Climate Politics

BREAKING: Al Gore still not running, though superdelegates may force him to, only probably not

In his column today, Joe Klein spins out a preposterously unlikely scenario whereby the Democratic superdelegates get together and conspire to pass over both Obama and Clinton and instead hand the nomination to … Al Gore. Two or three paragraphs in I thinking, oh, Joe, pish-tosh. Then: Pish-tosh, you say, and you’re probably right. OK […]

EPA will request public comment on GHG regulation this spring

SCOTUS decreed that the U.S. EPA must decide whether the climate-change effects of carbon dioxide endanger public health, and, at long last, the agency is moving on that decision — kinda. In a letter to U.S. lawmakers Thursday, chief Stephen Johnson wrote that the EPA is writing proposed rules for regulation of CO2 emissions “from […]

Notable quotable(s)

“I am convinced that if we work at it, we will be able to convince India and China that it is in their interest to be part of a global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” — John McCain, March 2008 “One of the things I would do if I were President would be to […]

Proposed land swap would allow drilling in Alaska wildlife refuge

Photo: usgs.gov The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering a land swap with a Native-owned energy company that would open up about 200,000 acres of Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Alaska to oil and gas drilling. Under the pending deal, the energy company would trade about 150,000 acres of its nearby land […]

California board to vote on requiring fewer zero-emission vehicles

On Thursday, the California Air Resources Board will vote on whether to require fewer zero-emissions vehicles on the state’s roads in coming years. As it stands now, automakers must sell 25,000 zero-emission vehicles by 2014 and an additional 50,000 by 2017. Under the proposed changes, the numbers would drop to 2,500 by 2014 and 25,000 […]

A different way to mark April Fools’ Day

Just one week until Fossil Fools Day! April 1 will mark a day of creative protest against global fossil energy industry hegemony, sparked by grassroots action group Rising Tide.

Here's their list of suggested targets:

1. New coal plants
2. Proposed liquefied natural gas import terminals
3. Proposed oil and natural gas pipelines
4. Oil refineries
5. Existing coal plants
6. Local electricity providers
7. Mountaintop removal mining sites near or connected to you
8. Tar sands

Check their site for suggested actions.

CTL fuels: still a bad idea

As the price of oil rises, coal company executives smell a huge opportunity: they are planning to ramp up a new global industry to turn coal into liquid fuels (diesel, kerosene and jet fuel), plus basic feedstocks for the chemical industry to make plastics, fertilizers, solvents, pesticides, and more. The coal-to-chemicals industry is already going gangbusters in China.

U.S. coal companies like Peabody and Arch plan to combine well-known coal-to-liquids technology and rapidly-evolving coal-to-chemicals technologies with untested methods of capturing carbon dioxide (or CO2, the main global-warming gas), compressing it into a liquid, and injecting it a mile below ground, hoping it will stay there forever. (Burying CO2 is called "carbon capture and storage," or CCS.) If coal executives succeed in convincing the public to pay for all this, low-carbon renewable energy systems and waste-free "green chemistry" will be sidelined for decades to come.

The coal industry has nearly universal support in Congress. During President Bush's 2008 State of the Union address, one of the few lines that drew enthusiastic applause was, "Let us fund new technologies that can generate coal power while capturing carbon emissions." A few days later, the president announced his latest budget, with $648 million in taxpayer subsidies for "clean coal." A few days after that, the government announced it was ending its participation in the nation's first "clean coal" demonstration, the Futuregen project in Mattoon, Illinois. Obviously, Washington is experiencing policy angst over global warming, and "clean coal" lies at the heart of the debate. Both coal-to-liquids and coal-to-chemicals depend entirely on carbon burial being possible, affordable, and convincingly safe and permanent.

Despite political support in Congress, "coal-to-liquid fuels" had its coming-out party earlier this year, and it did not go well. Here's the story:

New York’s new governor supports congestion pricing

Brand-spankin’-new New York Gov. David Paterson has announced his support for a controversial congestion pricing plan. The proposal, put forward by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and supported by former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, would charge $8 to drivers entering Manhattan during peak hours. Said Paterson in a written statement, “Congestion pricing addresses two urgent […]

Dirty energy industry preemptively padding the pockets of key Democrats

The dirty energy industry sees big, important debates heading to a Democratic Congress, and it’s preparing by buying up "moderate" House Democrats ($ub. req’d): Moderate House Democrats — even freshmen with little obvious influence — have seen a surge of campaign contributions from the energy industry, whose giving patterns have long favored Republicans. Data compiled […]

McCain ‘might take [new CAFE standards] off the books’

We've heard climate double talk from McCain on "mandates" and "dependence on foreign energy sources." Now, in a stunning interview with E&E News ($ub. req'd), the McCain campaign seriously undermines its claim that the Arizona senator could successfully take on the global warming threat.

As the reporter put it, "the Arizona senator's presidential campaign is trying to differentiate itself from its Democratic rivals by rejecting calls for additional climate-themed restrictions." This, however, is a potentially fatal difference.

I don't know which of three statements by "Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a McCain campaign policy adviser" is more wrong-headed.

"The basic idea is if you go with a cap and trade and do it right with appropriate implementation, you don't need technology-specific and sectoral policies that are on the books and that others are proposing simultaneously."

This statement could not be more inaccurate and naïve. A cap-and-trade system without on aggressive technology development/deployment effort, especially in the transportation sector, will inevitably fail because it causes too much economic pain, as I explained at length in "No climate for old men." And now we get the explicit statement that McCain opposes "technology-specific and sectoral policies that are on the books" if we have a cap-and-trade.