Posted by Brad Johnson on 09/07/2007 at 07:03PM
According to the Associated
Press, the Asia
Pacific Economic Cooperation summit set a voluntary target of reducing
energy intensity (the ratio of energy consumption per unit of
GDP) 25 percent by 2030. In addition,
Australia and Russia announced an
agreement
on a “long-term global aspirational goal for stabilising and then
reducing greenhouse gas emissions” and to “allow the supply of
Australian uranium for use in Russia’s civil nuclear power industry.”
As the BBC
explains, the
reductions in energy intensity would not lead to any reduction in
GHG emissions. In fact, a 49% reduction in
energy intensity by 2050, given projected economic growth, translates to
a rise in greenhouse gas emissions of about 15%.
Andrew Dessler has more at Gristmill on what he calls the “intensity
scam.”
Posted by Brad Johnson on 09/07/2007 at 01:15PM
Grist’s Brian Beutler
covers
yesterday’s Global Warming Committee hearing on The Future of Coal
Under Cap and
Trade:
Here are two takes on the issue, from two sources that couldn’t be
more deeply at odds with each other. Both suggest coal may yet see its
heyday.
The first comes from Michael Morris, CEO of
American Electric Power, who testified at the hearing. He supports, in
the same tepid way that many energy companies now do, an economy-wide
cap-and-trade program with carbon credits allocated freely. (His
justification for this might just represent one of the great moments
in the history of inadvertent honesty: “We believe that credits ought
to be allocated to those who will invest the capital to make a
difference in the environment, rather than an auction so that those
who buy them can make money by the positions they have taken.” In
other words, give energy companies the allocations because we’re
already rich and don’t award the innovators for beating us to the
punch.) One of Moore’s other main points was that coal companies won’t
begin installing CCS equipment until
CCS “has been demonstrated to be effective,
and the costs have significantly dropped so that it becomes
commercially available on a widespread basis.”
He’s certainly not the only person who thinks it’s politically
infeasible to impose drastic, costly policies on the coal industry—and
that therefore carbon-based energy companies have the world by the
political balls. Robert Sussman, an environmental expert testifying on
behalf of the Center for American Progress, said, “unfortunately, our
analysis indicates that the initial stages of cap-and-trade programs
[do not] not make carbon prices high enough to eliminate cost
differentials” between clean and dirty coal plants.
That points toward two possibilities: We could ratchet up the
regulatory impact of climate-change legislation, or we could subsidize
the hell out of CCS.
At the end of the hearing, Sussman suggested that the Congress set a
date (specifically the year 2016) by which
CCS technology be standardized, saying the
cost of such a hasty transition would require $35 billion to $40
billion in research subsidies.
As a consolation prize, David Hawkins, director of the Climate Center
at NRDC, proposed that the marginal costs of
outfitting coal plants with CCS technology
should be paid directly by consumers (a green incentive) and not by
direct tax subsidies. Woot?
Posted by Brad Johnson on 09/07/2007 at 10:12AM
Architecture 2030 is an initiative
started by architect Edward Mazria (The Passive Solar Energy Book)
with two components: the 2030
Challenge, which calls
for all new buildings and development to be carbon-neutral by 2030,
starting at 50% of the regional energy consumption; and the 2010
Imperative, which
calls on all design schools to be carbon neutral by 2010 and achieve
complete ecological literacy in design education.
Architecture 2030 is also running ads with the message of no more
coal, stating:
Without coal, all the positive efforts underway can make a difference.
Over an 11-year period (1973-1983), the US built approx. 30 billion
square feet of new buildings, added approx. 35 million new vehicles
and increased real GDP by one trillion
dollars while decreasing its energy consumption and
CO2 emissions. We don’t need coal, we have
what we need: efficient design and proven technologies.
Today, buildings use 76% of all the energy produced at coal plants.
By implementing The 2030 Challenge to reduce building energy use by a
minimum of 50%, we negate the need for new coal plants.
Posted by Brad Johnson on 09/06/2007 at 08:02AM
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit is this weekend in Sydney,
Australia, and President Bush will be there.
APEC includes 21 countries surrounding the
Pacific Ocean, including the US, Australia, China, Mexico, and Japan. A
primary topic of discussion will be climate change, which the
administration is highlighting.
On September 4, Bush and Prime Minister Howard released a joint
announcement
on climate change that “agreed today on the importance of confronting
the interlinked challenges of climate change, energy security and clean
development” and the goal of achieving an international agreement in
Bali that “provides for effective action from all the major emitting
nations toward the UNFCCC objective of
stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level
that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate
system”. The upcoming APEC statement on
climate change and the outcome of the Major Economies Meeting on Energy
Security and Climate Change in Washington DC on Spetember 27-28 will
indicate the US negotiating position for the UN conference.
What specifics are in the agreement?
On the White House website EPA Administrator
Stephen L. Johnson will be taking
questions on Friday,
September 7 at 12:45 pm EDT.
AVAAZ has a international petition calling
for action on global warming at
the APEC summit with over 400,000 co-signers.
Posted by Brad Johnson on 08/26/2007 at 12:26PM
Hill Heat will be on vaction until after the Labor Day weekend.
Restore the balance!
Posted by Brad Johnson on 08/25/2007 at 10:43AM
Who’s spending money on Google global warming keywords?
Organizations that are advertising on Hill Heat include:
- Heartland
Institute,
which has moved from denying the effects of smoking to denying the
effects of global warming
- Carbon Planet carbonplanet.com carbon credits
- Energy Race energyrace.com
- BP
- carbonaided.com
- healthpolitics.com
- commengineering.com
- RealTruth.org/GlobalWarming
Solar/renewable/energy efficiency
- Home Depot professional solar power system
- Vista-Films.com
- infor.com Green Maintenance
- thesolarcenter.com
Carbon market
Peak oil/Global energy crisis
Posted by Brad Johnson on 08/20/2007 at 03:42PM
Posted by Brad Johnson on 08/20/2007 at 03:03PM
Sen. Reid, Senate Majority Leader from Nevada, detailed his position on
America’s energy and global warming policy. He called for a moratorium
on coal-fired plants and a restructuring of tax policy away from gas and
oil and toward renewable energy.
At a community meeting he
said:
Let us spend a few billion developing what we have a lot of. We have a
lot of sun, we have a lot of wind and we are the Saudi Arabia of
geothermal energy. The sooner we move toward the sun, the wind,
geothermal, biomass, the better off we’ll be, and we will never do it
until we have a tax policy that gives people an incentive to invest in
these industries because the big oil companies have controlled
America.
More at Grist,
It’s Getting Hot in
Here,
and I Think
Mining.
Posted by Brad Johnson on 08/20/2007 at 12:20PM
As the U.S. Congress gears up to catch the rest of the world in devising
policy solutions to anthropogenic climate change, two competing visions
of the crisis are being released for popular consumption, both
professing to take a clear-eyed look at the problem and possible
solutions.
The first is The 11th Hour, in
general release last Friday.
The second is Cool It, Bjorn Lomborg’s new book, to be released
September 4.
Posted by Brad Johnson on 08/16/2007 at 02:02PM
Thomas Casten
addresses the potential gains in carbon reduction by focusing on the
energy distribution systems:
I’ve done a study of what would happen if the United States went all
the way with power recycling. We could cut our electric fuel in half.
We could drop CO2 by between 20 and 30
percent. And we could make money on the first 25 percent drop with
today’s technology. In the process, the technology would improve and
we would be able to go farther.
And the consequences of ignoring this sector:
In 1900, about 3.5 percent of the potential energy put into electric
generation actually became delivered electricity, and about 1.5
percent of it ended up as useful work. The curve rises for the next 60
years, as these things get more efficient. By 1960, about 32.5 percent
of the potential was arriving as electricity. In 2005, we’re at 33
percent. The electrical generation industry stopped improving its
efficiency.
Natasha Chart addresses
the question of agricultural practices and soil carbon content:
The Carbon Farmers of
America assert that, “[i]f
the American people were to restore the soil fertility of the Great
Plains that we have destroyed in the last 150 years, atmospheric
levels of carbon dioxide would be reduced to near pre-industrial
levels.”
Both approaches offer massive opportunity for everyone from corporations
to families.
They conclude, respectively, “The enemy is conventional thinking,” and
“Answers could be right under our feet.”