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Wind turbines at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base — thanks to the DOE office I once ran

My recent blog post -- Jack Bauer becomes first-ever carbon-neutral torturer as Murdoch says "Climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats" -- led one reader to email me that Gitmo has wind turbines. I googled, and indeed they do.

What is doubly interesting is that this project is the direct result of the Federal Energy Management Program, part of DOE's office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy that I helped run in the mid-1990s. Since the Gingrich Congress blocked all efforts to ramp up funding for this "no brainer" program that helps reduce the deficit -- by lowering the energy bill of federal agencies -- while saving energy and reducing pollution, we launched a huge effort to leverage private money to pay for the retrofits.

That effort had a classic bureaucratic name -- Indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity Super Energy Savings Performance Contracts (ESPCs) -- you can read about here. The ESPCs avoid the need for any upfront capital by the federal government. Even though Bush has grossly underfunded all such EERE deployment programs, the program continued and Gitmo made use of it (see here [PDF]):

The Department of the Navy partnered with NORESCO to construct a $12 million wind turbine project at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, using an energy savings performance contract. Four wind turbines will generate 3,800 kilowatts of electricity -- enough to supply about a quarter of the peak power needed for base operations. The project will not only save taxpayers $1.2 million in annual energy costs, but will also save 650,000 gallons of diesel fuel and reduce air pollution by 26 tons of SO2 and 15 tons of NOX, demonstrating the Navy's commitment to energy conservation and environmental stewardship.

So, no, Gitmo is not carbon neutral.

The Pentagon's news story on this back in 2005 explains how the ESPC made this possible:

With water supplies at risk, hydrologists are in high demand

From a NYT weekly jobs column, we learn of one employment area experiencing high growth:

[D]emand for hydrologists has been predicted to grow 24 percent from 2006 to 2016, much faster than the average for all occupations, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Hydrologists study the distribution, circulation and physical properties of water, with hydrogeologists focusing specifically on groundwater.

After creation of the Environmental Protection Agency..., hydrologists' work was largely focused on water quality. Today, however, "an increasing percentage of hydrologists are interested in water quantity and supply, which is an emerging issue and where global climate change plays a big role," said Dork Sahagian, professor of earth and environmental science at Lehigh University and director of its Environmental Initiative in Bethlehem, Pa.

"But concern with water quality -- which involves local, site-based issues -- still drives the job market," he said. "Most hydrologists in this part of the world are still hired to cope with the availability of clean water for drinking and municipal supplies."

With industrial chemicals like BPA contaminating our drinking water supplies which are then being squeezed both by agricultural needs and by climate change-induced droughts, the future hydrologists of the world will never lack for stuff to do.

Preparing for new site, Grist temporarily suspending comments

Begging your pardon, but we've turned comments off on Grist in advance of our upcoming site relaunch.

Keep an eye out for the new Grist.org, which will include a customizable comments section (among other snazzy features).

And if you're just burning to speak up before then, drop us a line: grist AT grist DOT org.

Everything about this idea is recycled … even the idea

A boat made of plastic bottles! Now that's cool. Why hasn't it been done before?

A chat with climate skeptics whose documentary calls Gore ‘not evil, just wrong’

Phelim McAleer (left) and Ann McElhinney (right). At last week’s tiny “Celebrate Coal!” rally at the Capitol Power Plant — held in the shadow of the big anti-coal rally — I met Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, two Irish filmmakers and climate skeptics working on a documentary about Al Gore. Title: Not Evil Just Wrong. […]

UK activist tosses green custard on Biz Secretary over aviation fight

Peter Mandelson is the (unelected) U.K. Business Secretary who's been instrumental in pushing through a third runway at Heathrow Airport, despite enormous public resistance. When democratic means failed, U.K. activists decided to throw green custard on him.

TVA watchdogs arrested, harassed

Matt Landon deserves a Medal of Honor -- he's a modern day Tennessee Volunteer and American hero.

After billion of gallons of toxic coal sludge broke through the TVA coal ash pond on Dec. 22, he and the United Mountain Defense nonprofit organization have worked full-time through the holidays and winter to deliver aid and water, assist the affected residents, collect data, and provide professional air and water monitoring.

National and international media have relied on Landon's dogged and insightful reporting behind the scenes. Landon has given tours to untold numbers of legal and legislative aides, including Robert C. Tanner the Majority Senior Investigator for Senate Committee On Environment & Public Works.

Considering the gross negligence of the TVA, and the whopping $825 million bill for clean up costs, you would think the TVA had enough sense to recognize Landon's and UMD's important role and accept their help.

Instead, the TVA police have not stopped harassing, detaining, and arresting Landon and other members of the United Mountain Defense.

On Sen. Bob Corker's 'support' for carbon legislation

A cap-and-trade program that auctions 100 percent of its pollution permits and refunds the auction revenue back to taxpayers is functionally equivalent to a refunded carbon tax -- or at least as close to a functional equivalent as carbon policy is likely to get in this world.

So when Obama unveiled a budget that contained a cap-and-trade program with 100 percent auctions and 80 percent rebates, you'd think advocates of refunded carbon taxes would have been thrilled. They could have said, "this isn't exactly what I'd advocate, but it's a step in the right direction. I welcome Obama's willingness to compromise."

So what did Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who allegedly supports a refunded carbon tax, do?

He called the proposal "sleight of hand." He said:

I guess his claim on Tuesday night that no one earning under $250,000 would pay more in taxes did not apply to this massive climate tax increase all Americans will pay.

This, remember, is from a guy who allegedly wants a carbon tax.

Moments later, Corker's office said:

Corker has worked to ensure that whatever Congress implements, be it a cap-and-trade system that acts as a tax or a transparent carbon tax, that 100 percent of the tax revenue is returned to the American people and is not used to increase the size of government.

Obama proposed an auctioned system that returns 80 percent of the revenue. Corker wants 100 percent of the revenue returned. Because he didn't get exactly what he wanted -- only 80 percent of what he wanted -- Corker is badmouthing the plan and working to destroy it.

Corker has talked his way inside the carbon policy tent and now he's trying to burn it down. He's got lots of company.

Saul Griffith calculates what we need to do to keep the world we evolved in

When pondering whether we need to invest in energy efficiency, a smart grid, new storage technologies, or transmission to the best renewable energy resource areas, I urge interested parties to first take some time to watch TV. Specifically, this presentation given by Saul Griffith, MacArthur Genius at the Long Now Foundation:

He calculated what's needed to, in the eloquent words of James Hansen, keep the world we evolved in. The answer? Cut each individual's carbon footprint to the bone via serious lifestyle choices. Then, dedicate an area the size of Australia to renewable energy production. And do so in the next 25 years.

It's not an either/or proposition. We need it all.

Slides available on Griffith's blog, here.

Mall-operating behemoth General Growth Properties plunges in value

In the ongoing collapse at the stock market, big names get the most ink. Weighed down by excessive debt and bad bets in its finance division, industrial giant General Electric has shed more than 80 percent of its value over the last year. Not long ago, it counted as the most valuable corporation in the world. Now, smart people are openly wondering whether it will be the next too-big-to-fail recipient of a government bailout.

AIG, once the globe's premier insurance company, now exists solely by the charity of the U.S. Treasury. It has already consumed $180 billion in taxpayer cash; observers expect it to gobble at least another $70 billion, bringing its total price tag to a staggering quarter trillion dollars. 

Citigroup, Bank of America ... the list goes on: once-mighty corporations that now must beggar the taxpayer in order to live, and whose stock trades at pennies to the dollar of recent valuations.

Here's a name that deserves a bit more attention in this financial meltdown: General Growth Properties, which owns, manages, or has interests in more than 200 shopping malls in 45 states. Staggering under a massive debt load and battered by the bad economy, General Growth looks headed for bankruptcy or a fire sale. As recently as last June, its shares fetched $40. Today, you can snap one up for less than 40 cents.

Does General Growth's plight augur the un-malling of America? Maybe. The Wall Street Journal reported recently that:

Last year, [mall-based] retail sales on a per-square-foot basis in the top 54 U.S. markets declined by their greatest extent since the 1990-91 recession.... Vacancy rates at U.S. malls climbed to 7.1% in the fourth quarter, the highest rate since real estate research firm Reis Inc. started tracking the figure in 2000. And average rents have started to decline.

The mall industry, like so many industries in the modern global economy, thrives on rapid growth fueled by easy credit. Now credit has dried up, debt needs to be repaid, and sales growth has gone into reverse.

Time to start thinking about other economic models?