Gristmill

Reps reintroduce Clean Water Protection Act, aiming to curb mountaintop-removal mining

It's official: The first shot has been fired in the legislative battle to end the devastating practice of mountaintop-removal coal mining in central Appalachia.

With the quickly growing and extraordinary nationwide support of 117 cosponsors, including 17 members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. John Yarmuth (D) from the embattled coal state of Kentucky joined Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) in reintroducing the Clean Water Protection Act on Wednesday.

The act was introduced originally to challenge the outrageous executive rule change by the Bush administration to redefine "fill material" in the Clean Water Act, which has allowed coal companies to blast hundreds of mountains to bits, dump millions of tons of "excess spoil" into nearby valleys, and bury hundreds of miles of streams. An estimated 1,200 miles of waterways have been destroyed by this extreme mining process.

The end result: Toxic black waters and poisoned aquifers that have denied American citizens in the coalfields the basic right of a glass of clean water.

‘Clean coal’ flack won’t say whether coal contributes to global warming

CNN aired a segment on Wednesday morning on the “clean coal” debate. Highlights include commentary from Sierra Club coal guy Bruce Nilles, footage from the big Capitol Power Plant protest on Monday, and a clip of the Coen brothers ad that debunks the notion of “clean coal.” But the real treat is Joe Lucas, vice […]

The International Polar Year: 'Arctic sea ice will probably not recover'

Some of the top polar scientists in the world have concluded (boldface in original):

Our main conclusions so far indicate that there is a very low probability that Arctic sea ice will ever recover. As predicted by all IPCC models, Arctic sea ice is more likely to disappear in summer in the near future. However it seems like this is going to happen much sooner than models predicted, as pointed out by recent observations and data reanalysis undertaken during IPY and the Damocles Integrated Project. The entire Arctic system is evolving to a new super interglacial stage seasonally ice free, and this will have profound consequences for all the elements of the Arctic cryosphere, marine and terrestrial ecosystems and human activities. Both the atmosphere and the ocean circulation and stratification (ventilation) will also be affected.

This is what U.S. experts have been saying for a while (see here). Though not every scientist got the memo (see here). And this is just one in a long line of climate impacts coming up faster than the models projected (see here for a list).

But what I think is quite interesting is that this is the first time I've seen such leading polar scientists elaborate so bluntly the potentially dire consequences of an ice-free arctic:

Sierra Club partners up to make green … luggage?

"We look forward to increasing the presence of eco-friendly travel and accessories in the luggage and travel industries."

-- Johanna O'Kelley, director of licensing for the Sierra Club, on the organization's new partnership with Ricardo Beverly Hills

Sue Tierney withdraws her name as candidate for deputy secretary of energy

I am sorry to report that Sue Tierney will no longer be a candidate for deputy secretary of energy. She sent out an email today to friends indicating that was her decision. She would have been a first rate deputy (see here).

The email was private, so I won't discuss its contents. I will say that just months as acting assistant secretary in 1997 was pretty much all I could take of that unbelievably demanding and stressful job. And the workload -- and travel -- gets more demanding and stressful the higher up you go. Deputy is two levels above assistant secretary, so I honestly don't know how anybody manages those jobs -- and it is no surprise to me that anyone ultimately decides it isn't right for them.

I don't think it will be particularly easy to replace Tierney's multiple skill sets and talents -- but it is absolutely critical that Steven Chu pick someone who is an energy expert, preferably someone with some DOE experience, and preferably someone who can help on the crucial issue of transmission (see here).

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

Your intrepid blogger heads to yet another green conference; promises to twitter some tweets

I'm at the airport, getting ready to head out to Santa Barbara for the second annual Wall Street Journal Eco:nomics conference. (Yes, flying on planes makes me a big fat hypocrite earthf*cker -- I eagerly await my NYT profile.)

The WSJ conference is interesting, mainly due to the contrasting influences of the top-notch WSJ news team and the WSJ editorial board, world headquarters for unrepentant far-right fruitcakes. So you get Al Gore and Amory Lovins, but then you also get Bjorn Lomborg and Vaclav Klaus. (Klaus gets the last word, with his session titled "Global Reality Check: From Europe to China to the U.S., how realistic is a big green push amid an imploding economy?" Anybody care to guess his answer in advance?)

In between you have an interesting mix of truly innovative and green-minded business leaders and ... business leaders primarily concerned with positioning themselves to profit from whatever happens next. Thus you get sessions like the hilariously titled, "Power Play: What will keep the lights on: nuclear energy or 'clean coal'?" Whee!

The really big news here -- and you'll want to notify all your friends and family about this ASAP -- is that I'll be twittering from the conference.

OMG! you say. OMFG! you add. Yes, it's true. I'll be delving into the brave new world of 2008, because clearly the main flaws of blogging are its excessive length, depth, and grammatical exactitude!

I don't even know enough about Twitter to tell you how to follow my twittering. But if you happen to know how, it's all going on under the name david_h_roberts.

Again: david_h_roberts. Feel the Future!

[Note from more tech-savvy editor: David's Twitter feed is here. And right below.]

Congress takes a step toward regulating coal waste, but what about the EPA?

A bill aimed at reining in mountaintop-removal coal mining has been reintroduced in the House. The Clean Water Protection Act, sponsored by Reps. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), Dave Reichert (R-Wash.), and John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), would outlaw the dumping of mining waste into streams, which would make it significantly more difficult for mining companies to blast […]

Sheer number of solar advancements suggests that cheap solar electricity is coming soon

Concentrating solar power is a well-known approach to lowering the cost of solar electricity. You focus sunlight from a large area onto a small one, the same way a magnifying glass can set a piece of newspaper on fire, using one small, high-quality solar cell and a concentrator for a lower total cost than hundreds of slightly cheaper cells. (Or you can use the concentrated heat to drive a heat engine, but not in the example we are about to discuss.)

Morgan Solar has a smart variation on this under development. They start with a clever acrylic concentrator that uses pure optical guiding to concentrate solar energy about 50 times, around the same results as a Fresnel lens, but without the need for curves or a non-zero focus. This already moderately concentrated solar is then concentrated further by a much smaller glass concentrator that also needs no air gap. Because neither concentrator requires an air gap, a tiny solar cell is attached directly to the glass.

So you have an eight-inch acrylic concentrator, a glass concentrator the size of an American nickel, and a solar cell the size of a baby's thumbnail.

A smart grid, yes. A new national grid, no.

The new mantra in energy circles is "national smart grid."

In the New York Times, Al Gore insists the new president should give the highest priority to "the planning and construction of a unified national smart grid." President Barack Obama, responding to a question by MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, declares that one of "the most important infrastructure projects that we need is a whole new electricity grid ... a smart grid."

We lump together the two words, "national" and "smart" as if they were joined at the hip, but in fact each describes and enables a very different electricity future. The word "national" in these discussions refers to the construction of tens of thousands of miles of new national ultra-high-voltage transmission lines, an initiative that would further separate power plants from consumers, and those who make the electricity decisions from those who feel the impact of those decisions.

The word "smart," on the other hand, refers to upgrading the existing network to make it more resilient and efficient. A smart grid can decentralize both generation and authority. Sophisticated electronic sensors, wireless communication, software and ever-more powerful computers will connect electricity customers and suppliers in real time, making possible a future in which tens of millions of households and businesses actively interact with the electricity network as both consumers and producers.

Advocates of a new national ultra-high-voltage transmission network offer three main arguments:

1. New high-voltage transmission lines are needed to decrease electric grid congestion and therefore increase reliability and security.

There is indeed congestion on some parts of our distribution and transmission networks. Congestion reveals a problem; it doesn't demand a specific solution. It can be addressed by reducing demand through increasing energy efficiency or by increasing on-site or local energy production. Both strategies are often less costly and quicker to implement than building new transmission lines. An analogy from the solid-waste sector may be appropriate. Exhausting nearby landfills does not inevitably require us to send our garbage to new and more distant landfills. We can emphasize recycling, composting, scrap-based manufacturing and reuse.

2. A new national high-voltage transmission network is necessary to dramatically increase renewable energy.

President Obama wants to build new transmission lines because, "I want to be able to get wind power from North Dakota to population centers, like Chicago." Writing in Vanity Fair, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants a new high-voltage transmission system to "deliver solar, wind, geothermal and other renewable energy across the country."

But do we really need to deliver renewable energy across the country? The distinguishing characteristic of renewable energy is its availability in abundant quantities virtually everywhere.