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India’s 4,000 MW coal plant is a bad answer to electricity woes

A few more thoughts on the 4,000 MW coal plant in India recently approved for international aid financing, which David and Joe have noted. I think this deserves attention because it's at the center of the biggest climate question out there: how to meet tens of thousands of megawatt hours of unmet and projected power demand in India and China without huge coal plants like this Tata Mundra "Ultra-Mega" plant. It's not simple. But following the logic for this project involves going down a "There Is No Alternative" rabbit hole.

To people in India facing daily brown-outs or a lack of electricity altogether, it may seem like environmental organizations in the U.S. are opposing this power development from a different universe. They may be. But the financiers trying to justify this project in the public interest are themselves in their own universe of self-justifying arguments.

The main justification for international aid for this project is that "super-critical" coal-generating technology will make this plant more efficient than others in India. However, the broader situation in India's power sector is such that nearly all of the efficiency gains at the plant are likely to be eaten up by the world-beating levels of transmission and distribution loss of the rickety Indian electricity grid. It's a good bet that the equivalent of the output of at least one of the plant's five 800 MW generating units will disappear before it gets to an actual electricity consumer [PDF].

Examining the IPCC’s ‘portfolio of technologies’

In 2007, the IPCC wrote [PDF] in its Working Group III summary (page 16):

The range of stabilization levels assessed can be achieved by deployment of a portfolio of technologies that are currently available and those that are expected to be commercialised in coming decades. This assumes that appropriate and effective incentives are in place for development, acquisition, deployment and diffusion of technologies, and for addressing related barriers (high agreement, much evidence).

This range of levels includes reaching atmospheric concentrations of 445 to 490 ppm CO2-equivalent, or 400 to 450 ppm of CO2. The first sentence does beg the question, what exactly does "expected to be commercialized" mean? I'll return to that in Part 2.

So, what exactly are these climate-saving technologies? You can read about every conceivable one in the full WG III report, "Mitigation of Climate Change." But the summary lists the "Key mitigation technologies and practices" (page 10) in several sectors divided into two groups: those that are "currently commercially available" and those "projected to be commercialized before 2030." I will simply list them all here. In a later post, I'll discuss which ones I believe could deliver the biggest reductions at lowest cost -- my 14-plus "wedges," as it were -- and the political process for achieving them.

It is worth seeing them all, I think, to understand exactly how we might stabilize below 450 ppm CO2. Also, one of the technologies is the closest thing we have to the "silver bullet" needed to save the climate, as I will blog on in a few days.

Enterprise Rent-a-Car opens six ‘green’ branches in Atlanta

The largest car rental company in the United States, Enterprise Rent-a-Car, announced it’s opening six “green” branches in Atlanta, Ga., where 60 percent of the available rental vehicles will be hybrids or other fuel-efficient cars. The agency said the increase in efficient vehicles is due to consumer demand. Enterprise currently has a fleet of about […]

Hunting and fishing groups worried about climate change’s effects on wildlife

Photo: iStockphoto The hook and bullet crowd, traditionally quite a conservative bunch, is worrying more openly about climate change, particularly its forecasted effects on wildlife crucial to their sports. The Wildlife Management Institute, a sportsperson’s organization, released a report recently highlighting climate change’s possible detrimental effects to oft-hunted species. Disappearing wetlands could contribute to a […]

Adam Werbach follows up ‘Death of Environmentalism’ with ‘Birth of Blue’

In 2004, former Sierra Club President Adam Werbach made by a splash by asking, "Is environmentalism dead?" In a speech to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, he critiqued his own work as an environmentalist and suggested that the environmental movement was ill-suited to solve the challenge of global warming. Much lively debate and serious reflection ensued.

On the evening of April 10, Werbach will give a follow-up speech, entitled "Birth of Blue," to the Commonwealth Club's INFORUM Program. He'll argue that a new movement is emerging that goes beyond the green movement to incorporate a broad range of human aspirations. [UPDATE: Here's a preview of the speech in the San Francisco Chronicle.] [ANOTHER UPDATE: Here's a PDF of the final speech.] [STILL ONE MORE UPDATE: Here's the speech reprinted in a blog post, with lots of comments below, including a couple from Werbach himself. He's also joined the discussion below.] [FINAL UPDATE (REALLY!): Here's video of the speech.]

We'll post text and video of the speech when it's available, so check back here. In the meantime, Werbach gives the basic rundown on BLUE:

Gore should run!

Part XXXVI

House gives thumbs-up to conservation program

Some 27 million acres of federal land in the U.S. West and Alaska would be formally recognized as conservation-worthy under legislation passed Wednesday by the House of Representatives. The National Landscape Conservation System has been in place since 2000 to “conserve, protect, and restore these nationally significant landscapes,” and the House legislation would make the […]

Here come da judges

Leslie Carothers makes the important point that the next president’s judicial appointments will do as much to determine his environmental legacy as the bills he signs. (A point Joe Romm made a while back in a piece on McCain in Salon.)

A roundup of news snippets

• BP and ConocoPhillips join forces to build a liquefied natural gas pipeline from Alaska to Canada and the Lower 48. • Apple may eco-update its MacBook design. • A German state defies the norm and adopts a speed limit. • Water scarcity is an issue for mining companies. • A House bill seeks to […]

A high-resolution map of U.S. CO2 emissions

Check out the Vulcan Project out of Purdue University (with funding from NASA and DOE). It’s an attempt to quantify and visually represent U.S. CO2 emissions over time: Here’s a nifty video introduction: (via Dot Earth)