Latest Articles

Alberta sets aside nearly $4 billion for public transport and CCS

From Greenwire ($ub. req'd) comes this news from Alberta that sounds so promising and then gets it so very wrong.

First the good news: Alberta, under continuing pressure to do something about their tar-sand driven boom in CO2 emissions, has committed to using C$4 billion worth ($3.92 billion) of their budget surplus to lowering CO2 emissions. Whatever one thinks of tar sands, that's admirable.

But then, in an all-too-common case of confusing the path with the goal, they have announced that the money will be split into two $2 billion funds: One set aside to boost the use of public transport and the other set aside for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). Better yet, some of the CCS will be used for enhanced oil field recovery, defeating the initial purpose.

The good news is that governments are taking climate seriously. The bad news is that climate policy remains a decidedly shoddy endeavor. We can do better.

Story below the fold.

If we’re already in energy crisis, what happens when a major Gulf storm hits?

Yesterday, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said he'd be open to letting Big Oil drill on previously-protected public lands. And now this:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called on President Bush to release oil from the government's emergency reserve to knock down gasoline prices she says "are helping push the economy toward recession."

Pelosi, D-Calif., in a letter to Bush noted that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has been used three times before and each time the action has served to stabilize oil markets and lower gas prices. [...]

Bush turned to the reserves when hurricanes Katrina and Rita disrupted oil supplies in 2005. A total of 21 million barrels were made available to refineries "with great effectiveness to address emergency energy needs in the crisis," according to an Energy Department inspector general's report.

Hate to be the petroleum party pooper, but am I the only one who's worried about what happens if a major hurricane hits the Gulf of Mexico this summer? If we're pushing the post-hurricane panic button now, what do we push when there's actual panic? Can our panic meter go to 11?

Connecticut wants to hide carbon prices

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is far from a perfect GHG bill. It is heavily allocation loaded, focuses only on a small sector of the economy (power plants >25 MW), and doesn't have any direct carrots to go with sticks.

The good news, such as it is, is that RGGI leaves many details to the discretion of the states, such that they can provide state-level patches to correct those absences in the overarching model. They can also make it worse.

Earlier this week, Connecticut chose the latter. As Restructuring Today ($ub. req'd) reports, Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell (R) has decided that if the price of carbon gets too high, she should rebate the money back to rate payers to make their energy cheaper.

In other words, rather than letting markets allocate capital in response to the price of carbon, we should hide that price from energy users. Yuck.

Story below the fold.

Congressional Dems consider preventing oil drilled offshore from export

Any article on how politicians are gearing up to "do something" about oil prices is bound to contain more than the usual share of silliness. Still, though, this managed to stop me cold:

Simple cooking can produce delicious results — like old-fashioned Austrian pancakes

Get cooking, sonny. Too many people in this country have been sold a bill of goods. They’ve been tricked, flim-flammed, conned, and hustled. They’ve been bamboozled into believing that food comes wrapped in plastic from the freezer at the nearest Walmart. They’ve learned to believe that cooking is a chore — like laundry or washing […]

Congress scrambles for short-term solutions to counter oil prices

I was afraid of this. The irrationality being exhibited about the price of gasoline is on prominent display this week in Congress.

According to the New York Times article "Congress feeling pressure for action on oil prices," some of the things being considered are 1) drilling, of course, 2) anti-speculation legislation, and 3) "incentives for renewable fuels," ergo, corn ethanol.

Companies knew about high formaldehyde levels in FEMA trailers, Dems say

Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said RV trailer manufacturers knew that the trailers they sold to the government had excessively high levels of formaldehyde but didn’t disclose the information for fear of bad press. The trailers, which were used to house hurricane victims on the Gulf Coast, have been a touchy […]

Bush hits the climate alarm snooze button at G8

The NYT's Andy Revkin dissed the G8 climate statement with the blog headline, "Rich and Emerging Greenhouse-Gas Emitters Fail to Set Common Long-Term Goal for Cuts." The headline of the NYT's article on the subject, however, is "Richest Nations Pledge to Halve Greenhouse Gas." The Grist story begins, "world leaders reached a landmark deal: agreeing to cut emissions in half by 2050," calling it a "significant step" for the Bush Administration, whereas NRDC's international climate policy director, Jake Schmidt, blogs, "Yup, Just as I Predicted ... No G8 Leadership!"

What is going on? You can read the "G8 statement on climate change and environment" and decide for yourself.

I think your reaction depends on whether you are a "glass is 90 percent empty" or "glass is 10 percent full" type of person and whether you judge the president on the relative basis of his dismal, pathetic, unconscionable climate record (in which case what he agreed to at the G8 was a big deal) or on an absolute basis of what needs to be done to avoid catastrophic climate impacts for the next 10 billion people to walk the earth (in which case what the G8 did was give a placebo to a diabetic -- a sugar-coated placebo, that is).

The Guardian online asked for my commentary, "Ignoring the climate change alarm." Here are some excerpts:

Forbes on utility objections to combined heat and power

Forbes has a nice story about the historic barriers that electric utilities have thrown up to block efficient power generation. This is nothing new to those of us "in the trenches," but it is nice to see this topic aired from more visible podiums. It's worth the time to read for anyone who thinks that the only barrier to low-carbon generation is technological development.

Mine’s lighter than yours

When society embraces vehicle fuel efficiency as a goal, hordes of smart people converge on it and try to outdo each other. The same thing will happen when we seriously go after electrical efficiency — a wave of precocious, egotistical young people that haven’t been told what can’t be done will chase after it trying […]