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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: […]

Increased attractiveness of alternative energy is some consolation

Oil just passed the $106 mark, putting it well above the inflation-adjusted record set just a few days ago. In an earlier post, I predicted that the price of oil would go down. So far I have obviously been wrong, although I suspect that the price will decline by the end of the year since this seems awfully like a part of the greater speculative commodity bubble we are witnessing.

But putting that aside for a moment, there is one great benefit of the high price of oil that environmentalists should be celebrating: it is making alternative energy much more attractive, so much so that the high price may usher in a major wave of renewable energy projects that will, in turn, lead to greater scale economies and perhaps the mainstreaming of alternative energy. This would be a great thing.

Now for the bad part. First off, if politicians hadn't been so cowardly and short-sighted and had actually followed economists' advice for a carbon tax long ago, the high prices of energy could be funneled into tax rebates for us all or research and development for all sorts of green technologies. Instead, the money is going to the oil companies and the terrorists. Not good.

Second, the high prices of energy are leading to inflation, which is greatly complicating the Federal Reserve's ability to deal with the recession we're in (yes, it's a recession), and the effects are highly regressive, hurting the poor much more than the rich.

Overall, the high price of energy is doing some pretty bad things -- but if it can help tilt the playing field to alternative energy, this silver lining may end up being an amazing turning point in history.

Australia military will kill hundreds of kangaroos

Australia’s military will cull up to 500 wild kangaroos on a military base in the capital city of Canberra after authorities determined Friday that it would be too costly to relocate them. Officials say overgrazing ‘roos are endangering native grassland, a local lizard, and the threatened golden sun moth. A plan to shoot the animals […]

Bush raises taxes on hikers and campers, mysteriously leaving logging companies alone

Bush won't slash subsidies for raise taxes on oil companies, but he's happy to raise taxes on hikers and campers. But I'm sure Grover Norquist will hold him accountable for this apostasy.

Reeling from the high cost of fighting wildfires, federal land agencies have been imposing new fees and increasing existing ones at recreation sites across the West in an effort to raise tens of millions of dollars.

Additionally, hundreds of marginally profitable campsites and other public facilities on federal lands have been closed, and thousands more like overlooks and picnic tables are being considered for removal.

"As fire costs increase, I've got less and less money for other programs," said Dave Bull, superintendent of the Bitterroot National Forest here in Hamilton. The charge for access to Lake Como, a popular boating destination in the national forest, will be increased this year, to $5 from $2.

Since they're explaining this as fire-related, I'm sure Bush will charge the logging companies responsible for the fires for the damage they're doing to our forests and grasslands.