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ReadyMade: Depression posters for today

ReadyMade asked a group of graphic designers to "reimagine the populist poster art of the first Great Depression." The results are cool, and a couple of them are greenish, like this one from Nick Dewar:

China to increase coal production 30 percent by 2015

The Canberra Times/AFP has the alarming news:

China is aiming to increase its coal production by about 30 per cent by 2015 to meet its energy needs, the Government has announced, in a move likely to fuel concerns over global warming.

(Note to Canberra Times: Some statements are so obvious you can skip the journalistic hedging.)

Land and Resources Ministry chief planner Hu Cunzhi said the Government planned to increase annual output to more than 3.3 billion tonnes by 2015.

That is up from the 2.54 billion tonnes produced in 2007, according to the ministry.

In short, from 2007 to 2015, China will increase its coal production by an amount equal to two-thirds of the entire coal consumption of the United States -- an amount that surpasses all of the coal consumed today in Europe, Eurasia, the Middle East, Africa, and Central and South America.

Such is the legacy of eight years of the Bush administration blocking all national and international action on climate change, and indeed actively working to undermine international negotiations by creating a parallel do-nothing track for countries like China. As Chinese officials have told me, we gave them the cover to accelerate emissions growth.

Some might claim a different president would never have been able to get China on a different path. But if Al Gore had been elected picked by the Supreme Court in 2000, I assert that China would not be planning for its 2015 coal production to be triple that of current U.S. coal production.

Changing China's rapacious coal plans will arguably be Obama's single greatest challenge in terms of preserving a livable climate and thus the health and well-being of future generations and thus any chance at a positive legacy for his presidency.

The story continues:

As mandates and government aid ramp up, the case for ethanol runs out of steam

As President-elect Barack Obama and the new Congress mull a bailout for ethanol makers, the industry absorbed two body blows this past week.

1) The Environmental Working Group released a study revealing the profound opportunity costs associated with our government's generous support for ethanol.

The corn-based fuel grabs three-quarters of all federal renewable-energy tax credits, EWG reports. Ethanol gets more four times as much cheese as wind, solar, and geothermal combined. If you add in support for biodiesel, biofuels grab 80 percent -- four dollars in five -- of federal tax largesse to renewable fuels. In short, the dubious practice of turning corn and soy into liquid car fuel is crowding out other more energy-rich and sustainable energy sources.

2) A professor from Iowa State University -- ground zero of ethanol fervor -- has broken ranks and issued a scathing, cogent critique [PDF] of of the ethanol program. Here's a juicy sample from the paper, by Dennis Keeney, emeritus professor, Department of Agronomy and Agriculture and Biosystems Engineering:

About 6.7% of the gasoline used in the U.S. will be displaced by ethanol in 2009, when corrected for the lower energy content of ethanol and assuming an annual gasoline consumption of 140 billion gallons. Assuming a net energy gain in the conversion of corn to ethanol of 1.25, there is a net energy displacement of approximately 2.8 billion gallons of gasoline, about a 2% net energy gain. If the energy in nonfuel byproducts (e.g. distillers grains, which are used for cattle feed) is removed from the equation, the net energy gain is close to nil. In other words, ethanol from corn will do nothing to boost net energy supplies.

Let's put these two assessments together: We're handing three-quarters of the resources we have for alternative fuels to one that delivers precisely ... nothing. At a time of rapid climate change and mounting budget deficits.

Below, a few choice nuggets from the two papers.

Digital TV delay could be win for environment

Anyone with a working TV set has likely seen the ubiquitous ads educating the public about the Feb. 17 switch to all-digital broadcasting. But millions of Americans still aren't prepared and could miss out on important news and emergency broadcasts -- a fact that has led President-elect Barack Obama to urge a delay in the transition.

Such a delay could be a perfect opportunity for manufacturers to improve their recycling programs, say activists from the Electronics TakeBack Coalition. The ETBC recently put together a report card ranking the major TV companies on their take-back policies. Highest-ranked Sony got a B- for leading the pack with the first national take-back program, but more than half of the 17 companies got failing grades for having no programs in place at all.

This week, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, ETBC has been calling attention to the lack of take-back programs -- and the electronic waste that will be created when a "tsunami" of analog TVs hit the landfill -- with a cadre of TV zombies (see video below). [Note to ETBC: Didn't you get the memo about vampires being the undead of the hour?]

Robert Stavins can't walk and chew gum at the same time

One of my New Year's resolutions is to blog more about the general lameness of the economics profession when it comes to energy and climate issues. (Note to self: How about losing a few pounds?)

I was in the midst of putting this resolution off for a few weeks when I saw a quote by Robert Stavins that seemed to sum up the value-subtracted that economists bring to the world.

In an otherwise excellent New Yorker article on Van Jones' efforts to push a green jobs agenda, which I will blog on separately, Elizabeth Kolbert feels compelled to "balance" Jones with some people who don't think it's a good idea to simultaneously address the climate problem and the poverty/jobs problem. Who else could a respectable journalist turn to than an economist, a profession that arguably has cost the country and the world more jobs than any other?

Indeed, I remember Bill Clinton opining at a Georgetown conference in 1997 on why he ignored the advice of Administration economists, like Larry Summers, who urged him not to adopt a serious greenhouse gas emissions target at Kyoto. Clinton said his economic team had assured him that his balanced budget plan would be a job killer, so he pretty much took everything they said from that point on it with a grain of salt. But I digress.

Kolbert manages to elicit this amazing response from one of our leading economists:

Friday music blogging: Ladyhawk

I'm in a rush here -- got an actual date with my wife tonight! -- but real quick: here's a song from a Canadian indie band called Ladyhawk, who combine rootsy twang with Hüsker Dü-esque wailing. I'm in love with this song and recommend the album, Shots, highly.

(Or download the album as mp3 files.)

New York governor calls for green jobs, renewable energy, and energy efficiency to stimulate economy

President-elect Barack Obama isn't the only elected official talking about using green jobs to stimulate the economy -- the theme is echoed in state houses as well. On Wednesday, New York Governor David Paterson (D) gave his State of the State (the acronym SOS fits so well), a sober assessment of the economic challenges facing the state followed by a call to action that includes, among other things, an ambitious investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency to "help rebuild our economy, meet our energy needs, and protect our environment." (The 45 percent by 2015 goal he references almost certainly includes pre-existing hydro.)

But in Albany, as everywhere else, talk is cheap, and the governor is going to need the the help of the legislature and the Public Service Commission to get anything done. If you live in New York and would like to let policymakers know that you support the Governor's call to action, you can take action here.

I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts …

... for my car!

New study: Efficiency investment better for Virginia economy and ratepayers than coal plant

You may or may not be aware of the huge ongoing fight in Virginia over the proposed Dominion coal-fired power plant in Wise County. Suffice to say, it's huge. And ongoing.

Into the fight drops a new report by ABT Associates, an independent research firm, which finds that -- surprise surprise -- efficiency is a far smarter investment:

The report compares the economic effects of building Dominion Power's Wise County coal plant with investing in energy efficiency measures that would meet the same electricity demand. The study finds that avoiding construction of the coal plant by investing in efficiency would save the average household in Dominion's service territory between $52 and $91 per year in 2012.

The report goes on to find that efficiency investments would also add far more revenue to the state economy and create thousands more jobs.

Got that? Better for the state economy, for ratepayers, and for jobs.

Now check out the first comment under this story about the report in a Virginia newspaper:

NASA: China's pollution control efforts improved air quality during the Olympics

Over at the Atlantic, James Fallows noted a NASA study, presented at the December meeting of the American Geophysical Union, that shows that China's efforts to clean up the air pollution during the Olympics did improve air quality.

Though the reductions in air pollutants seems to be specific to the Beijing area, the report noted:

During the two months when restrictions were in place, the levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) -- a noxious gas resulting from fossil fuel combustion (primarily in cars, trucks, and power plants) -- plunged nearly 50 percent. Likewise, levels of carbon monoxide (CO) fell about 20 percent.

The release that accompanied the report noted that the "steep decline in certain pollutants surprised the researchers," and in all fairness, it surprised me too. My coverage of the Beijing air was decidedly pollution-heavy. Though it's hard for me to swallow that Beijing may have gotten the air-pollution measures right -- an API of 95 is bad no matter how you spin it -- I couldn't agree more with Fallows:

... it shows that corrective steps can improve even the most hopeless-seeming environmental disasters. It's worth trying to do something, rather than just hunkering down in bed and trying to take very, very shallow breaths -- my strategy in the months from April to July.

In other words, Yes We Can.

NASA images below the fold: