Below is a guest post by Clem Guttata from WVABlue, providing a window on the
Your lights are on,
but you’re not home,
your will is not your own
Might as well face it you’re addicted to coal.
Appalachia suffers from a resource curse. Coal mining wealth is illusory–the benefits have long been obvious to those dependent on Big Coal for a living even if the costs (largely hidden) were high. Yet, the costs are no longer as hidden and the benefits no longer so great.
Climate change legislation is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for our political leadership to take bold action to help diversify the Appalachian economy. So far, that leadership is lacking. Join me today in calling for Appalachian state officials, Congressional representatives and senators to to chart a new course. Let’s all kick the habit of the dirty black rock.
Institutional Agency: As a “business”, an institution, Georgetown University is tackling its own energy use. According to DeGioia, GU has cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 16 percent over the past three years and will cut total emissions by at least 50% by2020. “This requires significant rethinking of processes and practices” within the institution(s). While technology plays a major part, behavior is a critical component — such as a strengthened recycling program. Now, opportunities are not necessarily immediately obvious. DeGioia pointed out that some 70% of GU’s progress is expected via one area: improving the efficiency of its power plant, notably for water chilling. But, opportunities also can be created — over the long term. GU’s largest academic building was constructed nearly 30 years ago — designed for incorporating solar panels (solar pv) when that would become a sensible option.
University Community: When dealing with these challenges, a (perhaps) unique element is that this involves all elements of the University community. This is not just scientists, but there are legal, social, and other elements. Thus, turning the University community to incorporate energy and climate challenges/opportunities means breaking through and crossing stove-pipes, toward a whole of university approach. (See note below.)
Preparing students: What, after all, are educational institutions about other than preparing their students for the future? Thus, the question before DeGioia: Is GU shaping students to help solve energy and climate challenges and seize the opportunities that these challenges create?
An interesting triology, certainly not unique to Georgetown, but a well-laid out discussion for the Council’s business audience.
GLOBAL WARMING HYSTERIA: THE NEW FACE OF THE “PRO-DEATH” AGENDA – CABINET ROOM
Why did the President’s science advisor support coerced abortions to protect the planet?
Why are top abortion funders underwriting efforts to co-opt evangelicals on global warming?
If “people are the problem,” what’s the final solution?
Cap and trade is about more than saving the planet. It’s the biggest tax hike in American history. It threatens to concentrate massive amounts of power into the hands of central government and international bureaucrats. And its ascendancy marks the rise of a new, more subtle challenge to the culture of life.
Ultimately, climate change hysteria rests on an unbiblical view of God, mankind, and the environment. Come and hear how the Cornwall Alliance is pushing back–producing ground-breaking studies on Biblical environmentalism, educating pastors and churches across the country, and activating thousands of Christians to rally against the hype through the WeGetIt.org Campaign. Learn why policies to fight alleged man-made global warming will instead cause hundreds of millions of premature deaths throughout this century, and how human liberty, responsibility, and flourishing are the key to a healthier environment.
The scientific analysis of climate change and the changes that we are seeing (that are ever-better documented) represent “an unbiblical view of God, mandkind, and the environent”? If someone had said, absent this description, “Biblical Environmentalism”, I would have thought it soemthing to do with stewardship.)
Clearly, those who discuss stewardship and the mandate to take care of the Earth are, according to Beisner, a-religious, unChristian people.
An ‘unbiblical view of God’ likely alludes to the view most famously expressed by Rep John Shimkus (IL – R) that climate is controlled by God and therefore, unlike every other phenomena on earth, divinely exempt from being affected by human activity (How do we know this? Because the fringe right says so, that’s how!). In an astonishing lucky break for the energy industry, free will and thermodynamics are miraculously thwarted when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions.
In a rather sympathetic discussion, Ambrose highlights that these “Values Voters” are being deceived by truthiness from fossil-foolish interests leading to this:
The Values Voters organizers are either unaware, or simply don’t care, that many conservatives, including George Bush, have now stated they accept that climate change is occurring and that some of it might be due to human activity. It’s textbook right-wing denial, married with a heaping helping of hypocrisy to frame climate change as part of a ‘pro-death agenda’ that will cause ‘hundreds of millions of premature deaths’ while implying that it’s the climate scientists who are blinded with hysteria.
The New York City Panel on Climate Change, led by an elite team of NASA scientists and climate experts from Columbia, CUNY and Rutgers, has concluded that unless carbon emissions are drastically reduced all over the world, New York faces dangerous increases in temperature (up to 7.5 degrees), extreme weather (hurricanes and intense storms) and sea level rise (as much as 4.5 feet).
According to the panel’s report, if all nations don’t drastically cut their carbon emissions, then Gotham will suffer
Despite considerable tension and even aversion in green communities to the subject, we cannot talk about “going green” without making it a discussion about growth through various hierarchies of human development. Really, the subject of growth should come as second nature to “green” thinkers and communities—after all, a blade of grass must grow to two inches before it can grow to six; a tree must grow from acorn to sapling before it can someday become a mighty oak. In much the same way, our consciousness, our values, and our cultures must also move through several distinct stages of growth before we can even begin to even see the problem, let alone care enough to do anything about it.
In other words, “going green” really means “growing green,” and represents the crux of almost all the global issues we presently face: it’s not a problem of human imagination, technological innovation, or even political will—it’s a problem of human growth
This provides a frame for thinking about growing an energy independent transport system, and about the multiple ways that local, regional, and inter-regional rail systems can help in that growth. [Read more →]
For Fiscal Years 2002-2008, the lion’s share of energy subsidies supported energy sources that emit high levels of greenhouse gases.
The largest U.S subsidies to fossil fuels are attributed to tax breaks that aid foreign oil production
Thus, as this post’s title suggests, US subsidies through the Bush Administration promoted the production of dirty energy overseas to create jobs for foreigners and send US dollars overseas rather than promoting clean energy (cleanliness) that would create jobs for Americans.
September 17th, 2009 · Comments Off on How can one be “President” of the friends of the earth
Well, while one might not be able to be President of the earth’s “friends” (which we would hope would encompass essentially all humanity), there is Friends of the Earth, which is truly a top-notch environmental group, often carrying substance into the policy discussion far beyond the weight of its budget. (Perhaps the motto could be, when Friends of the Earth speaks, friends of the earth listen?) Led for decades by the thoughtful Brent Blackwelder, today FOE announced a passing of the baton across generations to Erich Pica, a ten-year FOE veteran of analysis and campaigning.
From his introductory video, here are Erich’s words as to why he became an environmental activist, creating the path to his new leadership position:
I learned that our economic growth, our gross domestic product is based on a lie.
It is based on the destruction of the environment.
And, I was outraged.
And, I wanted to come to Washington, DC, to help solve that problem.
And, for ten years, Erich has worked to find paths “to help solve that problem”, mentored by one of the environmental community’s doyens, Blackwelder, who has spent decades (including, for example, over 100 times testifying to Congress) on the front lines of environmental policy battles.
Pica’s announcement might come at a particularly a propos moment. One of Erich’s arenas has been the overt and hidden subsidies for fossil fuels, which few people realize overwhelm (in the US and globally) all the subsidies for all forms of clean energy (and energy efficiency) combined. Whether through gasoline price subsidies at the pump (Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc), tax subsidies for production and favorable tax treatment re reserves (United States), huge subsidies for paths to use fuels (road infrastructure, gasoline vehicles, etc — essentially every nation), military investment to protect oil (US, Europe, China, etc …), ignoring the “external” costs (such as health cost impacts), etc, fossil fuel subsidies undermine the entire concept of a ‘free’ market that could enable better solutions to come to the fore and ‘win out’ in the energy arena.
President Obama will be addressing the United Nations, next week, on climate change. The ‘rumint’ (rumor intelligence) is that he will propose a global agreement to end fossil fuel subsidies. Friends of the Earth’s new President will be a welcome voice in the national (and global discussion) if President Obama makes this proposal. [Read more →]
Comments Off on How can one be “President” of the friends of the earthTags:environmental
Among the energy holy grails out there are paths to take trash flows and turn them into value. Waste-to-fuel options range from methane digesters to biomass waste power plants to ways to turn trash dump streams into power. Envion, as reported in today’s Washington Post, has put up a demonstration facility at the Montgomery County, Maryland, Solid Waste Transfer Station to make synthetic oil from plastics.
Envion is not unique in developing paths for transforming trash to fuel, but there are several elements of their approach that raise interest:
Envion has put up a demonstration facility, in a public way, that will be processing plastics to fuel. This suggests technology ‘on the shelf’, ready to move into broader use.
Envion is providing direct fiscal cost estimates for the processing. Assuming that someone might actually look to invest the $6-7 million for a full-up system, Envion should (should) have the books & numbers to back up their claims.
Envion claims that it can convert one ton of plastics, depending on the type of plastic, to 3-6 barrels of fuel. With oil on the market for about $70, that suggests a post-processing value of $210-420 per ton of plastics. (Note, the value might a bit higher as the resulting synthetic oil is high quality, with very few contaminants compared to oil coming out of the ground.) Envion uses a “low-temperature far-infrared thermal cracking” Envion claims that the processing cost is $10 per barrel, leaving $180-$360 of value per ton — supposedly.
Let’s work these numbers for a moment.
$6-7 million for a plant capable of processing 10,000 tons of plastics per year.
Assume a plant life of 20 years (thus 200,000 tons/year), this would mean a capital cost (alone) amortized cost of $30-35 per ton or $5-10+ per barrel of oil.
That capital cost does not, of course, deal with the energy costs, labor, land, etc …
Thus, it might actually be interesting to see Envion’s books & numbers to back up their claims about the costs to convert the plastic waste — are they providing estimates that solely consider incremental (energy?) costs rather than fully burdening the full system costs to transform a ton of plastics into fuel?
Now, some items to consider:
Globally, plastics production requires about 8 percent of total oil production.
According to Plastics Europe, a record amount of plastic was produced in 2005 – over 230 million metric tons worldwide.
The EPA states that plastic waste accounted for over 12% of total municipal solid waste in the United States in 2007.
The US uses roughly 50 million tons of plastics per year with roughly 2 million tons getting recycled.
Plastics represent 9.5 percent by weight, or 3.8 million tons, of the total solid waste disposed in California. Plastic trash bags alone represent 1.0 percent, or 390,460 tons, of the total solid waste disposed in California.
This suggests a reasonably large market potential, a lot of plastics out there awaiting something better than permanent incarceration (or polluting the ocean). That 3.8 million tons in California could represent 10-25 million barrels of oil or getting into the range of one full day’s US oil demand.
Taking Envion’s material at face value, their processes seem to offer some interesting benefits including turning the remnant (non fuel) material into a benign ash (that could end up in cement?) and the ability to process contaminated plastics .
Let’s put this into perspective for a moment.
Okay, that 3-6 barrels of synthetic fuel from a ton of plastic sounds great, no? Well, perhaps
One ton of recycled plastic saves 16.3 barrels (685 gallons) of oil, 98 million Btus of energy and 30 cubic yards of landfill space (Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality). Recycling a ton of plastic also saves about as much energy as is stored in 197 gallons of gasoline
Hmm, it looks like recycling is more than three times effective, in energy terms than Envion’s reprocessing into synthetic fuel.
Thus, if you can recycle, recycle before considering reprocessing into fuel.
Of course, before consider that “recycling” or “reprocessing”, it is important to emphasize “reduce”: reduce the use and demand for plastics.
But, there are 100s of millions of tons of plastics sitting in America’s dumps, polluting our rivers, polluting the oceans, etc … Huge percentages of this are not recyclable (due to type of plastic) … Thus, if (a big if) all these could be ‘mined’ and transformed into (cleaner than drilled for oil) synthetic oil, that could be a useful path toward reducing plastic waste’s intrusive and extensive global reach. And, perhaps Envion could provide a useful Silver Speck of Dust to reducing this global blight.
September 16th, 2009 · Comments Off on Fighting the smears … and other emergent sites …
The falsehoods, errors, and misrepresentations in discussions of climate change and energy issues within the US debate are almost too numerous to count. They range from the most shallow (“CO2 is necessary for life, how can you call it to pollution.”) to “reports” and books of 100s of pages which require close reading of the footnotes to discover the games that have been played to give truth to the old adage “lies, damned lies, and statistics”. NRDC just put up a new website which offers the promise of serving as a clearing house for work documenting and dissecting these distortions, hopefully in real time, as the climate change debate heats up and continues. Check out (and contribute to?) Fight Clean Energy Smears.
Also relatively new on the scene, the Clean Energy Works campaign to help promote national understanding of the value and benefits of clean energy choices.
And, the Consequence09 campaign to mobilize the youth voice for supporting strong action on climate change.
them into value. Waste-to-fuel options range from methane digesters to biomass waste power plants to ways to turn trash dump streams into power. 
to mobilize the youth voice for supporting strong action on climate change.