A press release this week from the American Wind Energy Association announced a recent study from the Department of Energy concluding that, for an investment of about $43 billion, wind energy could provide 20% of America’s electrical energy needs by 2030.

The 248 page analysis (pdf) from the DOE says that even though such a feat will require massive industry growth (16,000 megawatts per year by 2018, sustained from then through 2030) the technical hurdles can all be overcome.

For the alarmists that claim rising to the challenge of climate change with an aggressive approach toward renewable energy would devastate the economy, consider what happens with “massive industrial growth” – jobs. Lot’s of ‘em. Up to half a million according to the report.

That $43 billion investment would be spread out over many years. $12 billion dollars is spent on the war in Iraq every month. For an investment costing less than four months in Iraq wind energy could:

• Reduce carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation by 25 percent in 2030.
• Reduce natural gas use by 11%
• Reduce water consumption associated with electricity generation by 4 trillion gallons by 2030
• Increase annual revenues to local communities to more than $1.5 billion by 2030; and
• Support roughly 500,000 jobs in the U.S., with an average of more than 150,000 workers directly employed by the wind industry

I wonder which investment – the war in Iraq or development of wind and other alternative sources of energy – will make America safer, provide more jobs, create sustainable economic growth,  reduce our dependence on energy sources in unstable regions of the world, and lead to a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

I wonder.

It’s a matter of priorities I guess.

Something to think about.

Sources and Further Reading
SolveClimate.com
Huffington Post

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I applaud the decision from the Department if Interior to include the polar bear on the endangered species list – even if there’s just a little bit of a “kicking and screaming the whole way” flavor to it.

With that said, the very headline of the press release from the DOI sounded ominously like a loophole:

Secretary Kempthorne Announces Decision to Protect Polar Bears under Endangered Species Act:
Rule will allow continuation of vital energy production in Alaska

And that’s just in the headline. It goes on from there to state that the decision will

…be accompanied by administrative guidance and a rule” (uh oh) “that defines the scope of impact my decision will have” (as in none?) “in order to protect the polar bear while limiting unintended harm to the society and economy of the United States” (take that all you big angry bears…)

While acknowledging that the polar bear is listed as a direct result of climate change, Kempthorne wanted

…to make it clear that this listing will not stop global climate change… That is why I am taking administrative and regulatory action to make certain the ESA (endangered species act) isn’t abused” (abused? Did you just have lunch with James Inhofe?) “…to make global warming polices.” (Read the full press release from the Department of Interior)

So the polar bear is listed under the Endangered Species Act – kinda. It’s listed because of it’s diminishing habitat from global warming, but through DOI “guidance” the protecting the bear under ESA does not extend to halting the very activity that further destroys the bear’s habitat and accelerates climate change.

Makes your head spin doesn’t it?

The Natural Resource Defense Council and Sierra Club have both weighed in with their own words of caution.

 

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If We’ve Told You Once We’ve Told You a Thousand Times: NO!

Just a couple weeks ago president Bush chided congress for not opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to “environmentally sensitive” oil exploration, asserting that was a big reason why gas prices are currently so high. It’s the same old song and dance.

Heading their master’s call,  Senators Mitch McConnel of Kentucky and Pete Domenici of New Mexico attempted to tack on their Domestic Energy Production Act to a flood relief bill. The move was rejected yesterday by a vote of 42 to 56 (60 votes are needed for approval).

In a vote of 97–1 the senate agreed to halt any further additions to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for the time being. (An interesting analysis of the move and how the Reserve works is offered today in Salon.)

The measure proposed by McConnel and Domenici would open up oil exploration in ANWR and coastal waters off western states, as well as promote the use of expensive, dirty, and dangerous “unconventional” fuels produced from liquid coal and oil shale. 

Senate Majority leader Harry Reid introduced the Consumer-First Energy Act of 2008 last week as an alternative measure to the Republican Domestic Energy Production Act.

Sierra Club president Carl Pope applauded the vote in the senate saying in a press release:

The answer to our oil addiction is not to search for a bigger fix. Drilling our coasts and national treasures like the Arctic Refuge and spending billions on dirty and expensive boondoggles like liquid coal and oil shale won’t help hardworking Americans cope with gas prices. It will only add to the tens of billions of dollars the oil industry is already making.

Even at peak production, which could take twenty years, the Arctic Refuge would provide roughly a year’s worth of oil and would reduce gas prices at most by one or two cents a gallon.

Under the leadership of President Bush and his allies in Congress, gas prices have more than doubled, Big Oil has made more than half a trillion dollars in profits over the past five years, and the United States has become even more dangerously addicted to fossil fuels.

Hardworking Americans need real relief instead of the recycled rhetoric and disastrous energy policies that the president and his allies in Congress have pushed for the past seven years. Thankfully the leadership in the Senate has put forward a plan that will actually protect consumers, put America on the path toward a clean energy future, and finally put the brakes on the taxpayer-funded giveaways that have been helping fuel Big Oil’s record profits.

Instead of searching for more ways to pad Big Oil’s bottom line, the Consumer-First Energy Act offers Senators a chance to stop writing a blank check to Big Oil and instead protect consumers and invest in clean energy.

These are the kind of answers we need—solutions that will bring energy costs under control, combat global warming, and leave America’s last wild places intact.”

 

Sources and Further Reading
Energy Outlook
Sierra Club

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It has been just announced that the Department of Interior – one day short of the court mandated deadline – has decided to list the polar bear as an endangered species due to declining arctic sea ice.  

The polar bear is the first species to be so listed as a result of climate change.

Expect to hear much bluster from Senator Inhofe and his marketing experts. Kudos to the DOI for finally making the decision and acting appropriately.

Sources and Further Reading
Associated Press
CNN
National Post, Canada

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That’s apparently what he’d like the voters of Kentucky to believe. But it’s unclear what good it will do for Kentucky.

With Hillary taking some much deserved flak over the blatant pandering in her call for a “gas tax holiday”, Obama has been focusing his campaign in Kentucky on his support for clean coal technologies.

Clean coal is generally considered coal burned in Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle plants and combined with carbon sequestration.

Barrack did co-sponsor a budget provision with Kentucky senator Jim Burning (R) for $200 million to develop clean coal, but none of that is in Kentucky. There is only dirty coal in Kentucky, and the one proposed IGCC plant in the state hasn’t yet broken ground.

Even then, many believe that such technologies – the very idea of “clean coal” – is not an answer to our climate and energy problems

At best, most experts say that wide-scale sequestration systems are at least a decade away and may not offer much in the way of an overall solution – a study by MIT called The Future of Coal: Options for a Carbon-Constrained World (pdf) should make some excellent bedtime reading in the issue. 

Despite Obama’s claim of support for Kentucky clean coal, his own energy and climate advisor has said that

…[Obama] is confident … that his carbon cap program … will make it absolutely ludicrous to even contemplate any type of coal, new coal, that is not 100 percent sequestered. … if he is unable to get that carbon policy in place quickly, that he will do whatever is necessary to prevent the siting of a new generation of pulverized coal facilities, including setting [emission] standards that would be essentially a moratorium …

If sequestration is still a decade away at best, and  there will be no dirty plants built on his watch, where does this leave Kentucky in the meantime? It won’t be pretty, that’s for sure, dirty coal has already taken a devastating toll.

Of course, Obama isn’t alone on the campaign trail (the never-ending campaign trail I might add). I’m just picking on him today.

Last Friday Hillary told a crowd in Louisville “We’re sitting on a huge natural resource” pledging to invest more federal dollars in carbon sequestration.

On Monday John McCain toured a wind turbine plant in Oregon and made his pledge to curb greenhouse gas emissions and lead the international community in fighting climate change.

It won’t be hard to improve upon U.S. leadership thus far in energy development and climate change – the bar has been awfully low these past eight years. So low, in fact, as to be, well, sequestered.

Candidates Statements on Energy and Climate: 
Barrack Obama
Hillary Clinton
John McCain

Sources and Further Reading
Sustainable Business.com
Grist
Reuters

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Aww, c’mon, that isn’t very nice.

But really, to hear Inhofe talk about it, along with his media shills, you’d think that with so darn many “big angry bears” running around there’s an “over population” problem, to quote Inhofe’s own words while he yuks it up Glenn Beck. Ignorance is sooo fascinating.

The repeated delays in making a determination on whether to list the polar bear as endangered continues – hopefully not for very much longer. The Department of Interior missed it’s first deadline for determining the status of the polar bear after Department of Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne proposed listing the bear as “threatened” which set in motion the process that mandates a final decision based on the recommendation of the US Fish & Game service within one year. (the deadline passed over four months ago).

Since that time James Inhofe – like a bad cold that does little good, refuses to go away, and makes you feel awful –presented an “expert” at a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on January 30^th to show how wrong international scientists (see my previous post about my chat with biologist Nick Lunn) and Department of Interior scientists are about polar bears and their habitat – not to mention the IPCC, Al Gore, etc. ad nauseum.

Inhofe’s expert is one Dr. J. Scott Armstrong Ph.D., a professor of marketing at The Wharton School University in Pennsylvania. You read that right, my friend, Inhofe found, as his polar bear expert, a professor of marketing. He’s apparently really good at forecasting (better than scientists working in their own field of expertise) and here’s what he has to say about polar bears.

A follow-up hearing for the committee was then held on April 2^nd to look into the Bush administration’s foot-dragging on the issue. As if to underscore the committee’s concerns about their motives, nobody from the administration bothered to show up for the hearing.

Finally, having had enough, a federal judge on April 29^th gave the Department of Interior until this Thursday to make a decision about the polar bear.

U.S District Judge Claudia Wilken said in her ruling in a suit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity and other conservation groups:

Defendants have been in violation of the law requiring them to publish the listing determination for nearly 120 days. Other than the general complexity of finalizing the rule, Defendants offer no specific facts that would justify the delay, much less further delay

We’re sorry that the issue is so complex – though it didn’t seem to take Dr. Armstrong that long to come to the conclusion that the general weight of the evidence from scientists studying polar bears in the field are all wrong – but it continues to strike me as odd how the same tactics are repeatedly employed by the likes of Mr. Inhofe. Namely confusing issues through a general ignorance of science, deceptive “marketing” (his expert is a Dr. of marketing after all), foot-dragging, and blatant political posturing.

A tortured truth is rarely to be believed.

In the meantime, we wait with expectant anticipation for the Department of Interior’s decision this Thursday. Kempthorne wouldn’t dare ignore a direct court order – would he?

Sources and Further Reading
Grist
DeSmogBlog – Alaska Goes Denier Shopping
Polar Bears International

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In yesterday’s post we discussed the pros and cons of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act – or at least tried to.

The bill is due to come to the floor in June, but many supporters in the Senate, including Environment and Public Works committee chair Barbara Boxer, are all but conceding they won’t get the required 60 votes for passage, even while staff for Boxer, Lieberman, and Warner feverishly work on an overhauled bill.

I’m not convinced that the Climate Security Act is the best of the several bills now before Congress (a pdf link comparing the legislation is here), but I do think it is important to get the Lieberman bill to floor for a debate. Progress at the federal level seems agonizingly slow (and I’m not even talking about Bush) but we need to get our leaders talking seriously about climate change. To each other and to their constituents.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m going to draft a letter for my senators voicing my concerns and questions about this bill and other possible solutions that readers are free to use and modify to their liking. It’s time we held our representative’s feet to the fire (as it were) and make them answer the tough questions about what they plan to do about climate change – if anything. Time’s a’Wastin’.

In the meantime, a couple other related items for consideration:

A comment I received yesterday spoke of the need for “recycled energy” that I think deserves attention. Here’s the comment:

What we really should be pushing is energy recycling — things like waste heat recovery and combined heat & power — which could reduce greenhouse emissions by 20% while CUTTING energy costs. I’m associated with Recycled Energy Development, of which Sean Casten (mentioned above) is the president. All this other stuff is hacking at the outer branches of the problem; making power production more efficient is the root.

And what about a revenue neutral carbon tax along the lines of the one filed last week in British Columbia? Proponents say such a plan would avoid the shenanigans inherent in administering a cap and trade program, especially like the one in the Climate Security Act.

Lastly – and alas – I point you to a report released yesterday by the Pew Research Center that shows a deepening “partisan divide over global warming”, along with some excellent commentary from ClimateProgress.

It’s often hard to see how we’ll ever get Congress to pass effective and workable climate change legislation, but we’ve got to keep trying.  

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