Category Archives: Power

Progress and pitfalls in California’s clean energy quest

Power, Water

The End of Ag? Chu Drops a Climate Bomb

arizona-drought-small.jpgHigher temperatures and drier conditions could destroy California’s vineyards by the end of the century if Americans do not act fast to slow global warming, Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu said Tuesday in his first interview since joining the Obama cabinet.  Chu, a California native, warned that increased water shortages in the West and a loss of up to 90 percent of the Sierra snowpack are likely to have a severe impact on the state’s agricultural industries as well as California’s cities.

“I don’t think the American public has gripped in its gut what could happen,” Chu told the Los Angeles Times.  “We’re looking at a scenario where there’s no more agriculture in California.”

Californians may appreciate this kind of attention in Washington to what is shaping up as potentially the worst drought in the state’s history.  The California Department of Water Resources reports $308.9 million in agricultural losses last year due to drought in the state, and if January was any indication of what’s to come, that number will be even higher for 2009.  The Santa Rosa Press Democrat reports that grape growers in the counties of Sonoma and Mendocino are facing a difficult choice this month as they decide whether to use some of their reduced water allotments for frost protection. With such a rapidly dwindling supply, water used now could mean none for irrigation later in the season.

This morning on KQED’s Forum, California water experts discussed the direness of the situation and the probability of water rationing and other measures to deal with it.

The California Department of Water Resources website has extensive information about drought conditions and mitigation efforts across the state, including this fact sheet updated for January 2009.

Photo by Reed Galin

Government & Business, Power

Methane Epilogue: Power from Cows and Castoffs

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dig_3944-web.jpgWe have updates from some of the places we visited in our methane series, heard on The California Report. For Part 1 of the series, click here. For Part 2 of the series, click here.

At Fiscalini Farms near Modesto, John Fiscalini says he finally worked out a deal with air regulators that allows him to convert his manure into methane for electric power. His permit from the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District allows him to run the engine while he makes adjustments to minimize particulate and nitrous oxide pollutants.

He hopes to be making power by the middle of this month–more than 13 months behind schedule. Capturing the methane, of course, will make a significant dent in the carbon footprint of the farm, which has 3,000 cows (1,500 producing and 1,500 “replacements”).

He also has a grant from the U.S. Dept. of Energy, under which university researchers will install equipment to monitor the methane operation. Fiscalini says they’ll “monitor everything we can possibly monitor” and gather data to make better judgments about the efficiency and economic feasibility of methane digesters. He’s having some doubts about the economic feasibility of his own. Now, he says, water quality regulators want him to do $40,000 worth of environmental assessments, including a hydro-geologic survey and a study of his waste stream (he uses leftovers from the methane digester for fertilizer).

You may recall that we started Part One at an unidentified landfill, to explain how methane is produced and captured, and why flaring it off is better than letting the methane escape into the atmosphere. I later heard from Jessica Jones, district manager for Waste Management, which runs the Redwood Landfill and Recycling Center in Marin County, the location where I did the recording. While the landfill currently flares off its collected methane, Jones wanted us to know about some of the company’s efforts to harness that gas–potentially enough to power 4,000-5,000 homes. In an email to KQED, she wrote:

“Redwood Landfill is currently working to permit a landfill gas to energy facility which will become Marin County’s largest source of green power.  Altamont Landfill in Alameda County currently has landfill gas to energy production through the use of internal combustion engines and turbines, and is beginning construction of a liquefied natural gas facility which will convert landfill gas into a clean burning fuel which can be used to power Waste Management’s refuse collection fleet.  This type of fuel is estimated to be potentially the closest to carbon neutral of any fuel being developed today.”

There’s more about Redwood’s landfill-gas-to-energy (LFGTE) project at the company’s website. In echoes from our conversations with John Fiscalini, Jones writes on the site that there are “regulatory hurdles” to be cleared before this can happen. Sound familiar?

Photo: Stinky silage; Methane digester tanks will soon power the Fiscalini dairy farm.

Power

Methane Sources and the “Dark Side” of Solar

plants.jpgPlants don’t produce methane after all, a new study out of the UK contends.  The results refute a 2006 report that suggested plants could account for almost half the world’s production of this potent greenhouse gas. But according to authors of the latest study, plants are more like little methane pipelines; they convey methane from the soil to the air, but they don’t actually produce it.

No one said that climate change was simple.

Neither are the solutions, apparently.  An article in the LA Times reports on the “dark side” of solar, outlining the toxic materials used in cells, the difficulty of recycling some components, and the fossil fuels burned in the production and transportation process of cells and panels.

And don’t let this weird weather confuse you either.  As the Thin Green Line reports, this week’s freezing temperatures in the Midwest don’t mean climate change isn’t happening.

Government & Business, Power, Water

PPIC Analyst: Start Adapting Now to Climate Change

This is a guest post from Louise Bedsworth, research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California.  She and PPIC Research Director Ellen Hanak are co-authors of the report: “Preparing California for a Changing Climate,”  which we wrote about here last month. The report discusses the challenges that climate change poses for a number of the state’s environmental and resource institutions and how well prepared we are for addressing these challenges.

What is adaptation to climate change and why do we need it now?

We have discussed our report on preparing for climate change with a variety of audiences over the past several weeks, beginning with a half-day event in Sacramento on December 2nd that included state leaders, representatives from environmental organizations, and city officials from all over California.  We found that while the topic of adaptation can seem to be all doom and gloom, there are several programs in place and underway that should help California prepare for the effects of climate change that we can’t prevent. One important question that keeps coming up at these events is why we need to be thinking about adapting to global warming now that the state has focused on fighting it.

Adaptation, or climate change preparedness, refers to the adjustments that can be made to help to cope with the effects of climate change.  These impacts include higher temperatures, accelerated sea level rise, and disruptions to the state’s water supply, all of which have real consequences for California.  For example, the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission has prepared maps showing what the Bay would look like with one meter of sea level rise.  These maps show the significant impacts on San Francisco Bay communities and infrastructure, including inundation of the region’s airports and Silicon Valley.

Ideally, adaptive actions will help to reduce vulnerability in the face of change or to improve resiliency.  Even under the most optimistic scenarios (e.g., successful emission reductions globally), some amount of climate change appears to be inevitable.

Adaptation goes in hand-in-hand with efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  Generally speaking, the more successful efforts to reduce emissions are, the less adaptation will be needed.  And, some efforts to reduce emissions – such as energy efficiency – will also help us adapt by lessening energy use under high demand conditions.  But, adaptation and mitigation efforts can be in conflict – for example, planting non-native trees either to store carbon or provide shade can help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but could place additional stress on efforts to protect native species in a changing climate.  To avoid such conflicts now and in the future, adaptation needs to be well-defined and integrated in the current climate policy discussion in California.

A recent report from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies found significant obstacles to climate change adaptation in the United States.  These were similar to barriers that we observed for California – uncertainty in the science of climate change, lack of funding or resources, regulatory and legal obstacles, and lack of political will or incentive.

But, we also found some reasons to optimistic about the prospects for adaptation in California.  Water and electricity agencies appear to be out in front on adaptation and overcoming these obstacles.  As service providers, both water and electricity providers have an incentive (and an obligation) to be considering adaptation.  They are used to doing long-range planning and weathering supply uncertainties.  Finally, and very importantly, water and electricity providers have a rate-payer base that can provide funding for undertaking adaptation.  In addition, there are tools in other sectors that can help with adaptation.  There are public health programs such as disease tracking and heat emergency plans that can provide a starting point for developing climate change preparedness.

As the California Resources Agency develops the state’s Climate Adaptation Strategy, the knowledge and experience from these programs should provide a solid starting point.

Government & Business, Power

“Is the Planet Just Doomed?”

3117211300_7c2dceccac_m.jpgThe world needs to completely phase out coal emissions over the next 20 years to avoid climate disaster, James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) told a room packed with several hundred people at the AGU conference in San Francisco on Wednesday.

An immediate moratorium on new coal use that does not capture CO2 and phasing out of all other coal emissions by 2030 is the path to reach a target for CO2 emissions of 350 parts per million (ppm) identified in a new study led by Hansen. Previously, Hansen has said that the dangerous level for CO2 was likely to be 450 ppm or higher, but in light of new observations and analysis of ‘slow’ feedback processes like ice melt and greenhouse gas release from the ocean and soil, the study team revised that projection.

Unfortunately for the world, current atmospheric CO2 levels are already at 385 ppm.

(Hansen, a well-known climatologist, received a lot of publicity in 2005 and 2006 over his assertions that NASA administrators tried to censor his public statements about the causes of climate change.)

“We’ve got to get politicians to understand that it is more serious, and we’re at a more critical stage, than they seem to understand,” said the scientist. “No one is doing anything even close to what’s needed, even those countries who appear to be the most serious.”

Hansen’s colleague Pushker Kharecha acknowledged in an earlier lecture that phasing out coal over the next 20 years would be a “Herculean” task, but that it is possible, and necessary. Even if the world comes together to meet this goal, atmospheric CO2 would peak at 400-425ppm before gradually declining with the help of reforestation and other efforts.

Hansen warned that because of certain feedback loops, there will be no escape from “The Venus Syndrome” – runaway global warming – once the climate reaches certain tipping points. We may have already reached the tipping point with the Arctic sea ice which has decreased dramatically, he said. Other indicators he cited are a quadrupling of wildfires in American West over the last 30 years and the rapid retreat of glaciers, which he predicted will have disappeared within 50 years under a “business as usual” scenario.

All of this led one member of the audience to ask the question in everyone’s mind:

“Is the planet just doomed?”

To that Hansen replied that some human causes actually have slowed, such as CFCs and methane, and that there are technologies worth exploring like burning nuclear waste. Then he added, “I think we’ll solve the problem, but we need to tell the truth that it does require a carbon price. Politicians are not willing to do this.”

I can’t say I found his answer especially reassuring.

Power

Life After Oil

3116043117_9bdc0bc414_m.jpgScientists at the American Geophysical Union conference made it clear on Wednesday that if peak oil isn’t here now, it’s coming very soon. The US reached its peak in 1971, and according to NASA scientist Warren Wiscombe, most estimates place the global oil production peak between 2000 and 2017. While surely problematic for industry, transportation, and agriculture, could peak oil actually be a good thing from a climate perspective? Burning less oil has got to be good for getting CO2 emissions down, right?

Well, that all depends on what we do.

Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford says that oil is actually only a second tier concern when it comes to climate change because there’s not enough of it left to sustain CO2 levels at dangerous levels for very long. The real impacts will depend on how we replace oil as it disappears.

“Coal is the big bear on the block,” said Caldeira. “As we approach the end of oil, will we choose coal or will we choose low carbon technologies?”

Coal may be cheap and abundant, as the coal lobby would have us know, but replacing oil with coal-derived fuels would actually increase global CO2 emissions, according to Caldeira. Not only is coal a “dirtier” fuel than oil (coal emits more C02 per unit of energy than oil does), but there are also greenhouse gases emitted in the process of liquification.

Caldeira spoke on Wednesday at the AGU conference about his recent study examining what could happen to the climate if we ran out of oil today. He created two scenarios, one where we replace oil with coal, and one where we replace oil with renewables. Both scenarios assume we continue to use coal for the same purposes that we do today.  Under the oil-to-coal scenario, carbon emissions will actually increase, causing global temperatures to rise three years sooner than predicted under the Intergovernmetal Panel on Climate Change’s A2 scenario, increasing by 3.6 degrees F by 2042 instead of 2045. In his second scenario, where oil is replaced with renewables such as wind, solar, and nuclear, however, the same temperature rise would be delayed 11 years, to 2056.

“Addressing the climate problem means addressing the coal problem,” said Caldeira. “Most future climate change will be the result of burning coal in absence of policy.”

Government & Business, Power, Water

The Cost of Sloth

The changing climate could cost Californians “tens of billions of dollars a year.”

Money Man

Those are just the direct costs, toted up in a new report by economists at U-C Berkeley.
“California Climate: Risk and Response” is billed as the first comprehensive report on the costs that may be inflicted on California from the effects of climate change. The 127-page report was co-authored by Fredrich Kahl and David Roland-Holst of Berkeley’s Center for Energy, Resources and Economic Sustainability (part of the Dept. of Agricultural and Resource Economics).

Higher energy demand, heat waves, scarce water, wildfire and rising sea levels–even the “collapse” of the state’s half-billion-dollar ski industry–are just some of the potential cost drivers. The “good news,” according to the report, is that much of this cost could be avoided by immediate investment in strategies to prepare.

A key question is where the money will come from—especially in tough economic times—to invest in the energy and other infrastructure needed to stave off the worst damage. Skip Laitner of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, says we’re not necessarily talking about finding “new” money for these investments. “In the US economy,” says Laitner, “we’re looking at almost two trillion dollars of investment anyway, regardless of how tight the market is. The point I think is a smart re-deployment of investment to more productive uses.”

That includes rapid development of renewable energy and measures to use water more efficiently. The study was funded by the nonpartisan think tank known as Next 10 and is just the latest in a repeating chorus of studies making the point that a full-on confrontation with climate change will, in the long run, be good for the economy, and may even provide some near-term stimulus.

Just weeks ago, Roland-Holst unveiled a separate study on the potential for job creation from promoting conservation and a shift to renewable energy. Earlier this week, a Cal State Fullerton study put a $28 billion-dollar current price tag on air pollution in the south coast and San Joaquin Valley regions.

Roland-Holst will be one of the guests on KQED’s Forum program tomorrow (Friday). He’ll be joined by representatives from Next 10 and Environment California, in a robust discussion of the cost of climate change.

Government & Business, Power

Seizing the Moment

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All the hand-wringing about seized-up capital markets hasn’t stopped environmental visionaries from promoting their scenarios for a clean, green–and robust–economy. Indeed, many have seized  the moment to suggest that an all-out attack on climate change and pollution could be just what the doctor ordered.

They’re being egged on by the President-elect, who offered this nugget in a recent pre-election interview with Time magazine:

“…we are just going to completely revamp how we use energy in a way that deals with climate change, deals with national security and drives our economy, that’s going to be my number one priority when I get into office, assuming, obviously, that we have done enough to just stabilize the immediate economic situation.”

That’s a whopping assumption. Nevertheless the advocacy group Environment California has released its own vision, asserting that clean energy is “the foundation of America’s economic future.” The group’s Blueprint for Economic Recovery and Environmental Protection Through Clean Energy Solutions is not groundbreaking but rather an aggregation of ideas and studies that have been put forth already, leading to the same general conclusion.

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The report attempts to bundle the potential of renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and geothermal, coupled with aggressive conservation measures, which it says could alone cut the nation’s electric use by a quarter.

For example, Environment California suggests that we might set aside 9% of Nevada (that’s about 10,000 square miles–imagine Massachusetts covered border-to-border with solar panels) for solar-thermal installations or harness the wind potential of five interior states (the Dakotas, Kansas, Montana and Texas), either one could cover the nation’s entire electric bill. Of course, either of these approaches would require massive, intrusive distribution networks to get the power where it’s needed, so I these ideas may be intended as inspirational, not literal.

Another idea, which requires very little distribution infrastructure, is carpeting the nation’s rooftops with photovoltaic solar panels. The group says that would provide about 70% of our energy needs.

The report also advocates for cutting our oil consumption in half, though it does not specify by when.

How does all this translate to economic redemption? By creating “millions of jobs.” According to the report:

“…repowering America will plant the seeds of economic growth and revitalization across the country. And by creating the world’s largest market for renewable energy and energy efficient technology, we will give American companies a leg up in the most important economic competition of the 21st century – the race to supply environmentally sound technologies to the rest of the world.”

The report cites several studies to support this conclusion. Some were done several years ago and may contain assumptions that don’t quite hold up in today’s recessionary, capital-constrained environment. The more recent work includes a University of Tennessee study from 2006, which projected that converting a quarter of U.S. electric production and transportation fuels would, over about 20 years, yield more than five million jobs.

You are guaranteed to hear a great deal more on this theme, as a new administration takes charge with it’s “number one priority.” Still unanswered is who will provide the capital–and the incentives to steer capital–into the clean, green economy of our dreams.

Photo: Installing solar panels on the roof at KQED.

Government & Business, Power

Punting the Issue

oil-refinery-300.jpgWhen California creates a cap and trade system to deal with greenhouse gas emissions, as it is planning to do, there’s going to be the question of what to do with the revenue. Actually, first there’s the question of if there will be any revenue, as Mary Nichols, Chair of the California Air Resources Board (CARB), told a roomful of Silicon Valley venture capitalists and green tech leaders this week at the offices of fuel cell innovator Bloom Energy.

California’s cap and trade planning is tied to the Western Climate Initiative, but the consortium is leaving the decisions about how to dispense credits up to each state.

Nichols said that those who would be buyers in the potential cap and trade system are “very resistant” to the idea of an auction. Not exactly surpising.

But many clean energy innovators see the revenue from a cap and trade auction as the perfect opportunity to help new green technologies survive the tenuous period between venture capital funding and commericial viability. Funds from a cap and trade auction could help mitigate the risk private companies take on to develop the innovations that will be needed for a greener future.

Nichols admitted that how much of the credits to auction and where the money should go is the most controversial issue around AB 32. She cited the “cap and dividend” option, a scenario in which all the revenue would go “right back to the public, like in Alaska,” as a politically popular option. She also mentioned using the funds to reduce corporate taxes.

Bloom Energy CEO KR Srindhar likened the “cap and dividend” option to “giving people a fish” (I can only assume as a reference to the old adage about how teaching someone how to fish is better than giving him a fish).

“In the early stages, if we [California] want to be a leader in this field, we need to be seeding it to create jobs. When we do, then, month after month, they’ll be getting that dividend,” Srindhar told Nichols, asserting that money invested in green tech would pay off in the form of job creation and a better economy.

Nichols reponded by saying that she was “thinking about punting the issue for awhile.”

As we have blogged before, CARB is tasked with implementing AB 32, which requires that the state reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

According to rumors, Nichols may be influencing more than just California’s climate policy soon. Unnamed sources in recent reports have cited her as a potential Obama pick for EPA head in the new administration.