Articles by Joseph Romm

Energy efficiency, part 3

This series is based in part on this Salon article: "Why we never need to build another polluting power plant."

Energy efficiency is by far the biggest low-carbon resource available, and it is as limitless as wind, PV, and solar baseload. It is also the cheapest power you can buy, by far.

California has cut annual peak demand by 12 GW -- and total demand by about 40,000 GWh -- over the past three decades. The cost of efficiency programs has averaged 2-3 cents per kW -- which is about one-fifth the cost of electricity generated from new nuclear, coal, and natural gas-fired plants. And, of course, energy efficiency does not require new power lines and does not generate greenhouse gas emissions or long-lived radioactive waste.

EPA administrator Stephen Johnson neglects his federal oath

This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.

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Some of us had high hopes for Stephen Johnson when President Bush appointed him in March 2005 as administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Johnson was not a former oil-industry lobbyist or Halliburton executive. He was a career civil servant who had been with the federal government for 24 years. He was a scientist, not a political hack, and he had served under both Democrat and Republican presidents.

I could relate, although my federal career was the reverse of Johnson's.

Energy efficiency is the core climate solution, part 2

Energy efficiency is by far the biggest low-carbon resource available. It is also, as we'll see, every bit as renewable as wind power, solar photovoltaic, and solar baseload.

People who have little experience with what serious energy efficiency investments can do for a company or a state -- this means you, neoclassical economists who consistently overestimate the cost of climate mitigation! -- think it is a one-shot resource wherein you pick the low hanging fruit. In fact, fruit grow back. The efficiency resource never gets exhausted because technology keeps improving and knowledge spreads to more and more people.

After leading the country in comprehensive efficiency efforts that have kept per capita electricity demand flat for three decades, California does not merely believe it can continue at this pace, they plan to accelerate their efforts and actually keep electricity demand itself flat. I have discussed California's efforts and plans in previous posts, and will discuss them further in part 3.

The focus of this post is the best corporate example of the inexhaustible nature of the energy efficiency resource -- Dow Chemical's Louisiana division.

Carbon Retirement sees opportunity in European allowances

Carbon Retirement -- you read it here first (or maybe second).

I don't normally endorse individual companies. But I have long thought European allowances were the best alternative to offsets and am delighted someone has made a business out of it.

The business opportunity is clear -- offsets suck. At a policy level, they can destroy the environmental value of climate legislation.

At a personal level, lots of vendors are selling very dubious offsets, including CCX. I can't imagine why you would waste your money on the most popular offsets, trees (certainly not a Northern forest -- heck, even offset seller Terrapass disses trees). And don't get us started on the other popular offset, RECs.

But I know some of you out there really want to be carbon neutral, and while you have bought 100 percent renewable power for your superefficient home that uses a geothermal heating and cooling system to replace natural gas, and you bought a Prius for the family car and you telecommute, you just haven't figured out how to avoid some driving and flying.

What to do? Buy real emissions credits from the European market and retire them permanently! Now that is the best idea since solar baseload.