Climate Climate & Energy

Efficienciezzz …

Bob Herbert’s column in the NYT yesterday makes two points: One, efficiency and conservation are the smartest strategies to combat our energy woes; two, it’s very difficult to talk about efficiency and conservation without being boring as paint.

Is tackling climate change contrary to human nature?

On DotEarth, Andy Revkin again wrestles with a dilemma he returns to frequently: how do we overcome human nature? He quotes the work of David Ropeik, who’s done considerable work on communicating risk, and who is not sanguine about our ability to communicate the risk of climate change. The problem, Revkin and Ropeik agree, is […]

Estimated cost of Nevada nuke-waste dump soars

The total cost of dumping nuclear waste at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain repository will hit $96.2 billion, the Department of Energy estimated Tuesday. The estimate has jumped 38 percent, excluding inflation, since 2001. And it assumes no new construction of nuclear reactors; to put that in perspective, John McCain is pushing for the U.S. to build […]

Things smart people assume

In Sunday’s WaPo, Joel Achebach says, “Rigorous science is the best weapon for persuading the public that [climate change] is a real problem that requires bold action.” The best weapon? Is that true?

The Washington Post’s Joel Achenbach doesn’t understand basic climate science

Repeat after me, Joel: "Global warming makes the weather more extreme." If even the Bush administration accepts that basic fact of climate science, shouldn't you?

I used to like Achenbach's cutesy science pieces, but his knowledge of climate science is about one or two decades old, as evidenced by his major story in The Washington Post, "Global Warming Did It! Well, Maybe Not." It is a typically uninformed journalistic "backlash" piece whereby a reporter creates a straw man and then sets it on fire.

Achenbach is trying to seem reasonable by complaining that the next time we get a big hurricane, "some expert will tell us that this storm might be a harbinger of global warming." Uhh, I hate to break this to you Joel, but global warming doesn't need a "harbinger." It has been here for decades.

In that sense, your article is not a harbinger of global warming denial, since deniers have been pushing back against the "global warming causes extreme weather" story for years, browbeating the media into downplaying the connection. You really should read your fellow journalist Ross Gelbspan's long discussion of this in his great 2004 book, Boiling Point. Achenbach writes:

‘Major discovery’ from MIT unpractical, and ignores present advances in solar baseload

I have gotten bombarded by too many people asking me if the story headlined above is true. It isn't. Not even close.

Science magazine, which published the supposedly "major discovery" by MIT's Daniel Nocera, headlined their story, "New Catalyst Marks Major Step in the March Toward Hydrogen Fuel" ($ub. req'd). Doh! But who needs a major step towards hydrogen?

And Science seems to be having problems with the laws of physics, as we'll see. I thought I had explained this to Scientific American, but given their puff piece -- the findings "help pave the way for a future hydrogen economy" -- I obviously failed. Let me try again.

MIT had the sexier headline on unleashing the solar revolution. Too bad that headline isn't accurate for two mains reasons: The solar revolution already has been unleashed, and if it hadn't been, this technology wouldn't do the trick even if were near commercial, which it isn't. MIT reports:

The breakdown of Big Oil’s record-breaking profits

Record Big Oil profits from record oil prices and taxpayer subsidies -- where does all your money go?

With ExxonMobil's report of a $11.68 billion haul in the second quarter of 2008, the world's top five oil companies are now on track for more than $160 billion in profits this year ...

I know what you are thinking: Surely, Big Oil will take those staggeringly immense and almost immoral profits from the suspiciously fast rise in oil prices -- along with the $33 billion in taxpayer-funded subsidies you're going to give those politically powerful and remarkably greedy companies over the next five years (see here) -- and invest in both new drilling and new energy technology. No it won't, no it won't, and stop calling me Shirley.

In fact, the AP reports:

NYT Magazine swoons for Pickens

From the most recent New York Times Magazine:

As a Texas oilman and major contributor to the Republican Party, you've just launched yourself, at 80, into green stardom by devising an energy plan that relies mainly on wind power.

Green stardom. All you have to do is mention wind turbines to make the eyes of dirty hippies glaze over in delight.

All about water?

ZapRoot takes on the Pickens plan:

Los Angeles utility starts to squawk as it stares down a $700 million carbon bill

Regulators have won praise for speed and thoughtfulness with which they have laid the groundwork for implementation of A.B. 32, the landmark bill that aims to bring California's greenhouse gas emissions down to 1990 levels by 2020. But even within a single state, climate change legislation creates winners and losers, and regional tensions are starting to show.

California's climate plan consists of a slew of new efficiency standards, regulations, and reduction measures -- as well as a cap-and-trade system to place a lid on total emissions. It's the cap-and-trade system that is part of the present pushback.

At issue in particular are the long-term contracts that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) has entered into for coal-based electricity. Although coal has kept L.A.'s electricity some of the cheapest in the state, the utility will have to pay enormous sums for carbon allowances under the new law.

It's always instructive to unpack some of the distortions that surround the politics of climate change legislation. Officials from L.A. seem to be trying out three different angles in their resistance to the bill. The first is that the steep cost of the allowances will divert money away from energy efficiency and renewable energy programs.