Climate Climate & Energy

Jeremy Carl argues that coal will be with us for a long while

This is part one of a guest essay from Jeremy Carl, a Research Fellow at the Stanford University’s Program on Energy and Sustainable Development. A few weeks ago, I wrote a rather heated post keyed off an interview with Carl in Wired. He asked for an opportunity to respond; naturally I said yes. —– As […]

New standard for carbon offsets is unimpressive

As E&E News (subs. req'd)reports today:

An industry group released standards yesterday for carbon dioxide offsets in the hopes of attracting existing and still-forming emission-trading markets.

The Voluntary Carbon Standards (VCS) are aimed at evaluating clean-energy projects in developing countries that are used to offset industrialized nations' emissions of greenhouse gases under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism.

You can read all about the new standard on their website. I am not terribly impressed with this new standard. Among other things, it allows tree projects (no, and no!). They also didn't consult with a lot of environmental groups, and as I pointed out to E&E News and WWF, their website has this bizarre and I think inappropriate listing under board members:

James Leape, WWF International (invited)

Seriously. How do you list an invited -- but not accepted -- board member on your website? Especially from an organization that seriously criticized the previous draft of your offset standard.

The rest of the E&E article, with quotes from me and WWF, is below:

New report summarizes clean tech in California

Everything you could possibly want to know about clean technology in the Golden State can be found in an excellent new report, the California Green Innovation Index, published by Next 10, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. The report tracks the state's economic and environmental performance and analyzes key indicators to better understand the role green innovation plays in reducing emissions and growing the economy.

California is a state where growth has always been built around innovation, as this figure from the report shows:

I've often written about California's leadership policies in energy efficiency -- but the report points out a number of fascinating factoids I wasn't aware of:

Is it something in the air?

Interesting things are happening in the francophone world. Last week I reported that the Quebec government had decided to stop supporting any new ethanol plants based on corn as a feedstock. Now the French government, perhaps flowing out of its broad social dialogue on the environment (known as "Le Grenelle français de l'environnement"), is reported to be thinking of slashing subsidies benefiting the production of ethanol in the country.

Ooh la la, what in the world is going on?

Industrialized countries’ GHG emissions near all-time high

Take it away, Yvo de Boer of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change: “Industrialized countries’ overall greenhouse-gas emissions rose to a near all-time high in 2005. Greenhouse-gas emissions between 1990 and 2000 went down, but then between 2000 and 2005 they increased again, by 2.6 percent.” Oy. Bali can’t come soon enough.

House buys carbon credits through Chicago Climate Exchange

Perhaps this (sub. rqd.) is not the best strategy:

The House purchased these carbon credits to offset the impact of 30,000 tons of carbon emitted by the U.S. Capitol's coal-burning power plant each year. The funds will be used on carbon reducing measures, such as planting trees and underground storage of carbon dioxide, as well as green technologies like wind and solar power. The auction was oversubscribed with a weighted average clearing price of $2.97 per ton.

I hope they didn't plant a lot of trees -- they aren't the greatest offsets (see here also). And I really hope the underground storage carbon dioxide isn't used for enhanced oil recovery -- a very dubious offset.

I personally wouldn't recommend the Chicago Climate Exchange for offsets -- too many environmental groups have doubts about it, and I have heard some serious concerns directly from people involved in their offset projects.

At least the House is cleaning up its own act first:

The House will become carbon neutral by purchasing wind power for the electricity it uses, and by substituting natural gas for coal to generate the House's portion of the electricity produced by the Capitol Power Plant. To offset the carbon emitted from burning natural gas, the House will purchase carbon offsets.

That's much, much better than just trying to offset coal power with, say, trees.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Greased lightning

Here's an interesting biodiesel stat:

[T]he region's supply of fryer grease is limited. Each Oregonian contributes about a gallon of used cooking oil a year to the grease market. [Emphasis added.]

That's really not much grease -- especially considering that Oregon residents consume about a gallon and a half of highway fuels per person each day. So as much as I love biodiesel, fryer grease just isn't going to power rush hour.

The debate on plug-ins begins

Alan Durning's article makes a lot of good points about the need to do more than just improve the efficiency of our personal transport. It's a great article, but it also contains a few inaccuracies that I feel obligated to clear up before the global warming deniers (among others) try to use them.

I can tell from the comments on Alan's post that some readers are under the mistaken impression that his conclusions are a reflection of the EPRI/NRDC (PDF) report cited, but many are actually counter to that report. For example:

Notable quotable

"Coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, is the crack cocaine of the developing world." — Alan Zarembo, L.A. Times, 18 Nov. 2007

Latest IPCC climate report comes out strong, lays groundwork for Bali talks

“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal,” warned the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its hardest-hitting report yet, released on Saturday. Delegates from more than 140 countries came to agreement on the document, which summarizes three previous reports and warns of the grave dangers posed by climate change. The new report is […]