November 23rd, 2009 · Comments Off on Dark, Cold, Wet Copenhagen and Global Warming
There are people who are expert at framing. Put Ronald Reagan (or Barack Obama or any politician) before the flag with an impressive backdrop and the scene amplifies the message.
Global Warming … Global Climate Change …
The key December meeting is to be held where? Dark, cold, wet, dreary Copenhagen.
DARK Copenhagen: We’re talking about an average of 0.6 hours of sunlight per day in December.
COLD Copenhagen: Average of 3 degrees C (38 degrees F), average max temp of 4 degrees C, and 12 days with frost.
WET Copenhagen: 12 days of rain.
While I love Cophenhagen, dark, cold, and wet adds up to Dreary for me (and many others).
So, if it is dark, cold, wet, and dreary for the climate summit, expect some in the denialosphere to make great noise joking about how Global Warming summit attendees are all wearing parkas.
And, if there happens to be a big snowstorm or a serious freeze so that people are iceskating everywhere, expect to this amplified to no end.
This is part of a series of brief posts on ‘clean energy jobs’ opportunities for sparking meaningful employment, quickly, in the United States as discussed in Clean Energy Jobs: Stimulate Me.
Clean Energy Jobs Blow In (not blow up) Coal River Mountain: $250 million per year for 25,000 jobs
We often hear about how coal mining is critical due to jobs. Well, West Virginia has seen coal-mining jobs fall from 120,000 to 15,000 due to automation. And, the atrocious war on Appalachia called mountaintop removal really is designed quite specifically to take the miner out of the mine. You could say that it does the same thing to the job market that it does to the mountains.
The employment benefits of wind development as compared to coal mining are substantial for nearby communities. Development of a 229 turbine wind site on Coal River Mountain would directly create between 200 and 250 jobs per year for the first 2 years of construction and would support more than 50 permanent jobs in the area – potentially in perpetuity. Surface mining would directly create between 50 and 150 jobs per year for about 14 years while the mines were active, after which the land would be unsightly, unstable, and of little use for economic development in the forseeable future.
At this time, there is a battle under way for defining West Virginia’s future. The Coal River Valley has remained relatively pristine in the face of all of the MTR throughout West Virginia. Traditional fossil-fuel energy community and coal companies look at that pristine terrain and see “opportunity”. (Think, I must say, Once-Ler from Dr Seuss’ book The Lorax.) Yet, others look to this situation and see an opportunity to carve a new future for West Virginia and its citizens.
Interestingly, putting wind power into not just Coal River Mountain, but throughout Appalachia at suitable sites, offers up another interesting potential for exploration: using miners to create underground hydro storage to enable Appalachia wind to have embedded storage (perhaps in old mines?) that would enable selling the electricity for peak prices when it is needed, rather than simply take the price to be had when the wind blows.
Coal Energy Jobs Blow In (not blow up) Coal River Mountain Program: $250 million for a program to foster greater and faster wind penetration in Appalachia. $230 million should be dedicated to paying 15% of the costs for putting wind farms in Appalachia (with the Federal government to receive a 2.5% share of electricity production, the state to receive 2.5%, and the local community 2.5%; the remaining 7.5% is to be funding for the developer (whether private or public). The remaining $20 million is to be used for research on constructing (underground) power storage to enable cost-effective large scale power storage for Appalachia Wind. Roughly one-half of these funds should be to support demonstration projects. This funding mechanism / path should lead to a total of about $1.2 billion moving into Appalachia wind projects each year.
This $250 million funding would create roughly 25000 jobs in some of the most impoverished communities in America.
I apologize. This post corrects something written yesterday. ClimateGATE reveals nefarious conspiracy? NOT! asserted that the hacked emails from a leading global warming (climate change) science center did not reveal some form of conspiracy in the climate change world. That conclusion was wrong. I apologize. There is a quite serious conspiracy highlighted through ClimateGATE.
This is part of a series of posts on ‘clean energy jobs’ opportunities for sparking meaningful employment, quickly, in the United States as discussed in Clean Energy Jobs: Stimulate Me.
Clean Energy Jobs Take the PHE-School Bus: $100 million per year for 2,000 jobs
There are hundreds of thousands of yellow school buses taking America’s children to and from school. These buses average about 6 miles per gallon, burn about about 15 million barrels of oil per year, and create a real risk to children’s health due to diesel fumes while idling and driving. A better option exists: Plug-In Hybrid Electric School Buses which would cut fuel demand (11 miles per gallon), provide emergency services (mobile electrical generators), offer a stabilizing power storage option as America deploys a smart grid (10 buses represents about megawatt hour of usable storage margin), and reduce exposure to diesel fumes by some 70 percent. And, our difficult economic and jobs situation might have created an opportunity for fostering a nation-wide shift to that better solution.
the economic downturn has affected schools … districts are increasing class sizes, laying off personnel, cutting academic programs and extracurricular activities, and deferring maintenance at rates that have tripled and, in some cases, even quadrupled over the last school year. … Jim Shafer, who works with a district that was taking a $1.4-million cut this year, notes, “I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and transportation’s usually the first place they go.”
One element of this: school systems are reducing bus purchases, deferring any non-absolutely necessary expenditures as they battle to maintain essential services (teachers, heating, lights).
Now, there is a huge barrier to PHESBs, especially in budget tight times: they cost more than double the upfront cost of new traditional buses. Ouch!
This where a federal program comes in.
We speak of the prioritization of moving toward Plug-In Electric Vehicles (PHEVs), like the Chevy Volt, as a path to transform the nation’s transportation system. The reality, however, is that there are no PHEVs in mass market and they are going to be introduced relatively slowly.
On the other hand,PHESBs are ready to go today, ready to be coming off the manufacturing line soon after orders flow. But, there are barriers to deploying them (especially as local communities slash procurement budgets to reduce deficits). A $100 million / year program for five years would move PHESBs from marginal (about 18 deployed in a test program) to core in future school system decisions about bus purchases.
This program could easily move beyond school buses to other larger vehicles (think, for example, hotel / airport shuttle buses, local public transport, light trucks, etc …) but even ‘just’ school buses would have a wide range of real benefits beyond simply reducing fuel use, to improve student (and community) health with reduced diesel fumes, emergency power generation (imagine if there had been 15,000 mobile 50 kilowatt generators all around the areas affected by Katrina), and a path toward using centralized locations (schools, school bus maintenance lots) for introduction of localized power storage (Vehicle-to-Grid) as part of a smart(er) grid.
While such a program could likely absorb more money, $100 million/year would spark a revolution in school transport and start protecting / creating jobs quickly (as school bus orders are plummeting). School bus sales, an American industry, have plummeted as local governments around the country tighten their belts even further. This measure would spark some jobs (perhaps ‘just’ 2000) while setting the stage for transforming yellow buses across the nation.
Roaring through the denialosphere are claims that “Climategate” somehow represents “the final nail in the coffin of ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming'”.
Sigh.
What do we see in these emails? There seem to be some strong anger at those who work hard to distort information in their work and distort science when speaking to non-scientific communities. There is (passionate) frustration with self-proclaimed ‘skeptics’ collaborating to create ‘peer reviewed’ journal space where non-scientifically sound work can be published. There is discussion of how to do analysis and how to account for confusing anomalies. There is plenty of material to cherry pick from and scream about in efforts to foster confusion about and disdain for actual science.
On the other hand, what is not being waved about from the hilltops by anti-science syndrome suffering skeptics?
More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords.
Obviously, though, this means that hackers must have deleted these portions of the emails because of … “The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.”
Whatever smoke the anti-scientific disinformers are able to blow into people’s faces over this bunch of emails dating back over a decade, it doesn’t change the basic facts about human-caused warming:
Truly, it would be great news for all of us if the anti-science syndrome promoting skeptics were correct. Sadly, it isn’t the scientists, but the planet which is skating on thinner ice.
This is part of a series of posts on ‘clean energy jobs’ opportunities for sparking meaningful employment, quickly, in the United States as discussed in Clean Energy Jobs: Stimulate Me.
Clean Energy Jobs Go the Market: $4 billion year for 80,000 jobs
In too many grocery stores across America, turning the aisle into a refrigerated section can require wearing a parka — even in the middle of summer. Looking from overhead, too many grocery stores have black roofs. And … well, energy inefficient practice after energy inefficient practice. Grocery stores, nationwide, are ripe for cleaning up with Clean Energy Jobs. Not only are the requirements clear, the solutions are straightforward, the financial return is tremendous, and this has the potential for kickstarting some jobs quickly while enabling stores to make more profits even while giving them the opportunity (which we can hope they’ll seize) to pass on some of the savings to their customers.
Grocery stores and supermarkets represent one of the largest and most important customer segments in the energy services marketplace. There are approximately 127,000 grocery stores and supermarkets in the United States, with combined annual sales of over $425 billion. After labor costs, energy expenditures are the leading operating expense for most supermarkets and grocery stores.
a 10 percent reduction in energy costs for a supermarket facility can translate into as much as an eight percent increase in gross profit!
Walmart has been aggressively pursuing energy efficiency (and greening) of its stores, from white roofs to adding dehumidifiers (makes the air conditioners run more efficiently and allows them to raise temperatures two degrees without customer complaints) to motion sensors controlling LED lighting to doors on their refrigerated sections to rainwater catchments to many other things. Their overall return on investment: 45 percent per year.
Budweys Supermarkets, which has stores in North Tonawanda and in the Town of Tonawanda, is upgrading to more efficient fan motors and defrosters in its refrigerator cases. The company projects it will recoup the $35,000 per store cost within one year of energy savings.
Now, the savings and value chains aren’t just in energy costs. White (‘cool’) roofs last longer than traditional roofs. Having refrigeration sections closed with doors doesn’t just cut energy demands by 70% or so, but also reduces food spoilage. Skylighting does just reduce lighting energy demands, but also fosters happier workers and customers, boosting both productivity and sales.
While the savings’ potentials are clear, lets face facts: while it would make financial sense for every single grocery store (and chain) in the nation to pursue (aggressively) greening, there are many non-fiscal barriers to making decisions to invest in energy efficiency. A Federal program to assist (not fully pay for) grocery store energy investment investments could spark a significant boost to this business sector’s engagement with greening, with many benefits to be had from it:
Reducing waste in the energy system (fostering reduced cost)
Reducing carbon footprints
Reducing the costs of delivering food to American households
Fostering greater societal infrastructure for energy efficiency (both through business activity building capacity to execute projects across the nation and in educating store employees/customers about some clean energy benefits and options)
And, it would create JOBS! And, do so quickly.
An $8 billion program, $4 billion per year, would create 80,000 jobs and foster potentially $1-2 billion per year in reduced resource costs across America’s 125,000+ grocery stores and supermarkets while creating a culture, throughout this sector, of the value of continued investment in further clean energy as new opportunities come to reduce costs via low-hanging fruit.
Relevant sites re grocery store energy use include:
This is part of a series of posts on ‘clean energy jobs’ opportunities for sparking meaningful employment, quickly, in the United States as discussed in Clean Energy Jobs: Stimulate Me.
Clean Energy Jobs Go to School: $50 billion / year to support 1,000,000 Clean Energy Jobs
As discussed in Greening the School House, there are tremendous values associated with greening school space that include improved student health, reduced energy (and other resource bills), reduced pollution loads, improved national capacity for ‘greening’ and ‘energy efficiency’, improved student performance, and substantive job growth. (See more after the fold.) In fact, greening schools might the most cost effective way to improve the effectiveness (quality and results) of American education since test scores will rise even as costs fall.
Considering the $250 billion backlog, the dearth of investment today, and the value streams to come from greening schools, a jobs program could fruitfully invest $100 billion in America’s public schools (split between maintenance (& renovation) and greening/energy efficiency). This investment would create easily one million jobs throughout America.
A two degree centigrade warming of the globe above pre-industrial levels would have serious, some might say devastating, effects across the globe, with a range of serious consequences from weather disruptions to increased droughts (and floods) to extinctions to … It is not a pretty picture. And, we are essentially guaranteed to hit that level of warming, even if hopefully as a peak, even if we significant change our fossil-foolish polluting ways.
Yet again, scientists are finding that the models have been wrong, again finding that they have provided too optimistic a situation. The Global Carbon Project just released work that suggests that this rosy scenario of a two-degree warming is something that might be becoming impossible, as their world suggests a six-degree centigrade (nearly 11 degree F) global warming is a more likely result by the end of the century.
rise in temperatures of this magnitude “would catapult the planet into an extreme greenhouse state not seen for nearly 100 million years, when dinosaurs grazed on polar rainforests and deserts reached into the heart of Europe”.
He said: “It would cause a mass extinction of almost all life and probably reduce humanity to a few struggling groups of embattled survivors clinging to life near the poles.”
The scientists found not just rising human emissions but decreasing ability of the natural systems to soak up humanity’s excesses, thus leading to an even greater escalation of atmospheric carbon loads.
“If the [Copenhagen] agreement is too weak, or the commitments not respected, it is not 2.5C or 3C we will get: it’s 5C or 6C – that is the path we’re on. The timescales here are extremely tight for what is needed to stabilise the climate
Official unemployment is above 10 percent in America. Real un- and under-employment nears 20 percent. There is a reason that President Obama will hold a jobs summit and there is reason that members of Congress are speaking of a jobs bill.
Ealier this year, Congress passed a stimulus package. It is having an effect, but with unemployment above 10 percent, that impact is not enough.
Looking at the numbers, we shouldn’t be surprised. The financial frauds, collapse of the real-estate bubble, and other elements cost the United States something like $1.3-2 trillion in annual demand. Looking at the stimulus, there was all of about $600 billion or $300 billion per year. As at least half that figure simply made up for state and local government cutbacks. Thus, the stimulus package really has amounted to covering perhaps 10 percent of lost demand from the economy.
Thus, a jobs summit and jobs bill to come.
A summit and legislation to Stimulate job growth.
A core element of all government policy should be to seek win-win-win-win-win-win solutions, wherever possible. We don’t just needs jobs, which are desperately needed, but we need good jobs that help strengthen American society and the American economy so that this stimulating jolt helps turn us (the U.S.) toward a stronger, more sustainable, more prosperous Union.
NOTE: This is the first in a series of posts on Green Energy Jobs.
Perhaps the American public, who are paying your salary (and your health insurance and your retirement), might think that your job is to work on the hard and important problems that require addressing.
Emotions can fly high when dealing with hard and important problems.
And, hard and important problems often have people with significant financial stakes in the game, which makes dealing with the problems even harder as people are willing to spend lots of money to protect (or gain) lots and lots and lots of money.
In addition, tea baggers, Faux News, Republican politicians, and others enabled by those special interests ready to spend piles of money to protect their bigger piles of money are ready to make even the slightest item an element of screaming outrage via twisted truthiness (read “Death Panels”).
Thus, to do your job as a US Senator in today’s America, it is time to recognize that dealing with deception and anger is (sadly) going to occur whenever you are serious about doing your job.
Evidently, climate change will just have to wait because you find it hard to deal with hard problems and aren’t willing to recognize the fundamental realities of 21st century American politics.
“After you do one really, really big, really, really hard thing that makes everybody mad, I don’t think anybody’s excited about doing another really, really big thing that’s really, really hard that makes everybody mad,” Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said. “Climate fits that category.”
Senator, the scientists have been telling us, for a long time, that we’re running out of time to take climate change seriously. The clock is ticking … ominously.
Senator, every day that passes the cost of inaction mounts and the costs of action increase.
Senator, every day that passes leaves America further in the dust in the global competition for leadership positions in the Green Clean Energy Revolution.
Senator, every day that passes the urgency of action intensifies.
average of 0.6 hours of sunlight per day in December.
in Glacier National Park which is en route ‘used to have Glaciers National Park‘ or perhaps at some lodge surrounded by forests devastated by pine bark beetles or perhaps in an Australia area still blackened from this past February’s devastating hellstorm.
substantial for nearby communities. Development of a 229 turbine wind site on Coal River Mountain would directly create between 200 and 250 jobs per year for the first 2 years of construction and would support more than 50 permanent jobs in the area – potentially in perpetuity. Surface mining would directly create between 50 and 150 jobs per year for about 14 years while the mines were active, after which the land would be unsightly, unstable, and of little use for economic development in the forseeable future.
hundreds of thousands of yellow school buses taking America’s children to and from school. These buses average about 6 miles per gallon, burn about about 15 million barrels of oil per year, and create a real risk to children’s health due to diesel fumes while idling and driving. A better option exists: 
$100 million/year would spark a revolution in school transport and start protecting / creating jobs quickly (as school bus orders are plummeting). School bus sales, an American industry, have plummeted as local governments around the country tighten their belts even further. This measure would spark some jobs (perhaps ‘just’ 2000) while setting the stage for transforming yellow buses across the nation.
aisle into a refrigerated section can require wearing a parka — even in the middle of summer. Looking from overhead, too many grocery stores have black roofs. And … well, energy inefficient practice after energy inefficient practice. 
has been aggressively pursuing energy efficiency (and greening) of its stores, from white roofs to adding dehumidifiers (makes the air conditioners run more efficiently and allows them to raise temperatures two degrees without customer complaints) to motion sensors controlling LED lighting to doors on their refrigerated sections to rainwater catchments to many other things. Their overall return on investment: 45 percent per year.
There is a reason that President Obama will hold a jobs summit and there is reason that members of Congress are speaking of a jobs bill.