Tag Archives: Policy

Government & Business

California Climate Champions Abroad

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Jason Bade

Jason Bade is a 2009 California Climate Champion from Foster City, who graduated from Aragon High School in June.  In this post, Bade reports on his trip to Germany earlier this month, where he met with other young activists from across the globe, to discuss strategies for combating climate change.

World Youth Coalesce Around Climate Goals

By Jason Bade

Greetings from Stuttgart, Deutschland! I’m here attending the UNESCO World Youth Festival. Essentially the festival is a chance for youth from all over the world to exchange ideas and culture as well as to be educated on particular issues affecting the world.

For two of the days, there was a World Youth Congress, which focused on energy and climate change. I was one of fourteen International Climate Champions from six countries who came to help lead the climate change workshops, speak at the opening ceremony, and formulate the Stuttgart Declaration [PDF], the ultimate goal of the conference.

On Wednesday evening, several ICCs and I spent time with staff from the festival to formulate all the ideas born in the workshops into that single, cohesive document. In it, we detail a call to action from the youth of the world to the business community, the science community, our elected leaders, and ourselves, in which we expound on what we feel must be done by each respective group, in order to effectively combat and adapt to climate change. The Declaration was then presented on Friday to a local representative from each of those communities in Stuttgart.

While the document itself may contain no groundbreaking concepts, the fact that such a diverse crowd of youth assembled to discuss solutions to these problems–without attention to national pride, patriotism, or selfishness–is significant. Regardless of the actual substance produced on paper, the real benefits of this festival are the connections and friendships made among youth of such myriad cultures. It is when people have these experiences early in their lifetimes that they grow up to treat and respect others’ cultures with zeal unseen in those who have only been confined to their own people. It was an experience I wish others could only be so lucky to enjoy!

Government & Business, Power

Not Connecting the Dots

grid_0295Two developments this week would seem to validate concerns that things aren’t quite lining up for the vaunted new age of renewable energy.

While the Secretaries of Energy and Interior were offering confident assurances to a Senate panel about the future of renewables, a consortium of environmental groups was suing them over a plan for major new transmission lines for the western electrical grid.

The groups, represented by lawyers at Oakland-based EarthJustice, produced their own maps to show that the proposed routes appear to miss many areas with the most potential for solar, wind and geothermal resources. Instead, environmentalists say the West-wide Energy Transmission Corridors approved under the Bush administration would seem to line up just about perfectly with major existing and proposed coal-fired power plants (note that the maps themselves are PDF downloads).

According to EarthJustice:

“The Bush corridors plan ignores the Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) adopted by nine of the eleven western states to increase use of the region’s vast wind, solar, and other forms of renewable energy. The approximately 6,000 miles and 3.2 million acres of federal land in eleven western states designated as energy corridors puts imperiled wildlife at risk and slices or brushes against the borders of iconic public lands. Among these are Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Arches National Park, and New Mexico’s Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge.”

I asked Katie Renshaw, a Washington-based lawyer for EarthJustice, if Energy and Interior wouldn’t have updated their plans since the Bush-era maps were approved. “As far as we’ve seen, they haven’t,” said Renshaw.  “An analysis was never really completed.”

The lawsuit comes just days after energy entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens revealed that he’s having to reconsider his plans for a major network of wind turbines through Texas. The reason: no transmission lines.

In California and elsewhere, proposed transmission lines have run afoul of environmental interests, as Rob Schmitz reported in his New Gridlock series for Climate Watch.

Update: Scott Streater has more on the controversy over siting renewables in a New York Times Greenwire post.

Government & Business, Power

Long, Hot Summer for Climate Bill

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capitoldome_hr_blogAs California’s Barbara Boxer opened Senate hearings on the Waxman-Markey climate bill today, her committee was urged by Republicans not to “rush through this thing.” At this point there seems to be little danger of that.

Having squeaked through the House by the thinnest of margins, the American Clean Energy and Security Act is facing a gantlet of Senate committees that will likely spend most of the summer dissecting the 1400-page beast.

Boxer’s Environmental and Public Woks Committee heard testimony today, with Finance and Foreign Relations scheduled to have their whack at it tomorrow. During the latter, expect to hear gruesome details about Europe’s experiment with cap & trade, which has been fraught with problems. Peter Fairley recently provided an excellent overview of those pitfalls in MIT’s Technology Review. Fairley writes that in its current form, the Waxman bill is destined to hit many of the same potholes.

During today’s morning session, members of the Energy committee heard from several cabinet-level officials, including Department of Energy Secretary Steve Chu, who fielded numerous questions on the role of nuclear power in the nation’s energy future. While California still has in place a legislated moratorium on new nuclear plants, Chu assured committee members that restarting the nuclear industry is a “very important factor” in the low-carbon future and that faces “no reluctance” from him.
Chu said his department is “pushing as hard as we can” to provide loan guarantees for new plant construction (most of which is planned for the southeastern U.S.). The former head of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab said that the U.S. has lost the lead on nuclear technology and “should get it back.”

(We’ll look at the prospects for that in a Climate Watch radio feature, scheduled to air on the August 24th broadcast of KQED’s Quest radio series.)

Committee Republicans repeated concerns about potential job losses and the danger of “carbon leakage,” wonk-speak for when production moves overseas to countries where it creates more greenhouse gas emissions than it would here.

As in the House floor debate, Republicans recalled a comment made by then-candidate Barack Obama to the San Francisco Chronicle in January of last year, that electricity rates would “necessarily skyrocket” under cap-and-trade. David Hawkins of the Natural Resources Defense Council countered that the act would also offer some savings; that households could see “up to $14 per month” in savings from transportation efficiencies.

Government & Business, Power

Mapping Out Solar Power Hotspots

Somewhat overtaken by the other headlines of the week, dominated by celebrity obits and California’s financial meltdown, was the release by federal agencies of some new solar maps. They pinpoint federal lands in seven western states that present–in the government’s view–some of the best potential for building out utility-scale solar power production.

The four California locations (.pdf link) combine more than 350,000 acres in San Bernardino, Riverside and Imperial Counties. They supposedly represent the best combination of production potential, least conflict with other land uses and environmental concerns, and proximity to existing transmission lines or power plants. Areas were also mapped in neighboring Nevada and Arizona.

Update: Scott Streater has more on the controversy over planned renewable power sites, including California’s Iron Mountain site (see map, below),  in a New York Times Greenwire post.

All California locations are on BLM property in the state’s southeastern deserts. Image: DOE/BLM

The maps appeared just as California’s main regulator of power companies issued an update on solar projects in the state. The California Public Utilities Commission reported that the rate of new solar installations nearly doubled last year, from 2007 levels.

The CPUC tally shows California with over 500 MW of solar photovoltaic (PV) connected to the electric grid at almost 50,000 customer sites. The report notes that all those electrons combined are equivalent to one large power plant. About half of the current total went in under the California Solar Initiative, which has reached 13% of it’s 10-year goal, with another 8% in pending applications.

Also this week, more than $300 million fell from the federal money tree for a hydrogen power project in southern California. Cash from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (better known as the federal stimulus plan) will flow to the Hydrogen Energy California (HECA) project in Bakersfield. The project is designed to provide power for 150,000 homes in the area, by converting oil to hydrogen.

A statement from the California Recovery Task Force (CRTF), a conduit for federal stimulus funds, describes the HECA project as “an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle power plant that will take petroleum coke, biomas, coal or blends of each, combined with non-potable water to convert them into hydrogen and carbon dioxide (CO2). The hydrogen gas will be used to fuel a net 250-megawatt power station.”

Perhaps more significant are the plans for the carbon dioxide generated in burning the oil. The CRTF statement says that “The CO2 will be transported by pipeline to nearby oil reservoirs and injected for permanent storage which will enhance U.S. energy security and enable additional production from existing California oilfields.”

CRTF says the project will “avoid” emissions of more than two million tons of greenhouse gases per year.

Government & Business

California’s EPA Waiver: Does it Still Matter?

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Deja vu all over again. Photo: Craig Miller
Deja vu all over again. Photo: Craig Miller

Today the federal Environmental Protection Agency formally granted the waiver that California has sought since 2002, allowing the state to set its own standards for greenhouse gas emissions from cars.

But wait–didn’t this already happen for practical purposes, last month? That’s when the Obama administration announced its intent to essentially put California’s proposed standards in place nationwide.

Well, yes–and no. Bernadette Del Chiaro, who represents the group Environment California, says that having the waiver is more than a legal technicality. She says it means that the state can get started sooner, cleaning up tailpipe emissions. Del Chiaro explains that: “California’s standards kick in now, through 2016. The federal program that President Obama has extended throughout the entire country, starts in 2013 (also through 2016).”

That gives the states, in effect, a three-year jump-start. In 2013, everybody should be on the same page.

California’s chief air regulator,  Mary Nichols said, in a written statement:
“The waiver affirms California’s authority to set the standards for the cleanest cars in the nation and recognizes the ability of forward-thinking states to continue to adopt them. Now we can begin to work with the manufacturers to make a new generation of cars that deliver all the comfort and power we have come to expect but with improved efficiency and far fewer greenhouse gas emissions. ”

Thirteen other states had also pursued the waiver and can now proceed with their own programs.

While automakers have long argued that the tighter regs will make cars more expensive, Environment California calculates that they’ll “save consumers $36 billion at the pump by 2020.” That projection assumed that gasoline would would average about $2 per gallon over that period. Higher pump prices (which seem a lot more likely) would in turn, increase expected savings, as the underlying premise is that we’ll be driving cars that get better gas mileage.

But of course those cars will cost more than the clunkers we’re wheeling around in now. The state Air Resources Board estimates that the clean car regulations will tack an average of $1,000 onto the price of a new car by 2016. Obviously that would offset some of the pump savings.

Government & Business, Power

Keeping the Sizzle in California Solar

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Pacific sunset by Reed Galin
Photo: Pacific sunset by Reed Galin

California, as I noted last fall as part of the series “Solar Realities,” has more solar self-generation than any other state in the nation by far. Now, if you ask the folks in the solar division of the California Public Utilities Commission, this state of affairs has a lot to do with three policies:

  1. The California Solar Initiative (CSI) provides rebates to cover about a fifth of the cost of installing solar systems.
  2. Simplified Interconnection exempts solar customers from interconnection fees and the cost of the studies required to connect their equipment to the electricity grid.
  3. Net Energy Metering allows solar power generators, who run the meter backwards as well as forwards, a credit on their power bills at “full retail electricity rates”–as opposed to the wholesale power price.

The policies were designed to encourage civilians to install solar for their own use; not necessarily to create an incentive for thousands of home power plants to serve the grid (depending on the size and location of your home, you may not be able to meet all your own electricity needs, let alone deliver surplus to the grid).

But if you can generate more solar power than you need, why not?

Adam Browning of the Vote Solar initiative, put it this way to the San Jose Mercury News: “Why are we talking about stamping on the brakes when we should be talking about pushing on the accelerator?”

Enter Assembly Bill 560. Net metering is currently capped at 2.5 % of the system’s peak energy demand or “load.” Once the stream of solar electrons coming onto the grid reaches that level,  the utility is not obligated to sign more net-metering contracts. AB 560, courtesy of Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner (D-Oakland), would provide some more headroom for that program by raising the cap to 10%.

AB 560 has passed the Assembly. Tomorrow, it comes up before the state Senate Energy, Utilities, and Communications Committee.  No doubt, a staff report due out the same day from the CPUC on the status of the California Solar Initiative will give the discussion some extra “juice.”

Meanwhile another bill, AB 920, from Assemblyman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), would change the way customers with solar installations are paid for surplus power. As I noted, they now get credited on their monthly bill at the full retail rate. Some of that credit is offset by “regular” power the solar customer uses at night or on cloudy days. Then, at the end of the year, leftover credits are zeroed out. AB 920 would require utilities to pay for credits left over at year-end, albeit at a lower rate–or allow the extra to be rolled over to the next year.

The CPUC, by the way, has come out in support of AB 560, but not AB 920.

The state’s three investor owned utilities dislike both bills; especially Pacific Gas & Electric, which is closest to approaching that 2.5% cap. About 30,000 of PG&E’s 6 million customers have solar systems.

PG&E contends that expanding its home solar program would burden the rest of its customers, who bankroll the state rebates for solar installations. And because solar customers buy less electricity from the utility, PG&E argues they don’t contribute as much as others to cover the costs of transmission and generation.

PG&E has said it would support raising the net-metering cap to 3%–but wants to see a cost-benefit analysis from the CPUC before supporting any further home solar expansion. That report’s due out in January.

There are those outside the industry who share PG&E’s concerns. Framing it as a class issue, the non-profit Utility Reform Network opposes raising the cap unless changes are made to allow non-solar ratepayers to share in the benefits.  Even with the current subsidies, going solar requires an often daunting up-front investment. As green becomes the color du jour for businesses and politicians, an increasing number of projects pair solar with low-income housing. But more often than not, your typical solar-powered household in California is likely to be well heeled.

As utilities enthusiastically pursue their own large scale solar projects, some solar advocates suspect that the companies are really worried that wide-scale residential solar would cut into their income. PG&E counters that state regulations eliminate the financial incentive for investor-owned utilities to simply sell more power to make more money.

All this raises a key question: Without lifting the cap on net metering, can California achieve its goal of 3,000 solar megawatts by 2016?

Rachael Myrow is host of The California Report, produced by KQED and heard on public radio stations throughout the state.

Editor’s Update: The CPUC’s latest report shows a near doubling in the rate of  installed capacity, from 2007 to 2008, and so far, data would seem to indicate a continuing trend this year. Installed  capacity to date puts the CSI at 13 percent of the total program goal, with another eight percent pending.

Government & Business

Down to the Wire: House Passes Climate Bill

After a long day of debate, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the Waxman-Markey climate bill, by a narrow vote of 219-212. The bill now goes to the Senate.

President Obama reportedly changed the topic of his weekly address, in order to respond to the landmark bill’s passage.

Toward the end of the day-long floor debate, Ohio Republican John Boehner railed against a “manager’s amendment” that was “dropped at 3:09 a.m.,” as he reminded members numerous times. The 309-page amendment spelled out some of the regulatory architecture of the proposed law, and Boehner spent more than an hour going through it nearly page-by-page, detailing how the law would reach into local governments, private homes, homeowners’ associations and mortgage markets.

In urging her Democratic colleagues to vote in favor of the measure, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised that passage would mean “four things: jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs.” But Republicans repeatedly warned that the law would cost “2.5 million jobs” every year, for the next decade and highlighted conflicting estimates of the cost per household (Projections by the EPA and Congressional Budget Office put the number at between $140 and $175 per year, while House Republicans insisted that the real price would be many times that).

At times the House floor sounded more like the British Parliament in decorum. A Republican amendment known as the “New Manhattan Project” alternative to the bill was defeated 256-172. That proposal would have largely substituted the Waxman bill’s web of regulation with incentives for development of new energy sources.

One thing that both parties seemed to agree on was that the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 is one of the most sweeping pieces of legislation ever to come before Congress. The Waxman bill ballooned to more than 1200 pages by the final vote.

Government & Business, Water

Updated: Disaster Status Sought for Valley

Five days after filing it, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was still awaiting some response from the White House to his request for a federal disaster declaration, to address drought conditions in Fresno County.

Meanwhile, the Washington bureau of the McClatchy newspaper chain (which includes the Fresno Bee) reports that the request is something of a longshot.

The Governor made the request last Friday, one day after he faced a tense gathering in Fresno, where water issues upstaged even the precarious condition of state finances, and shortly after a meeting with farmers in Mendota.

The governor has had a standing statewide drought emergency in effect since February. Friday he signed an executive order freeing up state resources to help ease drought-related impacts. A federal declaration would allow affected businesses to apply for federal aid. President Obama has since signed several other disaster declarations last week, in response to storms in Missouri, wildfires in Oklahoma and other incidents.

Government & Business, Water

No Shockers in White House Climate Report

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The Obama Administration released a much-vaunted update on climate change today. In its nearly 200 pages, the report contains no new data and few new conclusions on the pace and impact of climate change across the U.S. Rather it affirms the core findings of recent research and sounds the alarm for rapid, definitive action to reduce carbon emissions and prepare for changes already on the way.

In a statement from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Evan Mills, one of the report’s 28 co-authors, calls it “the most thorough and up-to-date review ever assembled of climate-change impacts observed to date as well as those anticipated in the future across the United States.” Mills is one of two northern California scientists listed in the report’s credits, along with Ben Santer of Lawrence Livermore National Lab.

One clear signal from the report is that it’s time to move adaptation strategies to the front burner; preparing for climate effects already in the pipeline.

Louis Blumberg directs the California climate change team for The Nature Conservancy, and told me in a telephone interview this morning, “I would say it’s a very clear signal that even if we dramatically reduce emissions immediately, which we need to do as soon as possible, we’ve already put enough CO2 into the atmosphere where we’re going to have have significant changes to our way of life. And we need to begin now and plan to adapt to these unavoidable impacts and I think this report underscores that urgency.”

But neither Blumberg nor Mills have given up on the mitigation side. Mills says “the good news is that the harshest impacts of future climate change can be avoided if the nation takes deliberate action soon.”

Here is a summary of  “key findings,” taken directly from the report:

1. Global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced.

Global temperature has increased over the past 50 years. This observed increase is due primarily to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases.

2. Climate changes are underway in the United States and are projected to grow.

Climate-related changes are already observed in the United States and its coastal waters. These include increases in heavy downpours, rising temperature and sea level, rapidly retreating glaciers, thawing permafrost, lengthening growing seasons, lengthening ice-free seasons in the ocean and on lakes and rivers, earlier snowmelt, and alterations in river flows. These changes are projected to grow.

3. Widespread climate-related impacts are occurring now and are expected to increase.

Climate changes are already affecting water, energy, transportation, agriculture, ecosystems, and health. These impacts are different from region to region and will grow under projected climate change.

4. Climate change will stress water resources.

Water is an issue in every region, but the nature of the potential impacts varies. Drought, related to reduced precipitation, increased evaporation, and increased water loss from plants, is an important issue in many regions, especially in the West. Floods and water quality problems are likely to be amplified by climate change in most regions. Declines in mountain snowpack are important in the West and Alaska where snowpack provides vital natural water storage.

5. Crop and livestock production will be increasingly challenged.

Agriculture is considered one of the sectors most adaptable to changes in climate. However, increased heat, pests, water stress, diseases, and weather extremes will pose adaptation challenges for crop and livestock production.

6. Coastal areas are at increasing risk from sea-level rise and storm surge.

Sea-level rise and storm surge place many U.S. coastal areas at increasing risk of erosion and flooding, especially along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, Pacific Islands, and parts of Alaska. Energy and transportation infrastructure and other property in coastal areas are very likely to be adversely affected.

7. Threats to human health will increase.

Health impacts of climate change are related to heat stress, waterborne diseases, poor air quality, extreme weather events, and diseases transmitted by insects and rodents. Robust public health infrastructure can reduce the potential for negative impacts.

8. Climate change will interact with many social and environmental stresses.

Climate change will combine with pollution, population growth, overuse of resources, urbanization, and other social, economic, and environmental stresses to create larger impacts than from any of these factors alone.

9. Thresholds will be crossed, leading to large changes in climate and ecosystems.

There are a variety of thresholds in the climate system and ecosystems. These thresholds determine, for example, the presence of sea ice and permafrost, and the survival of species, from fish to insect pests, with implications for society. With further climate change, the crossing of additional thresholds is expected.

10. Future climate change and its impacts depend on choices made today.

The amount and rate of future climate change depend primarily on current and future human-caused emissions of heat-trapping gases and airborne particles. Responses involve reducing emissions to limit future warming, and adapting to the changes that are unavoidable.

On KQED Public Radio’s Forum for Wednesday, 6/17

9am Forum with Michael Krasny
White House Climate Report
We discuss the report, as well as federal climate change legislation from Congressmen Henry Waxman and Ed Markey. Guests include Dan Kammen, professor of energy at UC Berkeley and co-director of the Berkeley Institute of the Environment; and Katharine Hayhoe, professor of geophysics at Texas Tech University and a lead author of the climate study.

Government & Business, Power

Speed Bumps on the “Hydrogen Highway”

Seems like the Governor is spending a lot of time looking at cars lately. If the rest of us spent as much time cruising Auto Row, the recession might already be fading in the rear-view mirror.

Governor Schwarzenegger tries out the Volkswagen Passat Lingyu. Photo: Governor's Office
Governor Schwarzenegger at the wheel of a Volkswagen Passat Lingyu. Photo: Governor's Office

But California’s chief executive isn’t interested in run-of-the-mill rolling stock (he will, of course, happily take credit for inventing the Hummer). He’s into exotics: the alternative-fuel cars of the future–and in some cases, present.

At least five times in the last three weeks, the Governor’s Office has created photo ops with alt-fuel autos, prototypes or refueling stations; from a fuel-cell Volkswagen (June 3) to the Mutt-&-Jeff of electrics, Hummer and Peapod (May 28 & June 10, respectively), he’s kicked the tires on a whole generation of not-widely-available wheels–not to mention the home ethanol refinery (June 4) or the hydrogen refueling station in Santa Monica (May 27).

All of which got us to wondering: “Dude, where’s our Hydrogen Highway?” You may recall the Governor’s promise five years ago, that California would by now be coming down the home stretch on a whole new infrastructure for the coming swarm of cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells.

Monday morning on KQED’s weekly Quest radio feature, David Gorn reports that we’ve apparently hit a few speed bumps:

“The technology clearly has promise, but it’s behind schedule. Schwarzenegger’s original plan called for 100 to 150 hydrogen fuel stations by next year, and so far there are only about two dozen. He also wanted 2,000 hydrogen-powered cars on the road, yet fewer than 200 are being road-tested today. The lack of progress has prompted California’s non-partisan state legislative analyst to recommend scrapping state funding for the hydrogen program. And on the federal level, Energy Secretary Steven Chu has asked Congress to cut about half of the national hydrogen-research budget. Chu said hydrogen technology is too far from fruition.”

None of these details stopped Governor  Schwarzenegger from hyping the 2009 Hydrogen Road Tour, a recently concluded San Diego-to-Vancouver rally, designed to highlight fuel-cell technology:

“We will keep pushing, and thanks to our public-private partnerships and the commitment of these automakers and energy companies, the era of pollution-free transportation is dawning.”

The Governor’s statement went on to say that “Auto manufacturers expect the number of hydrogen vehicles to increase to 4,300 by 2014 and more than 40,000 vehicles by 2017.” Of course, that was before Energy Secretary Steve Chu announced that R&D funding for hydrogen fuel cells on the road didn’t quite make the cut for the next DOE budget. Plug-in hydrid, anyone?