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Graphic novel adaptation amps up energy message

I hardly dare to write this post, to even edge my pinky toe toward the waters of Watchmen analysis, but I will say this: as a newcomer to the story, I was intrigued by the emphasis on energy. At one point, a major character blasts a bunch of smarmy oil execs, telling them humanity "deserves better than what you've given them." (I committed the entire line to memory at the time, but the movie was so damn long good that I forgot it.)

I brought this up in our news meeting today, only to be met with the response of two staffers far more Watchmen-ucated than I, who pointed out that the energy chatter in the movie does not stem from the original book. That makes sense, considering the, er, altered denouement. Which is interesting itself, since the film was otherwise slavishly loyal to the book.

Alternative energy in The Watchmen: a nod to the current national dialogue, or a convenient replacement for a giant squid? I shall leave it to others to discuss the finer points.

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:

EPA announces plans to regulate coal ash

In response to December’s giant coal ash spill in Kingston, Tenn., the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday announced that it is beginning the process of regulating the waste ponds around the country. The December spill spurred increased attention to coal-waste issues around the country. The 1.1 billion gallons of slurry flooded more than 300 acres […]

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.

Marshall Institute misrepresents costs of climate action

With Congress moving forward aggressively to cap global warming pollution, opponents of strong climate legislation are muddying the economics to derail action.

First the good news: Congressional leaders have announced they will move forward with broad energy and climate legislation that will include a cap on global warming pollution -- the single most important step we can take to fight climate change.

The bad news: with Congress on the cusp of action, opponents are once again circulating analyses suggesting that a cap on carbon will hurt the economy and overburden consumers with higher energy costs. The latest making the media rounds comes from the George Marshall Institute.

Like several similar studies we saw during last year's debate over the Climate Security Act, the Marshall Institute analysis consistently misrepresents economic modeling results, painting an inaccurate picture of the estimated costs of climate policy. Here's why:

Cherry picking numbers is a sour approach. The Marshall Institute's study claims to be a meta-analysis, looking at economic studies of the Lieberman Warner bill (S.2191) by MIT, ACCF/NAM, CRA, CDA, EPA, EIA and CATF.¹ However, when the Institute makes conclusions about the impact of climate policy on employment and household consumption, it omits the most credible studies from its analysis, namely those by EPA, MIT and EIA.

Carbon pricing does not necessarily cause high energy prices

E&E Daily reports ($ub. req'd) today on efforts in the House to try and determine how to minimize the economic pain of CO2 pricing.

They note:

Government studies conclude that for a new U.S. climate law to work, it must stem the demand for carbon-based energy by increasing prices -- not exactly the most politically popular thing to do during an economic crisis that is being compared to the Great Depression.

All the logical failing of our CO2 policy discussion is nested in this paragraph.

For climate law to work, it must put a price on CO2 emissions. But there is no logical reason why that must imply an increase in energy costs, for the simple reason that energy is not CO2.

A price on CO2 emissions, done right, will facilitate a wealth transfer away from CO2-intensive forms of energy, but to assume that this must lead to higher energy costs is to assume that low costs and high carbon go hand in hand. And no matter how many hearings we hold and policies we develop that implicitly or explicitly make this linkage, it ain't there. Coal is freakin' expensive. Efficiency is cheap. Even solar PV is cheap if you ignore the capital costs (just like coal!).

The idea that charging for CO2 will increase energy costs makes as much sense as assuming that charging for mercury will increase tuna costs.

This persistent idea is both inane and dangerous. Inane because it's wrong. Dangerous because it leads to one of two places:

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.