Climate Climate & Energy

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.

There’s only one way to get big near-term carbon reductions

If we want to stabilize atmospheric CO2 at 450 ppm around 2050 -- the minimum necessary, which still might carry major impacts -- we need to achieve at least 2 percent average annual net reductions in emissions, globally, starting in two years. Not only do the near term emissions reductions matter the most, but it will get easier, not harder, as we go along. Solar PV and solar thermal are likely to become cheaper than new coal plants in a decade or so. They will also probably become cheaper than wind around the same time, and together these resources will make it possible to eliminate about three quarters of fossil generation.

It may be possible to exceed the 2 percent rate. But the only way to know that is to achieve 2 percent first. Nothing weaker than 2 percent is particularly worth talking about, and anything stronger is very hard to achieve. Also, any strategy to reduce CO2 emissions must address ongoing growth. While there are many reasons to believe the rate of new growth will change, as it has done historically, it is at present about 1.5 percent per year. Thus a 2 percent annual net reduction in today's world means a 3.5 percent gross reduction.

This series discusses the implications of this goal for the U.S. electric industry.

EDF’s support for self-cooling cans got deservedly chilly reception

Ken Ward posted an intelligent critique of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). I want to anticipate a response. EDF always says something along the lines of "We are getting the absolute best deal available. Go with us, or you will end up settling for something worse, probably nothing." Let's set the wayback machine to 1997 and look at a case where the mainstream environmental community did not go along with EDF.

Briefly: The Joseph Company wanted to market soda in a self-chilling can, cooling produced via HFC R-134a, a greenhouse gas many times more potent than CO2. The HFC in one of these cans would have produced a greenhouse forcing equivalent to driving a car 200 miles. EDF saw this as a perfect opportunity for emissions trading. This product is going to come to market regardless of what we do, they intoned solemnly. The Joseph Company is willing to offset their emissions -- a win-win situation.

Over the objections of EDF, the rest of the environmental community, including grassroots EDF members, stepped up and stopped this stupid project. Eventually a new version that uses CO2 was developed instead; this improved product is as bad as for the environment as canned soda normally is, but at least is not several thousand times worse. If EDF had succeeded in helping to push it through, they would be offering it today as an example of practical politics to win environmental goals, rather than an absolutely unnecessary cave. Read the long version at Nonprofit Watch.

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.

Wind power in China is ‘huge, huge, huge’

China, known for its environmental struggles, is looking to have a success story in wind power. “China’s wind energy market is unrecognizable from two years ago,” says Steve Sawyer of the Global Wind Energy Council. “It is huge, huge, huge. But it is not realized yet in the outside world.” China’s wind generation has increased […]

Adjustable rate mileage

Your fuel mileage is lower than you think.

Granted, that assumes you do not fastidiously monitor your own fuel mileage -- that instead you take the EPA's fuel mileage estimates at their word.

Turns out, the EPA calculates fuel economy with "straight" (100 percent) gasoline. However, in the consumer market a blend of 10 percent ethanol, E10, is nearly universal. Jonathan Welsh of The Wall Street Journal explains:

Fuel economy decreases by about 2% for vehicles running on E10, so a car rated at 25 miles per gallon will actually travel about 24.5 miles.

Okay, this decrease is peanuts if you're a lead-foot. And the EPA just started including air conditioning with this year's estimates. Nevertheless, even with perfect driving habits, the fuel economy of your brand new Prius will never match the sticker's claims.

Busted: Majority of emissions cuts can come from public spending

A common rap by environmental economists is "any means of cutting emissions raises prices." Though it is used in defense of a valid point (in the long run we will have to institute either a carbon tax or a permit system), it is simply not true.

The vast majority of emissions cuts can come via public spending that won't raise prices. We can subsidize efficiency improvements to buildings, fund a conversion of most long-haul trucking to rail, and in the long run electrify all transit and decarbonize electricity generation.

But doesn't the money for these subsidies have to come from somewhere? Yup, but a lot these are areas where the private (as opposed to social) gains exceed the subsidy -- meaning even if the people receiving the subsidy end up paying for most of it from taxes, they come out ahead. However, there is no reason the people receiving the subsidies have to pay for most of them. Most of our military budget is devoted to aggression rather than protecting us. We have had enormous tax cuts for the rich from Jimmy Carter forward. We have wasteful existing subsidies for fossil fuel and various unsustainable practices. There is an old liberal-mocking slogan I'd like to turn around and adapt: "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax the fellow behind that tree."

Has EDF spun out of environmentalism?

Tony Kreindler reiterates EDF's position that the short-term targets in Lieberman/Warner are strong, that its essential framework is sound, and that we have 40 years to strengthen its weak areas ... but don't expect to do so anytime soon. In his recent Grist series, Kreindler wrote, "the political landscape in 2009 will be much like today's as far as climate change legislation goes."

This is an astonishing admission about the state of U.S. environmentalism. The hard work of decades, over a billion in assets dedicated to climate action, the certain election of a pro-cap-and-trade policy president, a Northwest Passage ice free for the first time in human history, and methane bubbling so furiously in Siberian bogs that melt water does not freeze ... will have no significant impact on political conditions, in EDF's view.

It's much worse than that, of course. Kreindler's appraisal was made months before gasoline broke $4.00 a gallon and our supposed majority support vanished as quickly as spilled gasoline hitting hot pavement.

Voluntary programs not so effective, says gov’t watchdog

Shocker: Voluntary measures to reduce greenhouse gases don’t work so well, the U.S. EPA Inspector General’s Office said Thursday. Despite the Bush administration’s adoration of the word “voluntary,” such programs have “limited potential” to actually address pollution and climate-change concerns, said the report. Too often, industries decline to spend money to participate in such programs; […]

Energy efficiency is the core climate solution, part 1

Energy efficiency is the most important climate solution for several reasons:

1. It is by far the biggest resource.
2. It is by far the cheapest, far cheaper than the current cost of unsustainable energy, so cheap that it helps pay for the other solutions.
3. It is by far the fastest to deploy.
4. It is "renewable" -- the efficiency potential never runs out.

This post focuses on number one -- the tremendous size of the resource.