May 15th, 2010 · Comments Off on The cost of NIMBYism: Views vs Children’s Education
NIMBYism is a real challenge when it come to moving forward with clean energy systems. Whether it is homeowner associations blocking solar panels or solar dryers (e.g., clotheslines) or manufactured outrage over offshore wind turbines that would be barely visible from shore, often uninformed but passionate clamor derived from issues of “views” can delay and, sometimes, derail renewable energy systems. While there is increasing opposition to coal-fired power plants, despite industry deception of “clean coal“, the ‘invisibility’ of coal’s massive pollution and the inability of most to connect that pollution to very real impacts (mercury in food, lowered IQs, asthma rates, acidification of the oceans, and, oh yeah, global warming) can make the opposition to the visible, but lower impact/higher benefit, renewable power options much greater than the passion aroused by the typically out-of-sight, out-of-mind coal plant. And, those sorts of knee-jerk opposition efforts are coming back to haunt at least some communities.
Well, about a year ago, Florida Power and Light a wind project to put in wind turbines, on the site of a nuclear power plant and some nearby conservation land. Following some reasoned (and well-founded) concerns about issues of putting ‘industrial’ facilities on conservation lands and some real negotiations, FPL modified the proposal to put in six turbines (two fewer than the original proposal), totaling 13.8 mw of capacity just on the land around its nuclear power plant. The concerns, however, went beyond the land issues and a variety of groups
If installed, the project would produce enough power for about X households and generate economic activity within and income for the local community. (Remember, renewable power generates more jobs per kWh than polluting “clean coal” and other fossil foolish options.)
Wind has many economic benefits, from construction and maintenance to leases, land purchases and property taxes. FPL estimates that its $45 million investment in the St. Lucie wind project will generate an average $4.6 million in economic activity per year in the county. In addition, the project will produce up to 75 construction jobs and an estimated $3.5 million in additional property and sales tax revenue in its first year.
Comments Off on The cost of NIMBYism: Views vs Children’s EducationTags:Energy
The 2008 election (and beyond) occurred amid a chorus of calls to “Drill, Baby, Drill”. Well, the Gulf Coast is seeing today, tomorrow, and for decades to come the quite serious implications of these calls.
Will the stink from oil across the Gulf Coast turn citizens toward even stronger support for a clean energy future? And, will America’s political leaders turn aside in their decision-making from the massive contributions that they’ve received from fossil foolish interests to represent faithfully their constituents’ desires for emphasizing clean energy and energy efficiency over the maximization of oil, natural gas, and coal industry profits? The gap between what the American people want and what Congress enacts when it comes to clean energy and environmental protection is striking.
The contrasts are stark.
And, these contrasts require laying out strongly and forcefully to the American public.
A choice existed in 2008 … it was taken. A choice exists in 2010 and the stark contrasts in those choices need to be made apparent to all.
By my nature, I hover between being a pessimistic optimist (seeing reason for hope while uncertain about prospects for it being achieved) and being an optimistic pessimist (seeing very real reasons for terror and concern while hoping that I turn out to be wrong). Reading through the just released material, I seem to have been allowed the optimist side to have too much influence in recent times, somehow subconsciously thinking that Senator John Kerry knew better and that he wouldn’t sign his name to a disastrous bill. Sigh … perhaps if I’d balanced that subconscious optimism with more open pessimism, the items in these released documents would be so disappointing.
Let me be clear, there are positive elements. The America Power Act will put in a carbon price, a ‘cap with a collar’:
Introductory floor and ceiling prices are set at $12 (increasing at 3 percent over inflation annually) and $25 (increasing at 5 percent over inflation annually), respectively.
While this pricing is far below any reasonable definition of the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) emissions (and the $12 figure is roughly 1/8th of where reasonable analysis might put us), the creation of a floor price is critical. If, as I and so many clean-energy advocates suspect (understand …), cutting emissions will turn out to be very inexpensive for the initial period (decade plus) of any climate mitigation effort, that minimum price will help accelerate clean-energy action beyond what would occur without the minimum price. (Small fiscal incentives can help spark major change. As CCAN‘s Mike Tidwell has noted, DC’s 5 cent fee on plastic bags has sparked an 80 percent drop in disposable plastic bag use over the past four months.) Now, as ‘industry’ claims to be most concerned about upper bound price, this climate activist would welcome trading slowing the upper bound’s increase over the first decade for accelerating the lower bound’s growth. (How about $15 to $25, with both growing at 4 percent / year above inflation through 2020 (placing this as a $25-$42 range)? Note, again, that a reasonable figure, today, in 2010 is in the range of $85 … that upper range 2020 figure would be half today’s SCC.)
NOTE: As per ending comment below, some optimism waking up in the morning … and some realism.
RE Realism — considering the US Senate, if this bill passes more or less in its current form, it will be a miracle. And, that carbon price will start the ball rolling to serious change in the economy … positive change … and we should, we hope, be able to build on that success.
RE Realism — much of what is bad in this bill actually is at least slightly better than what passed the House (at least looking at the summary) with the only major critical item in Waxman-Markey ACES not in APA being the Energy Efficiency, which could be because of committee jurisdiction questions / issues rather than what K-L believe matters.
RE Optimism — I didn’t see much to celebrate there but I’m told that the transportation section is far better than what I read it to be along with my missing some fast action material. Both of these could mean that this is better than an initial look suggested.
Finally — To be clear, if John Kerry and his staff had a chance to write a bill that they believe is required and appropriate, it is hard to believe that this is what they would choose to write. Again, political realities seem to trump scientific and physical ones.
Okay … time to wait for a whole bill to drop and more details to emerg.
Sigh … even the good news items within Kerry-Lieberman seem to come with significant caveats.
While, beneath the fold, I will look with some words to the two-page summary, here are some items of immediate concern:
Targets remain very weak: 17 percent reductions by 2020 represent less than half where the (outdated, too optimistic) science says we should be getting to and represents less than half where we can get to with real benefit to the U.S. economy.
Writ large, this summary suggests lots of deal making with powerful polluting interests, with the the inclusion of too many elements based on flawed and inadequate public relations like papers masquerading as analysis.
Perhaps it will look better after a good night’s sleep … or is that just the optimist side talking?
Adam Smith at the Public Campaign Action Fund has a simple but telling post up: Big Oil Spill and Big Oil Cash. He provides a graphic with the images of Senators on the Energy & Natural Resources Committee and the Environment & Public Works Committee … and the amount of campaign contribution cash that they’ve received from the Oil & Natural Gas industries over the past 20 years. These are the people who are quizzing (or who are quizzical in front of) Big Pollution (BP) executives as to Deepwater Horizon and the massively growing oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.
Looking at these suggests a basic question: Who do you think fossil foolish interests have more likely bought:
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) with $4,800 in oil & natural gas contributions or Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) with $766,535 in contributions?
Sen Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) with $22,500 or Sen Arlen Spector (D?-PA) with $561,428?
Sen Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) with $33,650 or Sen Blanche Lincoln (D?-AR) with $537,625?
Sen Jeanne Shaheed (D-NH) with $21,000 or Sen Bob Corker (R-TN) with $310,400?
When it comes to asking hard questions of BP executives about the Deepwater Horizon (continuing) disaster, which Senators do you expect to throw softballs and which hardballs?
Let us be clear: Cardin’s OPED is not earth shattering revelation, bringing out the meaning of life in some way that has never occurred before, but is simply powerful truth coming from one of the club of 100, the U.S. Senate, a club which has collectively stubbornly refused to move the nation forward toward a more prosperous, climate-friendly future. Senator Cardin merits praise and notice for stepping out with a strong media piece laying out reasons why we should move forward to something better.
Let’s take a look at some of his piece which included many simple, if painful, truths from its opening words:
The catastrophic oil spill ravaging the Gulf of Mexico and bearing down on coastal states is another reminder: America’s current energy policy is a disaster.
There are too many who are ready to wrap themselves in false patriotism, seeing America best at everything when analysis and statistics make it clear that we’ve allowed ourselves to fall behind in so many important (measurable) ways from our mediocre health care system to increasingly serious gaps between the richest and poorest among us (more like Haiti than Europe or Japan) to inadequacies in our educational system to … It is difficult, it seems, for a politician to state clearly when the United States isn’t on top of the world. Senator Cardin states a simple truth: our “energy policy is a disaster.”
We need to break our dangerous addiction to oil and promote safe and clean sources of power and fuel — and we need to begin today.
Yes.
Senator Cardin, no disagreement here.
And not only should we do this, we can do this. There is no reason to peg our future on ‘the sun will come out tomorrow’ with some amazing invention that will rescue us all. We don’t need some magic Silver Bullet, we have the tools to start and get a long way to where we need to go:
Feedback systems on cars: 500,000 to 1,000,000 barrels/day reduction in daily US oil demand by 2015
Electrification of rail: 1,500,000 to 2,500,000 barrels/day reduction in daily US oil demand by 2020
Improvements in traffic management: 250,000 barrels / day reduction in daily US oil demand by 2014
Aggressive telecommuting and flex-time/alternative schedule support: >250,000 barrels/day in reduced demand by 2015
Energy efficiency program targeted at oil-heated homes: 50,000 barrels/day in reduced demand by 2012
Cut coal-fired electricity by five percent of 2010 levels.
Cut US greenhouse gas emissions five percent
Via the 5% solution, by 2030 the United States will:
End, 100%, oil imports.
End, 100%, the burning of coal for electricity
Reduce climate emissions by 65+ percent from 1990 levels
Improve the US trade balance by five percent of gross domestic product (due to eliminating oil imports)
Cut health care impacts from fossil fuel use by 50%
Improve productivity, per decade, by at least 5% above ‘business as usual’
Cut employment below 5% by 2015 and maintain unemployment levels below 5% through 2030.
And … well … additional benefits.
Senator Cardin understands the costs of our fossil foolish addictions.
Offshore drilling …
it’s become painfully clear that there is no satisfactory remedy for the economic and environmental devastation that follows the blowout of an offshore oil rig.
Coal …
Today, coal-fired power plants spew dangerous pollution into our atmosphere.
Sending $s overseas for oil …
Every day, we send nearly $1 billion overseas to purchase foreign oil. Too many of those petro-dollars end up funding terrorists who hate America and make the world less safe every day.
Security risks …
Today’s energy policy contributes to international instability, which is why the Department of Defense is so alarmed and leading military officials have called for a fundamental change in direction. Today’s energy policy also hurts our economy by sending our wealth abroad at a time when other nations, like China, are making major investments in wind and solar power. The more than $300 billion that we send overseas annually to satisfy our oil appetite should be spent here at home on sustainable energy sources and implementing energy efficiency measures.
And, Cardin understands that the solutions to our problems require us to stop looking beneath our legs for solutions.
Of course, proponents of offshore drilling like to tout it as a way to reduce our dependence foreign oil. But the fact is, we can’t drill our way to energy security.
Instead, we have to look above our shoulders and between our ears.
We have to find a better way.
And, Cardin calls on his colleagues in that exclusive club of 100 to act.
Now it’s time for the full Senate to act. We need to pass comprehensive clean energy legislation that will make our economy stronger and our country more secure.
The environmental damage we are causing with our current energy policy is on stark display in the Gulf of Mexico today. The unseen greenhouse pollution that is fouling our planet is even more threatening.
A responsible energy policy can put America back in control of its economic future and make the world a safer place. It can turn down the temperature on climate change. And it can do one more thing. It can help ensure the sanctity of our treasured coastal resources, like Assateague National Seashore and the Chesapeake Bay. As we’re now being reminded in the horrific stories and images from the Gulf, that’s critical too. Once squandered or despoiled, they can never be replaced.
It’s time to work together in a bipartisan way to enact a clean and sustainable energy plan that takes us into the 21st Century strong and secure. We have the opportunity to redesign our energy policy so that it enhances national security, boosts our economy and preserves our environment. The choice is ours.
This is another guest post from BruceMcF, whose ideas on transportation (mainly, but not solely rail) merit heeding. See Burning the Midnight Oil.
Well how the frack d’ya like me now?
I’m not going to say “toldya so”, since many who will be reading this diary said much the same during the “Drill, Baby, Drill” absurdity in 2008 … but the undersea oil volcano underlines, boldfaces and highlights in red the basic facts of the situation that we face:
Our country produces about twice as much crude oil per person as the world average
Our country consumes about five times as much crude oil per person as the world average
And we have been producing oil a long time, have passed our peak of domestic oil production, and aint ever getting back to it.
And, anyway, we already tried Drill, Baby, Drill. Its played itself out already.
Obviously, the direction to go to insulate ourselves from oil price shocks and the recessions they cause is to cut our consumption. Which means, in part, Train, Baby, Train.
Lamar Advertising Co. will start retrofitting all billboards across Florida with wind and solar energy systems. The company intends to complete the operation by 2012 at the cost of about $12.5 million — the Department of Energy will provide $2.5 million while the remaining cost will be borne by Lamar.
The project will cover 1,370 billboards across eight markets throughout
Florida with most of the billboards located along interstates and at thoroughfares. Not only will the billboards be powered by wind and solar energy systems, they will also function as small power generating hubs feeding the surplus electricity to the grid. The combined capacity of the billboard energy systems will be about 1 MW.
WePower, a California-based sustainable energy solutions company, estimated that if all of the 500,000 billboards along the interstates were to switch to wind energy generating power at a wind speed of 10 miles per hour, they would generate 16.8 billion kWh of electricity. It would be enough to power 1.5 million homes in annually and would prevent 5.3 million tonnes of carbon emissions from entering into the atmosphere.
FloDesign has raised $40 million of venture capital financing in two rounds after winning the MIT Clean Energy Entrepreneurship Prize as well as the Ignite Clean Energy Competition in 2008. The company was awarded an $8.3 million grant in 2009 also, as part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s highly competitive Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) program, which supports the development of “transformational” energy technologies.
The company was founded in 2007, after leveraging its knowledge of turbine design based on the jet engine technology. Its shrouded wind turbine design is expected to deliver more than three times the amount of energy as traditional wind turbines for the same size rotor. The rotors of its turbines are very small in size and they can be easily installed and utilized at places where there is high consumption of power but there is no space for conventional wind turbine towers; airports, for instance. It’s significantly smaller compared to other wind turbines and also costs a lot less to install and operate. With the help from MassCEC’s Renewable Energy Trust the Massachusetts Port Authority has already shown a keep interest in deploying FloDesign’s wind turbine technology. It works by channeling wind into a vortex that spins the blades and generates electricity.
WE KNEW Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R) had declared war on reality. Now he has declared war on the freedom of academic inquiry as well. We hope that Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) and the University of Virginia have the spine to repudiate Mr. Cuccinelli’s abuse of the legal code. If they do not, the quality of Virginia’s universities will suffer for years to come.
The editorial rightly calls out Cuccinelli for taking “his ongoing campaign to wish away human-induced climate change” to a new level with use of his office’s resources and powers to attack a specific scientist who has already been vindicated by multiple investigations by other scientists and by review panels.
As ammunition for this chilling assault, Mr. Cuccinelli twists beyond recognition a statute designed to punish government contractors who use fake receipts to claim taxpayer funds and those who commit other such frauds. For Mr. Cuccinelli’s “investigation” to have any merit, the attorney general must suppose that Mr. Mann “knowingly” presented “a false or fraudulent claim for payment or approval.” Mr. Cuccinelli’s justification for this suspicion seems to be a series of e-mails that surfaced last year in which Mr. Mann wrote of a “trick” he used in one of his analyses, a term that referred to a method of presenting data to non-experts, not an effort to falsify results.
IN FACT, the scientific community, including a National Academy of Sciences panel, has pored over Mr. Mann’s work for more than a decade, and though supporters and skeptics still disagree on much, it’s clear that his conclusions are not obviously, premeditatedly fraudulent,particularly since they come with admissions about the uncertainties inherent to his work.
The Commonwealth of Virginia faces quite serious economic challenges, with teachers being fired and roads not being repaired. In the face of these challenges, the Attorney General is committing serious resources to ideological anti-science crusades that are damaging the Commonwealth’s reputation and will damage its strong educational system.
By equating controversial results with legal fraud, Mr. Cuccinelli demonstrates a dangerous disregard for scientific method and academic freedom. The remedy for unsatisfactory data or analysis is public criticism from peers and more data, not a politically tinged witch hunt or, worse, a civil penalty. Scientists and other academics inevitably will get things wrong, and they will use public funds in the process, because failure is as important to producing good scholarship as success. For the commonwealth to persecute scientists because one official or another dislikes their findings is the fastest way to cripple not only its stellar flagship university, but also its entire public higher education system.
The Post calls on the University of Virginia to fight the Attorney General and, as well, for the Governor to repudiate his actions.
Perhaps you’ve missed it (that is if you haven’t been connected to the world for a few decades are so), but there is a full-throated attack under way against the integrity of the scientific process, scientists and the scientific community.
While climate skepticism / denial has many motivations, the simple fact: with each passing day, the science supporting the conclusion that humanity is driving climate change is growing stronger.
Yet, the Merchants of Doubt continue to operate to confuse the situation and they’re having too much success: Americans are less convinced about Global Warming today than just a few years ago.
in which Interior Secretary released the (hopefully) decisive decision to give the go-ahead to 
person as the world average