Creigh Deeds’ new ad begins “Does Bob McDonnell really stand with us?” With his misogynist and regressive views, as detailed in his Liberty University thesis or McDonnell’s half-baked and truthiness-laden concepts to raid educational funds to pour concrete in an insufficient answers to Virginia’s transportation challenges to, well, many of McDonnell’s views and “proposals”, it is hard to imagine that Bob McDonnell’s core values are those of the majority of the Commonwealth’s citizens.
In this ad, however, Creigh Deeds seems to speak to McDonnell’s core reality-challenged base, using talking points that seemingly come from the Republican Party of Virginia rather than the Democratic candidate for Governor.
We need a Governor who understands us. Creigh Deeds says no to any new energy taxes from Washington. And Deeds has a detailed jobs plan for families around here.
Imagine the environmentally conscious socialite and their new cottage at the Hamptons. That is the feel that Virginia Tech’s Lumenhaus gives in their, quite simply, luminous website and presentation of their entry into the DOE Solar Decathlon, which opens Thursday on the Mall in Washington, DC, and which I had a chance to visit earlier today.
As the name suggests, Lumenhaus is a dwelling playing with light and living off it with extensive windows and both solar photovotaiic (electric) and thermal (hot water) systems.
The Lumenhaus’ system also has two-sided solar panels which seem to be a ‘new’ feature appearing in a number of the homes this year. These Sanyo panels, VT claims, have a 15% performance improvement over single side producing systems.
Control systems that ‘run the house’ automatically, including moving around louvers as the solar angle shifts. (While the owner could override this, the automation is aimed to maximize performance — whether heat gain / retention in winter or minimization / cooling in summer.) This means that the system is constantly monitoring system performance, weather and interior conditions, and weather forecasts to achieve the optimal performance not just for that moment but also for the hours and days to come.
“LUMENHAUS uses technology optimally to make the owner’s life simpler, more energy efficient and less expensive.”
These louvers are quite impressive, with laser cut ‘circles’, all bent to maximize light gain and minimize unwanted heat gain (thus, each of the 1000s of cuts is specific to that location on the louver). Seeing them on the mall, with multiple color reflections looking toward the Washington Monument was stunning (let’s hope the photos come out). The Lumenhaus Eclipsis system actually is more than ‘simply’ these rather beautiful metal shutter shades, but also includes translucent insulating panels filled with aerogel.
All of this monitoring and automation means that the Lumenhaus, left to its own devices, will have a quite different look dependent on time of day, weather conditions, or time of year. As they ask, “does your home dress for the seasons?”
Wandering the Solar Decathlon is like being caught in a big candy store for the ‘eco-geek’ within, but it is also eye candy for the aesthetics’ oriented (even though, of course, the integration of technology into our lives has a beauty of its own). Already mentioned, is the changing nature of the home during the season, the beauty of the shutter shades yet there is much more. Watching the video, walking into Lumenhaus (even while under construction) creates an “I want that” moment, seeing it as an eminently livable space … effective not just in energy terms.
Truth be told, essentially every one of the Solar Decathlon homes creates moments and feelings of “I want this” or “what a wonderful approach” or … That is one of the reasons it is such an Energy COOL event.
No, we’re not speaking about Cold Fusion, but Penn State’s entry into the DOE Solar Decathlon, which opens Friday on the Mall in Washington, DC. Let’s take a look at some of Natural Fusion’s features from its website, which is dynamic, enabling rapid connection of concepts and approaches with the home’s physical layout.
Simply put, it is hard to exaggerate the reasons for enthusiasm about the Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon. This is a truly Energy COOL ten day period in DC, with literally 100s (1000s?) of truly impressive people from universities around the world having a chance to show off their innovative approaches to solving real problems while competing for honors in a truly serious competition.
Somewhat hidden to most Americans (on purpose), the Bush Administration’s Executive Order 13423 was perhaps the best energy-related action taken by George W Bush. It set meaningful energy efficiency targets and created paths for more effective energy management across the federal government. Today, President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order that builds on 13423 and builds on the funding from the stimulus package to accelerate the Federal government toward more aggressive sustainability goals across energy efficiency, reduced oil consumption, water conservation, waste reduction, and the use of Federal purchasing power to increase the speed of market adoption of environmentally-responsible products and technologies.
“As the largest consumer of energy in the U.S. economy, the Federal government can and should lead by example when it comes to creating innovative ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase energy efficiency, conserve water, reduce waste, and use environmentally-responsible products and technologies,” said President Obama. “This Executive Order builds on the momentum of the Recovery Act to help create a clean energy economy and demonstrates the Federal government’s commitment, over and above what is already being done, to reducing emissions and saving money.”
The Executive Order, Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance, will require agencies to set, no later than 90 days from now, sustainability targets for 2020. It will require serious efforts to measure, manage, and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Here are some of the explicit targets laid out within the Executive Order:
30% reduction in vehicle fleet petroleum use by 2020;
26% improvement in water efficiency by 2020;
50% recycling and waste diversion by 2015;
95% of all applicable contracts will meet sustainability requirements;
Implementation of the 2030 net-zero-energy building requirement;
Development of guidance for sustainable Federal building locations in alignment with the Livability Principles put forward by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Transportation, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
The EO provides some specific steps within each of these target arenas, such “reducing potable water consumption intensity by2 percent annually through fiscal year 2020, or26 percent by the end of fiscal year 2020, relative to a baseline of the agency’s water consumption in fiscal year 2007, byimplementing water management strategiesincluding water-efficient and low-flow fixturesand efficient cooling towers.”
The Federal government occupies nearly 500,000 buildings, operates more than 600,000 vehicles, employs more than 1.8 million civilians, and purchases more than $500 billion per year in goods and services. These buildings, these ‘vehicles’, these civilians, these purchases are being put on a path to be leaders in fostering a path toward a prosperous, climate-friendly future.
This Executive Order should help bring sustainability goals to the table for all agency strategic planning and investment/purchase decisions. The EO tasks agencies to develop “an integrated Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan” providing prioritization the actions toward achieving the EO’s goals, with a particular emphasis on “lifecycle return on investments”.
Now, as to that last, there is a real question as to how that “life cycle return” will be analyzed. Will, for example, evaluations of productivity improvement, reduced employee absentee rates, and lower health care bills due to green buildings be counted in that “life-cycle return”, or will the analysis be stove-piped solely within energy efficiency? The government, of course, should be interested in larger impacts, such as reducing urban heat island impacts through (ever so) “cool roofs”, but will that larger societal benefit be “countable” within payback return analysis? Now, the EO provides guidance that captures at least some of this as here is the EO’s second paragraph:
It is further the policy of the United States that to achieve these goals and support their respective missions, agencies shall prioritize actions based on a full accounting of both economic and social benefits and costs and shall drive continuous improvement by annually evaluating performance,extending or expanding projects that have net benefits, and reassessing or discontinuing under-performing projects.
To be honest, seeing that requirement for “continuous improvement” with continuing performance evaluation, providing the window for reinforcing successful programs and discontinuing “under-performing projects” is the sort of good governance approach that all thoughtful citizens should applaud.
Truth be told, there are already many great examples across the U.S. government of cost-effective sustainability projects from energy efficiency to clean energy to land management practices reducing office impacts. This new order should reinforce those successes, making sustainability the basic standard for Federal practice and, we can hope, blazing a path for change throughout our society.
The Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) (or, perhaps, simply staff) has embraced anti-science syndrome with a fervor that should astound anyone with the slightest regard for the scientific method and for the scientific community (communities). . Here is an excerpt from an RPV-email attacking Democratic Party candidate for Attorney General Steve Shannon:
In Shannon’s only opportunity to question Cuccinelli, he essentially asked why his opponent did not fully agree with those who say that global warming is threatening modern civilization. The query puts Shannon squarely in line with those in the environmental lobby and the Democratic wings of Congress who are aggressively pursuing Cap-and-Trade legislation, a known job killer that will increase the price of energy, boost the cost of doing business and raise expenses for every person living in the United States.
Cap-and-Trade is a scheme in which entities that exceed a government-imposed emission limit would be forced to buy “credits” from entities which emit amounts under the limits. Many analysts and employers have concluded that the idea would increase costs to consumers and severely limit the ability of private companies to create jobs.
There are several fundamental elements to this and its absurdities … and outrage against sensible dialogue for achieving a more secure and prosperous future for Virginia and Virginia. .
First, this is a clear statement attacking the scientific understanding of climate change and the fundamental risks that we face due to the potential for unchecked catastrophic climate change. The RPV (and, as per below, Cuccinelli) might wish to consider actually looking at what the scientific community is saying about climate change and the potential for catastrophic climate change, rather than wearing blinders to reality while glued to Faux News’ truthiness and disinformation. No matter how loudly Glenn Beck or James Inhofe pontificate, no matter how many times the Washington Post publishes George Will’s falsehoods and misdirections (here as well), no matter how glib fossil-foolish shills might appear on TV or at Heritage, eventually rhetoric slams into reality and reality. Of course, these pundits and shills merit more attention than the American Physical Society, the National Academies of Science, and essentially every significant scientific institution in the globe. Putting aside the “science”, if one wants to make a bet about the future that is fundamentally about the science, do you want to be listening to television pundits and scientists who argued that tobacco had nothing to do with cancer (while paid by the tobacco industry) or the premier scientific instutions in the globe? Evidently, the RPV goes with pundtocracy over scientific meritocracy.
Second, these paragraphs egregiously misrepresent the impacts of Cap and Trade legislation. In typical anti-action, pro-p0llution manner, these words only look at “cost” without any indication of understanding that there is “benefit”. There is a reason that it is “cost-benefit analysis,” not simply talking about “costs”. In other words, there will be “costs” to act, but also benefits. Considering expansion of US industry through ‘green’ technologies, competitiveness due to reduced energy costs, reduced imports via lower oil demand, the “costs” of acting on climate change are minimal. But, these is a rather stove-piped examination of “benefits”. Considering reduced health-care costs due to reduced pollution impacts, improved productivity due to ‘green’ buildings and healthier employees, and so on, the cost-benefit analysis of acting seriously to mitigate climate change ends up in a highly-profitable balance book even without considering the benefits of reducing the risks of catastrophic climate change (which, of course, the RPV seems to consider some form of radical fantasy rather than simply the resulting understanding of the work of thousands of highly-qualified scientists of humanity’s impacts on the global system).
Third, let us take the standard misrepresentation (actually set of misrepresentations) and deflections to confuse and anger people about moves to mitigate catastrophic climate change. In continuing the stove-piping, the RPV asserts that Cap and Trade is “a known job killer that will increase the price of energy, boost the cost of doing business and raise expenses for every person living in the United States”. Well … sigh. While sensible climate legislation will increase the unit cost for polluting energy options, it will also create conditions for societal investments in energy efficiency (whether into existing infrastructure or in smart growth). If you pay 1 cent more per kilowatt hour of electricity (roughly a 10 percent growth) but standards improvements lead to a 20, 30, or 50% decrease in electricity use, then there is a net reduced cost of eney and reduced expenses for a massive share of Americans, even if not “every person living in the United States.” Studies by business analysis organizations like McKinsey and Company have shown net benefits to the average Americans, in terms of money in the wallet, due to the American Clean Energy & Security (ACES) Act’s provisions for improving energy-efficiency standards in building codes and improving appliance standards.
Finally, in an amusing side note, these paragraphs suggest that Shannon’s only substantive confrontation and interaction with Cuccinelli came when it came to climate change. Reasoned and ‘neutral’ discussion of the debate provides a quite different picture of what was a rather heated discussion. To provide an indication that there was more to this debate than a simple question re climate change science,
Host Mark Plotkin didn’t have to do very much to keep the conversation going; at one point Plotkin said: “This has been such a precedent shattering event where the candidates say enough ugly things about each other that I don’t even have to question them!”
And, from that discussion:
“Shannon accused Cuccinelli of denying evidence of climate change. Cuccinelli did not deny it.”
Yes, the Republican Party of of Virginia’s candidate for Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, did not deny that he is an Anti-Science Syndrome suffering Hater Of a Livable Environment for Virginia.
October 3rd, 2009 · Comments Off on Superheroes in the fight against Catastrophic Climate Change?
This is a guest post from the very thoughtful citisven about the potential that actions within and by cities have for changing the game when it comes to climate change. This is the “real world” (compared to the interesting fantasy of Ecopolis) of what is happening to change the world for the better. Our challenge, of course, is to see that these cities, these approaches are not the exception, but the norm. And, to see that their actions do not continue, but accelerate, expand, strengthen … But, let citisven explain.
Imagine an entity so big and powerful that it could conserve tons of energy and make a huge dent in carbon emissions. It might resemble a place you’ve seen before but wouldn’t recognize…
And imagine another entity shedding its drab fossil fuel suit, reappearing energized by the sun, clad in solar panels and rooftop gardens. It might look like this:
The entities I am talking about are, of course, Cities, and their role in shifting humanity from cheap energy gluttons to living within our ecological means must be nothing short of Super: The time has come for the urban Clark Kent to put on the green cape.
October 1st, 2009 · Comments Off on A FIT for the Clean Energy Jobs & American Power Act
This is a guest post from NB41, who is top-notch in the wind energy world and on how to integrate renewable power into the energy system.
Senator Kerry and Boxer introduced, yesterday, the Clean Energy, Jobs, and American Power Act. This bill is an alternative to/similar to the so-called ACES bill (Waxman-Markey Bill) which recently passed the House, albeit in a severely wimped out/compromised form
Beneath the fold is my reply to Senator Kerry, calling attention to the value of Feed-In Tariffs (FITs) for driving more rapid renewable energy integration into the electric system.
September 29th, 2009 · Comments Off on A cap with a collar …
Well designed, a cap with a collar can be a truly gorgeous thing.
To spark movement away from our carbon addiction, for business (financial) planning, and to gain enough support to pass climate legislation, any “Cap and Trade” structure almost certainly will have to have a “collar” to go with its “cap” on carbon emissions.
To be released tomorrow, the Boxer-Kerry climate legislation looks to include floor and ceiling prices to allowance auctions. Thus, a “collar” guaranteeing both a minimum price and a maximum price, which enables some degree of certainty for planning (government, business, otherwise) in terms of cost while providing some space for ‘trading’ prices to reflect actual demand/supply for carbon permits.
The bill makes a monumental improvement over the House bill by adopting a version of the carbon collar …
The floor price is $11 (the draft bill above is, as I say, not final) and the ceiling is $28 — and they both starting rising 5% plus inflation each year. The draft bill adds an excellent twist — from 2018 on the ceiling rises 7% plus inflation each year. …
Fence-sitting Senators and industries can legitimately see the Carbon Collar as achieving stronger cost-containment protection than their analysis suggests the House bill now provides, including protection against speculators running the permit price up, while progressives can legitimately see it as achieving better environmental outcomes than their analysis suggests the House bill now provides.Win-win.
Severe volatility can be destructive, creating demands for near term change that might undermine achievement of long-term objectives, and moving off our carbon addiction is a long-term objective (requiring a near-term serious start). A floor/ceiling on allowance prices would constrain the extent of volatibility
Certainty enables planning and long-term investment, the type of planning and investment required to move toward a prosperous, climate-friendly society. A floor/ceiling on allowance prices would provide certainty as to the “worst” and “best” case in terms of direct carbon costs.
Thus, on the face of it, placing a price collar on allowance auctions for a Cap and Trade program makes much sense.
However … “on the face of it …” Some examples of issues to consider:
Will polluters pay?
A A core principle for any climate legislation is that polluters should pay, that polluting the air our children breathe and the water they drink is no longer some “externality” that is given a free ride. Just like paying for trash pickup at the home or a dump fee when hauling that decrepit mattress to the county dump, people and businesses should pay for dumping their carbon pollution. Placing significant (actually any) portions of the carbon cap into giveaway programs to subsidize polluters undermines (rips to shred) this basic principle, undermines the power of the allowance price collar, invites future speculation, and will undermine the effectiveness of our efforts to reduce carbon emissions.
Collaring speculators
Placing the allowance price increases at above inflation creates an incentive to reduce emissions sooner rather than later since it is certain that the cost will be higher, in real terms, from one year to the next. This helps counter the basic fiscal calculation of net present value (NPV) which discounts future costs (or gains) to try to understand the value of a $1 a decade from now in today’s terms (which would, a conservative sense, be about 50 cents of value). The proposed guaranteed increases put the carbon costs in the range of typical discounting formulas, thus encouraging an appropriate fiscal (green-eye shade) calculation of reducing pollution today vs reducing pollution tomorrow in a way that reduces incentives to put off cost-effective pollution options.
But, there is a speculative problem to consider. If guaranteed a minimum price increase of a minimum of 5% above inflation, does this create incentives for serious fiscal speculation. Why not buy some carbon credits for long-term investing, knowing that you can sell for that minimum price growing above inflation with the potential, at least, for significant growth above that if the permits are trading above the minimum price? Considering the item above, what if you’re a polluting industry which receives significant carbon allowances for free?
Thus, how allowances are “banked” and provisions for constraining this sort of fiscal speculation could matter. For a variety of reasons, it might make sense to ‘degrade’ unused permits, retiring them on some schedule to enable doing better than targets and to restrain/control speculation.
On the positive … driving change faster …
There is a serious value to the collar, especially on the low side. If the analysis is correct. If “proponents” (like me) of options like energy efficiency are on target. If technology rises to the fore. If people begin to undertake personal/cultural shifts. If … If many things that I (and others) see likely if significant legislation occurs and business/government begin to take climate change seriously, then the progress on cutting emissions could be striking and significant.
We are, already, at more than half the emissions reductions targeted by the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy & Security (ACES) Act for 2020! Actual targeted emissions reductions could be achieved virtually by sleep walking (if the sleep walker is pointed in the right direction). In the face of this, without a collar (without a floor price), carbon allowance values could fall to essentially free since there would be so many more allowances than actual pollution.
The floor price will incentivize people to continue to find ways to cut emissions, even if the “free market” price of allowances for the that year’s ‘authorized’ pollution would be near free.
From my perspective, for the next 10+ years, it seems almost certain that the floor will have more impact on actual carbon prices than the ceiling … thus, having that floor will help drive more emissions cuts than a program without a cost collar.
Details to be seen …
Boxer-Kerry will be released tomorrow. And, then it goes into the Senate sausage making process (as if it hasn’t already been sausage-making). On a wide range of issues, we will need to create momentum to strengthen the bill while fighting efforts to weaken it.
Thus, how allowances are “banked” and provisions for constraining this sort of fiscal speculation could matter.
“We’ve never questioned the science behind global warming,”
Perhaps truthiness so dominates thinking there that they really think this true or, well, perhaps Eric and others at US COC think we’ll all simply “easily deceived; dupes” (in other words, suckers).
“… never questioned …”?
Perhaps before issuing such declarative statements, Eric might wish to consider that Al Gore isn’t only know for winning a Nobel Prize for informing people about the scientific Theory of Global Warming but also for being a politician who helped foster the environment for the eventual emergence of the internet and world-wide web. Yes, Eric, Google search exists and people like Brad Johnson at the Wonkroom know about it. Brad saw Eric’s statement and did some “Google”. And, well, Eric’s comment didn’t stand up so well.
This is a blatant falsehood, by any definition. The Chamber has a long history of questioning the science of climate change. The Chamber’s present campaign against regulation of greenhouse gases by the Environmental Protection Agency questions the existence of global warming as well as the scientific evidence of its impacts on the public health and welfare. The Chamber promotes global warming denier books “to advance our thinking about issues of significance,” and has promoted the work of global warming denier Pat Michaels since at least 1992:
2009: Chamber SVP Kovacs Calls For ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’ On The ‘Science Of Climate Change.’ “It would be evolution versus creationism. It would be the science of climate change on trial.” Chamber of Commerce Senior Vice President William Kovacs explained that the Chamber was seeking a “Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century” on global warming to prevent the EPA from declaring greenhouse gases a threat to the public welfare. [Los Angeles Times, 8/25/09]
2009: Chamber Claims No ‘Plausible Theory’ To Link ‘Climate Change With Extreme Weather Events And Disease In The United States,’ Disputes ‘Claims Of Ocean Acidification.’ In an official filing prepared by the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis for the comments on the EPA’s proposed endangerment finding for greenhouse gases, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce cited blog posts by global warming deniers such as Pat Michaels and Chip Knappenberger to challenge a broad range of climate change science, including sea level rise and the “UN/IPCC forecasted temperature increases.” [U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 8/25/09]
2009: National Chamber Foundation Promotes Global Warming Denier Book As ‘#1? Top Book Of The Year. Promoting “Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know,” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s National Chamber Foundation writes: “Climatologists Patrick J. Michaels and Robert Balling Jr. explain that climate science is hardly unbiased,” and that the “pop-culture icons of climate change turns out to be short on facts and long on exaggeration.” On Twitter, the National Chamber Foundation ranked the book “#1? in its “Top Books of ‘09.” [National Chamber Foundation, 8/20/09]
2008: National Chamber Foundation Promotes Global Warming ‘Deniers’ Book Against ‘Global Warming Hysteria.’ The National Chamber Foundation selected “The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution and Fraud; And those who are too fearful to do so” by Lawrence Solomon to “help shape the debate on issues important to the business community.” [National Chamber Foundation, 2008]
And so on. Brad’s work provided numerous sourced examples of the U.S. C.O.C. ‘questioning the science’ and funding/promoting those questioning the science dating back to the George H.W. Bush Administration.
1992: Chamber Sponsors Global Warming Denier Pat Michaels To ‘Refute The Global Warming Warnings.’ “Bankrolled partly by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Global Climate Coalition, a group of manufacturers fearful of new environmental regulations, Patrick Michaels and Washington, D.C., attorney Eugene M. Trisko have been traveling cross-country to refute the global warming warnings from environmentalists.” [Chicago Sun-Times, 5/13/1992]
Perhaps “never” won’t slip so easily from Eric’s lips in the future.
That is the feel that Virginia Tech’s 
enabling rapid connection of concepts and approaches with the home’s physical layout.
Well designed, a cap with a collar can be a truly gorgeous thing.