chevrolet Volt concept car — and to have them ready by 2010 or 2011. He was previously chief engineer for the Ford Escape Hybrid.

Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 22 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.htm

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Saving Energy at Home

The New York Times has an article about stopping energy loss from idle devices in the home. Here is an excerpt:

I started checking how much electricity my electronics were consuming when I wasn’t using them. I used a Kill A Watt EZ energy meter (available online for about $25) and began measuring. My PC was continuously drawing 134 watts all night.
The more devices I checked, the worse it got. My TiVo digital video recorder was sucking down about 30 watts when it was not playing or recording a show. A Comcast digital cable set-top box made by Motorola that I tested was drawing about 40 watts. My DVD player was drawing 26 watts while idle, and my audio system — which I rarely turned off — was using 47 watts. This was in addition to the numerous power adapters and chargers, each drawing 1 or 2 watts, not to mention several other devices sipping energy to keep clocks running or to be ready to turn on at the push of a button.
I’m partly to blame for the audio system and DVD player. They do have on/off switches that I was failing to use. I had falsely assumed they were using relatively little power. But I tested DVR’s from Comcast, Dish Network and TiVo, and none went into a low-power mode. All of this wasted power was costing me money and pumping unnecessary CO2 into the atmosphere. My PC alone was contributing 2,000 pounds of CO2 annually. The DVR. was adding another 543 pounds.
Indeed, the Department of Energy estimates that in the average home, 40 percent of all electricity used to power home electronics is consumed while the products are turned off. Add that all up, and it equals the annual output of 17 power plants, the government says. In an effort to address that, a consortium of Intel, Google, PC makers and other technology companies this week announced their intent to increase the PC’s overall energy efficiency to 90 percent.
Products that idle in what the industry calls low-power mode, or lopomo, consumed about 10 percent of total electricity in California homes, according to a 2002 study prepared for the California Energy Commission by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. A few of those devices, even those with Energy Star ratings that signal that they are less wasteful, still use a lot of power. “Some of the larger big-screen TVs consume as much energy each year as a new refrigerator,” according to Noah Horowitz, a scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
You do not have to use an energy meter to reduce your consumption. If you don’t turn off your PC when it is not in use, make sure it goes into a low-power sleep, suspend or hibernate mode. That doesn’t always happen automatically. Windows XP has both a suspend and hibernate option, but it isn’t always turned on by default. Computers running the Windows XP operating system can be configured by clicking on Power Options in the Control Panel to set the number of minutes before Windows will turn off the monitor and hard disks or put the system into standby or hibernate mode. (Hibernation uses the least amount of energy). If it is a notebook PC, there are separate settings for when it runs on the battery and when it is plugged in.
Microsoft says that it has overhauled energy management in its Vista operating system so that machines, by default, should go into a low-power state after 60 minutes of inactivity. The PC sips only a few watts until the user touches the mouse or keyboard. To configure a machine with Vista, type “Power Options” in the search box at the bottom of the Start menu and click on “Change when the computer sleeps.”

IREJN is Connecticut's Interfaith Power and Light. Visit us at http://www.irejn.org/.

Congressional Energy Debate

A debate over an energy bill that will probably last all year has already been termed "historic," according to US News and World Report.

Key House Democrats pledged to fight energy legislation proposed by fellow Democrat Rick Boucher while many Republicans voiced support for Boucher at a crowded energy subcommittee hearing today.
Henry Waxman, chair of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said Boucher's discussion draft failed to solve the dual dilemmas of climate change and energy security.
"This discussion draft doesn't step up to the urgent problems facing us," Waxman said. "It blinks and then steps back."
Edward Markey, chair of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, criticized Boucher's bill for not reflecting "the spirit of what this country wants to see happen." Boucher's discussion draft contains several elements that are anathema to environmentalists. For example, it would overturn the recent Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA that gave the EPA the right to control greenhouse gas emissions and would prohibit states from enacting their own legislation.
"This bill is cutting the legs out from under states just as they are starting to spring forward on greenhouse gas legislation," Markey said. Boucher's proposal also would change the current renewable fuels standard to an alternative fuels standard in order to promote coal-to-liquids production, a fuel that can be used in vehicles. Boucher represents southwestern Virginia, a major coal-producing region.
Critics deride coal-to-liquids as counterproductive because of its heavy carbon content. Boucher's bill would increase corporate average fuel economy standards but not as aggressively as in a bill coauthored by Markey.
But John Shimkus and Dennis Hastert, both Republicans of Illinois, offered support for the Boucher bill. Hastert said it "levels the playing field to get alternative fuels to the market." Shimkus praised its focus on coal, noting Illinois's massive deposits of the fuel. In a sign of how electrified the energy debate has become, Markey and Shimkus agreed on one key point: that the ensuing debate—likely to last till the end of the year—will be "historic."

IREJN is Connecticut's Interfaith Power and Light. Visit us at www.irejn.org.

Time of Use Electric Power Comes to Connecticut

This story from WNPR gives an overview of so-called "Time of Use" electric rates in Connecticut. You can listen to the MP3 here. What is "Time of Use"? This blurb that appears on their website does a pretty good job of explaining it:

HARTFORD, CT (2007-02-27) Consumers know they pay less if they use their cell phones at night. Someone looking for a good deal on a vacation in the Caribbean knows it's cheaper in the summer than the winter. But people aren't used to thinking about what time of day they switch on the dishwasher.
Soon more people will be billed on a time-of-use electric rate, designed to get people to use electricity during the time of day when there's less demand for it. WNPR's Nancy Cohen reports it could also help people suffering from soaring electric rates save money.

IREJN is Connecticut's Interfaith Power and Light. Visit us at www.irejn.org.

Climate Change Is an Energy Issue

An article on alternet addresses the conundrum of climate change: The US currently has no strategy for addressing the fact that our consumption of greenhouse-gas emitting fossil fuels is on the increase. Here is an excerpt:

If, however, we seek to protect the climate while there is still time to do so, we must embrace a fundamental transformation in our energy behavior: nothing else will make a significant difference. In practice, this devolves into two fundamental postulates. We must substantially reduce our consumption of fossil fuels, and we must find ways to capture and bury the carbon by-products of the fossil fuels we do consume.

Various strategies have been proposed to achieve these objectives. Those that offer significant promise should be utilized to the maximum extent possible. This is not the place to evaluate these strategies in detail, except to make a few broad comments.

First, as noted, since 42 percent of American carbon dioxide emissions (the largest share) are produced through the combustion of petroleum, anything that reduces oil consumption -- higher fuel-efficiency standards for motor vehicles, bigger incentives for hybrids, greater use of ethanol, improved public transportation, car-pooling, and so -- should be made a major priority.

Second, because the combustion of coal in electrical power plants is our next biggest source of CO2, improving the efficiency of these plants and filtering out the harmful emissions has to be another top priority.
Finally, we should accelerate research into promising new techniques for the capture and "sequestration" of carbon during the combustion of fossil fuels in electricity generation. Some of these plans call for burying excess carbon in hollowed-out coalmines and oil wells -- a very practical use for these abandoned relics, but only if it can be demonstrated that none of the carbon will leak back into the atmosphere, adding to the buildup of GHGs.
Global warming is an energy problem, and we cannot have both an increase in conventional fossil fuel use and a habitable planet. It's one or the other. We must devise a future energy path that will meet our basic (not profligate) energy needs and also rescue the climate while there's still time. The technology to do so is potentially available to us, but only if we make the decision to develop it swiftly and on a very large scale.

IREJN is Connecticut's Interfaith Power and Light. Visit us at www.irejn.org.

Meeting Connecticut's Energy Needs

In an editorial in Sunday's Hartford Courant, John C. Hall, Pastor at First Congregational Church (UCC) in Middletown, argues that "What we need in Connecticut is a comprehensive, long-term energy strategy that considers economic, environmental and security concerns simultaneously. "

Read the rest of his editorial here. (The Hartford Courant requires free registration.)

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How Many Light Bulbs Does it Take to Save the Planet?

The inaugural story in a New York Times series called "The Energy Challenge" deals with Walmart's quest to put compact fluorescent bulbs in 100 million US households, and to deal with the environmental and economic impact of doing so. Currently only 6 percent of US households use the energy-efficient bulbs.

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NRG puts Kibosh on Coal Plant

One of the Connecticut's largest electricity producers has dropped plans for a power plant in Montville using new "clean coal" technology and instead is moving forward with plans to build a conventional gas-fired plant there.New Jersey-based NRG is proposing a natural gas-fired plant that could be retrofitted to one day use the coal technology, said Ray Long, Northeast region director for the company. "Clean Coal" does not reduce emissions of gasses that cause global warming. Read the Courant story.

Carbon-negative bio-fuels

Diverse grassland species constitute a carbon-negative source of energy that could alleviate 19 percent of global electricity consumption and 13 percent of the world's petroleum consumption. Read all about it.

Are there Nukes in Our Future?

Seven partners representing half the world's population have agreed to build an experimental fusion reactor in southern France that could revolutionize global energy use for future generations.

The European Union, China, India, Russia, Japan and South Korea will attempt to combat global warming by offering an alternative to fossil fuels. Read the full story in the Chicago Tribune.