Get Energy Smart! NOW!

The strong success of the CARS Program (WIN on economic stimulus, with wins environmentally, energy security, and highway safety) have led to consideration of what to do next. Last week, Senators Senator Bingaman, Snowe, Kerry, and Lugar introduced S. 1620, Efficient Vehicle Leadership Act of 2009. This act would set up a feebate program, much like that proposed by Energize America back in 2006.

A “FeeBate” system seeks to have, roughly, a balanced financing by providing rebates for desired behavior and charging fees for undesired behavior. When it comes to automobiles, this would mean a fee for low mileage vehicles and rebates for high mileage vehicles.

S 1620 sets a three-tiered system, so that fees would mount with lower fuel efficiency and rebates mount with increased efficiency. As drafted, S. 1620 would apply to the CAFE standard, which means it would be a moving (strengthening) target as the CAFE standards tighten in years to come. (I am told that this actually works based on the more meaningful gallons per mile rather than the misleading “mpg” even though I don’t see this laid out in the introduction or legislation.) The Senators have a feel for the politics. ‘Let’s seize on CARS Program’s success and build on it.’ And, the “rebate” would be in place for two years (starting in 2010, with 2011 model year) before “fee” sets in (2013 model year).

As Senator Bingaman said in introducing this bill,

“Detroit automakers have made a historic promise to the President to advance fuel efficiency technologies, from clean diesels to hybrids to electric vehicles. This bill will help stimulate demand in the showroom for these advanced American vehicles when they arrive at auto dealerships across the country.”

Note that this is one of those missing rarities in the DC scene, a bi-partisan solution that makes some real sense (see here for a Merkley-Lugar one last week). From Senator Snowe’s comments,

“With the United States consuming 9 million barrels of gasoline per day, we must develop bold policies that dramatically reduce our demand for foreign oil. As leading sponsor of the Ten-in-Ten Fuel Economy Act with Senator Feinstein, I have long called for increasing vehicle efficiency and this bill will complement the CAFE program and the aggressive fuel economy standards established by the Administration. As we have witnessed from the Cash-for-Clunkers program, households respond to incentives to purchase advanced vehicles and the Efficient Vehicle Leadership Act will build a long-term policy to assist families to purchase fuel efficient vehicles that strengthen our energy security, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and save money at the pump.”

Rational, thoughtful, bipartisan solutions that seek win-win-win-win across economic, energy, environmental, and security spaces? This is the sort of real bipartisanship that the nation requires as opposed to seeking to appease anti-science syndrome sufferers and those willing to lie directly to scare the American public on issue after issue.

Let’s be clear. This legislation isn’t perfect (as per mpg vs gpm). For example, as David Roberts of Grist highlights,

Purely as policy, it has some shortcomings. It doesn’t penalize driving—we’d prefer someone buy an SUV and park it most of the time than buy a hatchback and drive it every day. But that shortcoming can easily be remedied by pairing feebates with higher gas taxes. As a political matter, though, lead with the policy that’s easier to understand and offers tangible benefits!

David’s is a good post about the power of FeeBate and why this is should lead moving toward any sort of gasoline tax.

If Energize America’s Act 1 was a FeeBate, Act 20 was a 1 cent per gallon per month addition to the gasoline tax for no less than a decade. Combine direct purchase incentives for greater fuel efficiency with a quite certain increase in the gasoline tax for years to come, and purchasers will flock to go high mileage, helping drive Detroit toward an ever more fuel efficient set of options (that will be increasingly competitive on world markets). What is amazing to consider is the quite real potential that combine a FeeBate with a steadily increasing gasoline tax would lead to the same (or even lower) absolute gas prices at the pump due to the reduced oil demand lowering the price of gasoline by the same or even more than the $1.20 gallon gasoline tax. And, due to the fuel efficiency improvements, it is certain that the average drivers’ annual gasoline bill will be lower since they will be using so many fewer gallons of gasoline.

The Senators have introduced good legislation. With a few tweaks and improvements, it can move from ‘good’ to truly Energy Smart.

NOTE: FeeBates work. For several years now, the French have had a FeeBate system based on carbon emissions (which relates closely to fuel efficiency, but this captures the differences between diesel’s higher mpg and higher emissions by focusing on the emissions) which range from a 7500 Euro rebate for very low polluters to 2500 Euro fee for high polluters. The French government credits this with helping push the market toward greater efficiency and lower pollution.

There are a lot of valuable and exciting conferences out there. To say that the energy and environmental domains are “hot” and that you could spend your life solely running from conference to conference while only getting a taste of what’s going on doesn’t seem lunatic. From wave energy meetings in Sweden to water-less toilet sessions in Finland to Energy Summits hosted by Harry Reid in the Las Vegas heat, there are a lot of valuable and important choices out there. As with looking toward better sanitation options in Finland, some potentially critical sessions are going on with little media (and thus popular) attention. Right now, Boulder, Colorado, is hosting one such meeting: North American Biochar 2009.

Right now, humanity is engaged in a massively reckless geoengineering experiment, pumping huge amounts of carbon dioxide and other GHGs while continuing to pave the planet black and otherwise modify the humanity’s habitat with little understanding (or regard) for the havoc that we are and could be creating. In response to this, we have the serious movements to find paths to reduce emissions (whether through efficiency or clean energy or …) but there are also increasing calls for looking toward geoengineering (both from the thoughtful to the inane).

When it comes to this arena, there are some basic principles that should guide on thinking on geoengineering. In short, we should seek paths that support multiple goods (saving money, improving life conditions, helping reverse global warming) rather than costly paths that create more risks and uncertainties and whose pursuit seem to large costs with stovepiped (and uncertain) benefits.

The core principle should be: win-win-win.  A proposal that, in a systems of systems effort, provides multiple wins and does not solely address temperature.  Thus, a proposal that offers real potential for improving economy, reducing carbon, and contributing to reduced temperature (both directly, somehow, and indirectly through reduced carbon loads or carbon capture) would seem to merit greater prioritization than high-cost efforts that would solely impact “temperature” but not impact (or worsen) the carbon load equation.

Thus, $trillions to put umbrellas in space is not the item that seems sensible to be on the top of the table. In fact, applying those principles, there are two basic approaches that seem to merit being on the top of the table: one that applies directly to the built environment and the other in the agricultural sphere.

The first, when it comes to the built environment, is High-Albedo (White) Roofing (and other human infrastructure):  Secretary of Energy Steven Chu has brought attention to the great win-win-win potential here. Building owners would see direct financial savings, the urban heat island would cool (leading to more energy savings as the ambient temperature falls),  our cities would be more comfortable, and we would reduce global warming directly (reflecting more solar radiation to space) and indirectly (the multiplicative energy savings).  What are we waiting for? Let’s get to it … make this national building code for, at least, flat-roofed buildings: yesterday!

When it comes to the agricultural space, we turn to bio-char/agri-char and why Boulder might have the most important meeting in America.  Very simply, we have the potential for a carbon-negative fuel that will, over time, also foster improve fertility in soil.  Very simply, gasification of biomass can be combined with agricultural practices to create energy, have the waste plowed back into the soil to improve fertility (while reducing fertilizer requirements), and have some of the carbon from each of these cycles captured in the soil.

“[T]he great advantage of biochar is the fact that the technique can be applied world-wide on agricultual soils, and even by rural communities in the developing world because it is relatively low tech.”

To provide a simple context, the Amazonian jungle looks to be a heavily geo-engineering environment, with “Slash and Char” agriculture, over 100s (1000s) of years having built up areas of incredibly rich soil 6+ feet deep. To provide another context, analysis of biochar potential suggest that we could be enriching the soil while sequestering more carbon than the United States currently emits. While we must drive down emissions as quickly as possible, biochar provides one of the most promising paths to not ‘reduce’ emissions but actually set us on a path toward reducing global CO2 concentrations. (And, it can be applied in innovative ways to help create jobs in some of the most impoverished areas of the world.)

This is a highly promising arena that has gotten a little attention, but not enough and certainly not enough resources.  If Secretary of Energy Chu has become a visible spokesman for White Roofing, maybe another Administration official will do the same for bio-char:

The keynote speakers for the conference will be Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Dr. Susan Solomon, Senior Scientist, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Tom Vilsack could do American farmers (and farmers globally) a great service while helping turn the tide on Global Warming’s rising seas through strong promotion of a global agenda of large-scale research and demonstration projects, with fast-tracking of movement from ‘demonstration’ to large-scale deployment when working paths are proven.

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This is a question that came into my inbox amid an exchange about the CARS Program:

Is it worth $2000 to the country to increase the MPG of one vehicle by say 10 mpg?

Of course, that is a stove piped question (and somewhat out of context one as that increased MPG, by the way, cost $4.5k to the taxpayer — not $2k).

Repeat with me:

The CARS Program was, first and foremost, a stimulus program. While promoted and advertised, the direct environmental and energy security and traffic safety benefits were secondary and tertiary concerns.

But, join me after the fold for some discussion of this question.

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The below has been moving around the web. This is an “anonymous” guest post — until the author is identified.

I AM AN AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE SHITHEEL

This morning,  I woke up to my radio alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly run by a state agency and supported by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility with its quality monitored by the Environmental Protection Agency.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the Federal Communication Commission regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I got into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the federal reserve bank.

On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service (USPS) and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshal’s inspection, and which has not been plundered of all it’s valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log on to the internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration (DARPA) and post on freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how the government better keeps its hands off my Medicare and to remind everyone that SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can’t do anything right.

We can’t afford as a nation to be stupid about paying for health care anymore. alizard, 6 May 2007

Thus, was the concluding sentence of a post over two years ago advocating the need to solve (or at least ameliorate) health care costs to create space for tackling energy problems. ALizard was responding to my comments about commonalities between energy and health care posted to yet another excellent NYCEve discussion of health care issues.

And, well, truth be told: at one point in time, when riding truly on top of the world, the United States could afford to be stupid about many things … the days where stupidity is a tolerable policy path have passed … it is time for thought and intelligence to reign.

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Spreading across the United States is a screaming mass threatening the very underpinnings of American democracy.  As put elsewhere,

An impassioned guest post from Max Gottlieb about the pace and nature of public discussion, and how serious money and serious distortion are helping prevent movement toward a more sensible, more prosperous, more sustainable future.

Impassioned screaming, even from ill-formed anti-science syndrome sufferers can have an impact …

We have used up all slack in the schedule for actions needed to defuse the global warming time bomb… Changes needed to preserve creation, the planet on which civilization developed, are… barely, still possible. It requires a transformative change of direction in Washington in the next year.

James Hansen, testimony to congress, June 23, 2008 (pdf)

I have heard from multiple sources that many U.S. Senators are now getting 100 to 200 calls a day opposing a climate and clean energy bill — and bupkes in favor.

Joe Romm, July 16th 2009

Not to mention the town halls…

The Global Warming and health care Deniers are winning as they deserve to.  We are losing.

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I have this private mantra: it’s all about energy, it’s all about climate.

Somewhat like six degrees of separation, no matter the issue area, I can (I will …) bring any and all conversation items back to our energy and climate challenges.

But, when it comes to health (and health care) and energy, we’re not talking about six degrees of separation but, in fact, at least six ways they’re intertwined …

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See the Avaaz Action Factory’s discussion of this anti-science syndrome (A.S.S.) promotion.

From their first visit to Bonner & A.S.S.

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A Fish Out of Water struggles to survive, finding a path toward a safer environment. FishOutofWater is a thoughtful, engaged scientist, passionately struggling to help us find our way toward a prosperous, climate-friendly future. Here is a guest post laying out how, with just two renewable sources, the United States could power its way out of our climate challenges — making legislation like Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy & Security (ACES) Act simply unnecessary.