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Notable quotable

“I learned that God reveals himself through Scripture and in general through his creation, and when we destroy God’s creation, it’s similar to ripping pages from the Bible.” — Rev. James Merritt Jonathan Merritt, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention spokesman for the Southern Baptist Environment and Climate Initiative and signatory to the just-released […]

Rising cost of oil pushes value of the dollar down

Bloomberg reports:

Crude oil may reach a record $130 a barrel this year because pension funds are investing more in commodities, said Pierre Andurand, the chief investment officer of BlueGold Capital Management LLP, a hedge fund ... "Next year, oil may rise even further to $150 a barrel."

Okay, this is a hedge fund guy who is betting the ranch on oil and probably doing his part to drive up prices. But at the end of the day, this is an issue of fundamentals -- supply and demand:

Oil companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BP Plc are finding it tougher to replace their findings and are drilling for harder-to-reach deposits while energy demand and crude prices surge to records.

Another little-discussed factor in the run-up of oil prices is the run-down of the dollar, and with it, U.S. living standards compared to the rest of the world. Thank you so much, President Bush!

Drawing actual conclusions about the international challenge

Here's something novel: a well-informed and honest article from a significant British magazine (Prospect) that looks hard at the core political challenges of global climate stabilization and then draws some conclusions. And it's written by Simon Retallack, who knows his way around both the climate policy debate and the climate movement.

Car plant cuts energy costs $627,000 with two-month payback — with DOE help

Economic models greatly overestimate the cost of carbon mitigation, in large part because economists simply don't believe (and hence don't model) that the economy has lots of high-return energy efficiency opportunities. In their theory, the economy is always operating near efficiency. Reality is very different than economic models.

I have never visited a factory or commercial buildings that didn't have huge energy-saving opportunities, many of which also increase productivity. I wrote a book several years ago with a hundred real-world case studies: Cool Companies: How the Best Businesses Boost Profits and Productivity by Cutting Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Studies that model such real-world savings, like the 2007 McKinsey & Co. report, find deep emissions reductions are possible at low net cost to the U.S. (and world) economy.

Government has an important role in enabling these energy savings. The office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy, which I used to run, has lots of (underfunded) programs that deliver savings every day. One typical example showed up in my inbox yesterday, from the Industrial Technologies Program:

Johnson made a decision that should have belonged to Congress

Last week, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson published the official explanation of his decision to deny a waiver of preemption for California's program to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from vehicles. Robert Sussman, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, has a very good discussion of the misguided reasoning Johnson uses. The bottom line:

The role of state programs under a comprehensive climate change framework may be a legitimate subject for debate by Congress as it writes legislation. But Johnson's job wasn't to make policy judgments that belong to Congress. It was to apply the law. He failed in that responsibility. Although his decision will probably be undone, it will regrettably divert precious time and energy from the urgent task of slowing global warming.

Three related stories about coal power

See if you can connect the dots.

First this, from Greenwire ($ub. req'd):

West Virginia regulators have approved American Electric Power's plan to build a $2.3 billion clean coal plant.

Appalachian Power Co., a subsidiary of Ohio-based AEP, received approval for the project Thursday from the Public Service Commission. Regulators say the 629-megawatt Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle plant is needed to help AEP meet demand for electricity.

Obama wins Wyoming

Today Obama won the Wyoming Democratic caucus. He’s the proud choice of Wyoming’s 17 Democrats!

Observation of the day

There aren’t two sides, and you aren’t in the middle.

CSM notes a slowing in the Coal Rush

The often-outstanding Christian Science Monitor notes a distinct reversal of fortunes (at least here in the U.S.) for The Enemy of the Human Race. The situation is so dire that a coal industry guy has had to resort to the great standby of the corporate toolbox, namely lying:

"If they don't start building coal plants, it's going to be an economic prosperity problem for the country," says Richard Storm, CEO of Storm Technologies, an Albemarle, N.C., company that specializes in optimizing coal-fired power plants. "We need coal. Coal is a national treasure."

Pushing for ‘fair food’ on campus in the land of hog factories

Last year, a bunch of students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill got tired of the industrial dreck served up in the cafeteria. They discovered that the landscape around them was producing some amazing, chemical-free meat and produce and set about figuring out how to get some in school dining halls. Photo: […]