Climate Climate & Energy

From fossil fuels to manufacturing for wind and solar energy

A couple of years ago, Al Gore made the case, in a film called An Inconvenient Truth, that we have a big problem called global warming. But the film was not effective at pointing to a solution. Humans evolved to consider a crisis as a challenge, as long as a solution is readily available. Otherwise, panic or resignation sets in.

Now, Gore has moved a significant step further by arguing that all sources of electricity should be carbon-free -- in other words, all of our electricity should be generated using wind, solar, or geothermal power, instead of coal, natural gas, or oil.

The next step should be to explain how we move to a fossil fuel-free electrical system. Gore continues to advocate a revenue-neutral carbon tax, but it feels like he's searching for something else, something that would be part of the effort to clean up the energy system.

He might consider the idea that rebuilding the manufacturing economy by building solar and wind equipment would not only lead to a carbon-free system, but also would revive the national economy and the middle class.

Could lime absorb massive amounts of carbon dioxide?

If this pans out, this is a huge idea -- and potentially a reprieve from climate disaster:

It’s a 1980 flashback, as energy price spikes make oil shale economical once again

The Bush administration’s latest push to force dirty energy extraction down the throats of Americans living in western states has some historical pedigree. Extracting oil from keragen — somewhat misleadingly known as "oil shale" — by cooking the rock at high temperatures is an environmental, social and economic nightmare that’s been with us since the […]

Oh, wait, we don’t have a national water policy

This essay was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom's kind permission.

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"Lisa, the whole reason we have elected officials is so we don't have to think all the time. Just like that rainforest scare a few years back. Our officials saw there was a problem and they fixed it, didn't they?" -- Homer Simpson

On June 24, 2008, Louie and I curled up on the couch to watch seven of the nation's foremost water resources experts testify before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment.

This was a new experience for us. For my part, the issue to be addressed -- "Comprehensive Watershed Management Planning" -- was certainly a change of pace from the subjects I ordinarily follow in Judiciary and Intelligence Committee hearings. I wasn't even entirely sure what a "watershed" was. I knew that, in a metaphorical sense, the word referred to a turning point, but I was a bit fuzzy about its meaning in the world of hydrology. (It's the term used to describe "all land and water areas that drain toward a river or lake.")

What was strange from Louie's point of view was not the topic of the day, but that we were stuck in the house. Usually at that hour, we'd be working in the backyard, where he can better leverage his skill set, which includes chasing squirrels, digging up tomato plants, eating wicker patio chairs, etc. On this particular afternoon, however, the typically cornflower-blue San Jose sky was the color of wet cement, and thick soot was charging down from the nearby Santa Cruz Mountains. Sitting outside would have been about as pleasant as relaxing in a large ashtray.

It would have been difficult, on such a day, not to think about water.

Better questions for Gore

In response to my rant about Gore on Meet the Press, a certain boss of my acquaintance asked me what questions I would have asked. Here are a few: High gas prices have created extraordinary pressure for a short-term political response, which Republicans are providing with their drilling campaign. What is a better political and […]

Viscount Monckton, a British peer, says his paper was peer-reviewed by a scientist

"The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley" is full of crap himself. Before casting a wary eye on his new ribaldry, however, let me direct you to yet another dismantling of his "thesis" -- this one by Deltoid at ScienceBlogs: "Monckton's triple counting."(Even more debunking here.)

But I digress. The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, as he prefers to call himself, or TVMOB, as I will call him because, damn, the acronym is just too sweet, has penned an epistle to the president of the American Physical Society, which you can peruse here [PDF]. (Please note that the picture on the right is not TVMOB nor do I think he would ever participate in this.)

TVMOB is displeased with the new APS disclaimer on his article: "The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article's conclusions."

TVMOB writes, "This seems discourteous." You see, TVMOB holds the view that peer review occurs if his article gets suggested edits by a co-editor who happens to be a scientist.

Let me not make the obvious point that being edited by an editor ain't scientific peer review. You can read the editor's requested edits on page two of TVMOB's letter [PDF]. Anybody who has actually been peer-reviewed will note that the proposed edits aren't anything close to what a peer-reviewed set of comments looks like, especially for an analysis as flawed as this one.

Since TVMOB's letter is straight out of Monty Python, let me rather make the point in kind that a peer is "a person who holds any of the five grades of the British nobility: duke, marquess, earl, viscount, and baron."

By that definition, I am sure that TVMOB's paper was not given proper peer review. Indeed, I'm not certain TVMOB has a proper peer on this Earth. Perhaps Senator Inhofe or President Bush.

But pity the poor modern British viscount who whines in his letter, "I had expended considerable labor, without having been offered or having requested any honorarium." Join the club, buddy. Since when do you think scientific newsletters pay you a nickel? Oh, I forgot. You aren't a scientist.

I especially love the conclusion to his epistle:

Skeptical climate-change documentary found unfair, but not misleading

A British documentary that declared climate change to be a willful and conspiratorial hoax broke impartiality rules and misrepresented the views of some participants, British broadcasting regulator Ofcom said Monday. The not-so-subtly named The Great Global Warming Swindle, which aired on Britain’s Channel 4 in March 2007, said at one point in its narration, “Everywhere, […]

Kentucky to build new coal-to-liquids plant

The following post is by Earl Killian, guest blogger at Climate Progress.

Kentucky has selected a site to build a $4 billion coal-to-liquids plant in Pike County that would produce 50,000 barrels of liquid coal a day. According to Kentucky's Lexington Herald-Leader:

... The county would use federal and state grant money to put the basic infrastructure in place, including water and sewer, and the company chosen to operate the facility would pay for the rest.

County officials have not yet secured funding, but Ruther­ford said he has received support from Gov. Steve Beshear, as well as several others, including state Rep. Rocky Adkins, D-Sandy Hook.

Joe has written often about the climate dangers of coal-to-liquids, and recently about the health dangers of living near coal plants. There are also other consequences.

An Op-Ed in the Lexington Herald-Leader serves as a stark reminder that coal will never be clean. Robert Richardson, a former coal miner, writes passionately about the death of Kentucky's streams under the onslaught from mountain-top removal. On revisiting a favorite spot, he writes:

Forget a carbon cap; try guilt instead!

This is quite possibly the most idiotic argument I've ever heard against cap-and-trade. Why is it bad?

By turning carbon emissions into commodities that can be bought and sold, cap-and-trade policies could remove the stigma from producing such emissions ... the purchase of the right to emit greenhouse gases would likely reduce any stigma associated with doing so. Emission levels, consequently, could rise.

Oh, lordy, that's a good one. But that's from an op-ed in yesterday's Christian Science Monitor written by Justin Danhof from The National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative D.C. think-tank.

Could he be right? Could it be that the only thing standing between us and a climate crisis is stigma? We need more guilt!

Time to stop using the phrase ‘renewable energy’

This is the first in an occasional series on reframing the energy and climate debate. I welcome all ideas on how we can improve our language in what is now the central front in the war to protect the health and well-being of American families and all future generations.

The phrase "renewable energy" is often used by the media and conservatives to give lip service to clean energy sources -- by lumping them all together in order to trivialize them or diminish their individual potential. For instance, the "bunch of bland old guys" had just one bullet for renewables (and one for efficiency), thereby making them equivalent to expanded domestic oil and gas production, expanded nuclear production, and "clean coal."

Progressives, I think, should stop using the phrase "renewable energy" entirely. It is lazy and fits into the conservative frame of renewable energy sources as individually insignificant. We should go out of our way to specify them, since several of them have come of age.