EPA Should be Overhauled

The subject of coal was brought up during the recent presidential campaign cycle and President-elect Obama as well as Senator John McCain made some allusions to keeping this 19th century fossil fuel industry alive. Truth of the matter is we continue to need the energy this sooty polluting energy source provides. However, it is not the only option and the EPA is doing nothing to force this industry into cleaning up its act.

Dozens of new coal plants across the country have been put on hold in response to EPA allowing coal-burning power plants to build without addressing global warming. The coal industry’s response is to counter-sue in an attempt to prevent states from acting to fight global warming. This is just incredulous.

During the presidential campaign, the coal industry launched a $35 million ad campaign to rally public support for coal-fired electricity and to fuel opposition to legislation that Congress is crafting to slow climate change. The Australian Coal Industry spent millions to launch an offense to persuade the public that it is not a climate change villain. These advertising campaigns, quite simply, mask the harmful and polluting nature of coal-fired power plants. The public knows these advertising claims are lies. And yet they continue to try to greenwash the truth hoping the public will buy into their self-delusional pipedream.

The money spent on these greenwashing campaigns would be better spent in developing renewable energy sources. If the coal and oil industries would redirect their efforts and invest their very sizable fortunes into developing alternative energy the entire planet could get there sooner and everyone would be healthier for it. Money spent on new coal plants could also help develop wind and/or solar farms, geothermal plants or biomass development. Why fight the inevitable?

It disturbs and saddens me greatly that the EPA could issue such permits to an industry that has historically been the single most visible polluter of our environment without requiring controls on carbon dioxide. As far as I am concerned it is an indictment against the EPA. For what are they good for if they are not going to take appropriate measures to protect our environment and our health? Their action is the converse to their very name.

I can understand why the coal industry wants to do what it can to maintain its ‘business as usual’. It is the very mindset of human behavior to continue on the course that it knows best. But when that course is proving to be harmful to the health of the general population, not to mention the very environment in which we all live, then that course needs to be altered.

We as a nation have understood for decades that polluting our water, air and land cannot be tolerated. The federal government created an entire agency to protect the environment because we all know that in our endeavors to become a powerful nation we were fouling our own nests. The EPA has been given tools to combat polluters, the Clean Air Act being most notable, but continue down a path that all but proves they are in bed with these very polluters.

Other recent decisions have indicated that EPA Director Brown is, at best, sympathetic to industry polluters, and, at worst, being bought off by them. The EPA has obviously lost its mandate to protect us and therefore should be overhauled.

Finally, we will have a president that will actually listen to scientists and view them as something more than just court-jesters. The EPA better sit up and take notice.

I know the coal industry and all its related support groups employ a lot of people, but coal truly is not the answer. It has polluted our world for far too long. Alternative methods need to be employed, sooner rather than later. Monetary factors cannot dictate our future health. The only parties arguing the permits should be upheld are those who have a financial interest in having these coal-power plants be built (American Institute, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Chemistry Council and the National Association of Manufacturers). This sends a very loud message that they value profit over our health.

The Supreme Court will go no further than to tell the EPA that they must decide whether carbon dioxide endangers public health and welfare. But we already have tons of proof concerning the negative effects of excess carbon dioxide and where it comes from. Let us stop wasting money on more studies. Let us stop spinning our wheels trying to side-step the obvious, albeit expensive, solution. Let us develop renewable energy sources and get these industries up and running now.

Further reading:
CoalisnottheAnswer.org
American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity Greenwashing Dirty Coal
EPA Decision on Standards for Greenhouse Gases Draw Criticism
Is Bush interfering with EPA decision?
EPA Car Emissions Ruling Contested on Hill

Carbon Capture Sequestration is Needed Soon

The world’s population continues to grow and along with it so grows our dependence on electricity. The world is not adopting alternative and renewable fuel sources such as solar, wind, wave, etc quickly enough, so plans are being drawn up to build new coal-fired power plants around the world.

E.on, the German energy giant based in Düsseldorf, Germany, wants to build a new coal plant at Kingsnorth in Kent, England. Protesters and scientists want to stop the plan from going forward unless it is linked to a carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility which would store its emissions underground. The proposed plant has no CCS plans for Kingsnorth and so its CO2 emissions would vent into the atmosphere. Protesters will not be able to stop the proposed construction of the plant and an E.on company spokesman said they have obtained injunctions to give police more powers to arrest protesters.

With the threat of violence between environmentalists and power plant owners heading towards the boiling point, CCS research needs to be finalized soon.

E.on currently has three new pilot projects to develop CO2 capture technology in cooperation with other companies based in Canada, U.S. and Japan. The three test plants will all be built in Germany. The three projects join four existing projects that E.on is pursuing together with Alstom, Hitachi Power Europe, Siemens and TNO.

The purpose behind cooperating with so many different companies is to test the capture mechanisms with several plant construction methods.

Germany appears to be taking their role in this potentially lucrative field very seriously. Just how serious is England in its quest to be one of the world’s leaders in carbon capture technology? Despite its promise of ‘urgent detailed implementation plan’s for carbon capture nearly five years ago, it is still only intending to help fund one small-scale project which should be operational by 2014. Companies taking part in the competition to build this demonstration plant are not even sure how much money they will receive.

This month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency only just began working on the regulatory framework for this potential weapon against climate change. Estimates suggest there is enough geologic space in the U.S. to store more than 3,000 gigatons of CO2, enough to store emissions from nearly 1,000 coal-fired power plants for a millennium. CCS, however, is in its infancy and not practiced on a broad scale in the U.S. but actual production needs to take place in order to keep up with Germany.

The European Union is testing several projects and on Wednesday gave Norway additional funds for an experimental CCS project at a gas-fired power plant. The Alberta government in Canada said last week it will spend $2 billion on major CCS projects.

Other countries pursuing CCS include Australia and Japan. By 2012, the global CCS market could top $236 billion.

With coal providing 25% of global primary energy needs and generating 40% of the world’s electricity, as well as being one of the leading contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, there is doubt that coal will be replaced by alternative energy sources any time soon. This is manly due to the cheaper cost of burning coal versus oil or natural gas.

Research into CCS is urgently needed in order to keep up with the inevitable rising trend in building new coal-fired power plants. And it appears we are on the right track, but it is going to take at least another five to ten years before we begin seeing clearer skies around these mammoth polluters. Whether we will see CCS come to fruition in time to be our saving grace from choking out the planet remains to be seen. But with Germany taking the lead in the race we will know the answer sooner than we would from these other countries.

Further reading:
World Resources Institute
Science Daily

You say you want a Revolution

Let’s clean up our land, Let’s clean up our air, Let’s clean up our water. Very lofty goals. Everyone should be involved. But what is it going to cost? Let’s face it, cost is the only factor that either prohibits us or causes us to do anything.

According to a report by the Paris-based International Energy Agency, the cost will be approximately $45 trillion over the next several decades.

This is the price tag placed on the necessary "energy revolution" that will be needed to greatly reduce the world's dependence on fossil fuels while maintaining steady economic growth. More from the report: the world needs to build 1,400 nuclear power plants and vastly expand wind power, in order to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050.

Now that we have a bottom line figure and a game plan we can get started, right?

Trying to get the world’s population to agree on what is necessary is not feasible. “We require immediate policy action and technological transition on an unprecedented scale," IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka said.

A U.N.-network of scientists concluded last year that emissions have to be cut by at least half by 2050 to avoid an increase in world temperatures of between 3.6 and 4.2 degrees above pre-18th century levels. This is assuming that greenhouse gases (and therefore mankind) is the main causal factor of global warming. Other scientists say the increase in global temperature is a natural phenomena and cannot be avoided.

Even if the climate change is a natural occurrence, not induced by mankind, we will all benefit from participating in a revolution of such a grand scale.

We have the technology in place right now to lessen our dependence on fossil fuel. Solar technology, wind technology and even nuclear technology, all, if allowed to be put into place, will greatly help alleviate our dependence on fossil fuel which would result in drastic decreases in greenhouse gas emissions..

Why aren’t we using them? Why are we stubbornly holding on to old ways of heating and cooling our homes? Money.

It is expensive to convert our traditional methods of heating and air conditioning to less eco-damaging methods.

Even if every government on this planet would miraculously agree on a method of such a large transition, coming to a decision on who would bear the cost would require a revolution in thinking. This financial investment is more than three times the current size of the entire U.S. economy, 1.1% of the world’s gross domestic product.

"Carbon capture and storage" technology, allowing coal-powered power plants to catch emissions and inject them underground, is needed now. This would only be an initial first phase. This plan can easily be seen as necessary in order to prevent future contamination of our atmosphere while developing technology to prevent contamination in the first place. Sort of like stopping the leak in the bucket until we build a better bucket.

That better bucket will need to come in the form of solar, wind and nuclear power plants. The world would have to construct 32 new nuclear power plants each year, and wind-power turbines would have to be increased by 17,000 units annually. Nations would have to achieve an eight-fold reduction in carbon intensity — the amount of carbon needed to produce a unit of energy — in the transport sector.

This is a huge undertaking. We can’t get politicians to agree on how to best spend our tax dollars to benefit tax payers with what is left over after they distribute their windfall to special interest groups, how are we ever going to get them to think about cleaning up the environment? If we follow the established method of relying on politicians to pay for this revolution, this price tag is going to be much greater than $45 trillion.

I think we can all agree that we are on a dangerous course regardless of what is causing global warming. Our whole ideology on how we use energy to support our lifestyles needs to be re-examined. Kate of Hills and Plains Seedsavers directed my attention to a wonderful animation that so marvelously portrays mankind’s existence that I just have to share it here. It is entitled Carbon Weevils.

Our current lifestyles are not sustainable enough to promote the healthy life we all want. Greenhouse gases are a major contributing factor to rising hospital visits which in turn increases health costs and reduces quality of life. Rising demand for fossil fuel increases the price of that fossil fuel. The increasing number of food recalls is testament that mankind cannot maintain a safe food supply due to the sheer number of people to be fed. The number of starving people is rising due in part to converting food crops into fuel crops. Even though the world produces enough food to feed everyone, if it isn’t profitable to do so we won’t. Corporations will only participate if it is in their best financial interest.

We simply cannot continue on this path. Getting the world to act together in the best interest of each and every one of us will indeed require a revolution.

Smarter Electrical Grid Could Save Us Money and Energy

We have heard of smart appliances - fine tuned washers, dryers, water heaters and refrigerators – but what about a smart electrical grid?

These appliances are outfitted with computer chips to help prevent the colossal power failures (brown outs) that plunged large areas of the U.S. into darkness in 2003 and 1996. The chips sense when the electrical transmission system is stressed and partially turn themselves off to save kilowatts. Using these chips in a clothes dryer, traditionally the largest user of residential electrical energy, can turn off the heating element until the grid restabilizes.

The electric grid, a vast network of transmission lines that carries energy from power plants to your home, wasn’t designed to anything more than what it does. We flip a switch or plug something in and generally get as much power as we're willing to pay for. But with the ever increasing demand for more power plants and the growing environmental consequences of providing that power coupled with the rising costs in generating electrical energy this system is unsustainable. As a result, power providers and technology companies are making the electric grid smarter.

In order to convert this passive supplier of electricity into a means of telling us, in our homes, when power demand is high, power companies are testing methods to coax users to reduce their demand during peak periods. One method for cutting back on electrical use is through smart appliances, another is by a glowing amber dot on a light switch that will blink to ask you to turn that switch off.

Smart-grid technologies have gotten small tests throughout North America, as utilities and regulators scout how to coax people to reduce their demand for power. The utility Xcel Energy plans to soon begin a $100 million smart grid project reaching 100,000 homes in Boulder, Colo.

In a separate test that began last September in Milton, situated on the western edge of the Greater Toronto area, 200 test participants are given the ability to use their personal computers to visit an online control panel that configures the home's energy consumption. Each subject chooses the temperature and which lights should be on or off at certain times of the day. Rules can be set for different kinds of days, so the house might be warmer and darker on summer weekdays when the family is out.

The family can override those changes manually, whether it's by turning on the porch light or raising the thermostat to ward off a Canadian chill. But the system guards against waste. If midnight comes and no one has remembered to lower the thermostat and turn off the porch light, those steps just happen.

These little tweaks add up nicely for another person testing the Milton system, Marian Rakusan. He's saved at least $300 on utility bills since the program began.

Programmable thermostats and other "smart home" controls have allowed people control their energy use for some time now. The big change here is the combination of these controls with that blinking amber light on the switch -- where the grid talks back.

Milton's local gas and electricity retailer, Direct Energy, will set those amber dots blinking in an emergency. It might happen a few times in a summer month. Maybe there will be congestion in Ontario's overtaxed transmission network. Perhaps a power plant will be down for maintenance. Or the number of air conditioners in use will overwhelm electric capacity.

If users have not responded quickly enough during times of grid-stress or their individual settings demand that the power company step in then Direct Energy will be able to remotely enforce conservation, should it become necessary. It can raise the set temperature in a participant's home by 2 degrees Celsius in the summer (nearly 4 degrees Fahrenheit), reducing its air conditioning load. The company also has permission to shut off the testers' water heaters and electric pool pumps for four hours at a time during these power emergencies.

Most people prefer this reach of the power company into their homes as opposed to having rolling black-outs. California officials recently had to back away from a proposal to require remote-controlled thermostats in new buildings.

An alternative to the test in Milton is to provide powerful economic incentives to force conservation.

An advanced notion of this will be tested this summer in 1,100 homes served by Baltimore Gas & Electric. Pricing plans will vary, but generally the households will pay the cheapest, "off-peak" rates most of the time. Some testers will pay higher rates every weekday afternoon. And all of them will be subject to "critical peak" periods of even higher charges, declared on as many as 12 weekday afternoons with stress on the grid. The Maryland utility will have its own version of Milton's amber dots. Most of the homes will get 3-inch-high orbs that will glow different colors to indicate the price of electricity: red instead of their usual green, for example, during critical peak periods.

By far the best way to save energy consumption is to have the whole system automatically adjust itself for the highs and lows of electrical use. Controllers are being tested for this purpose. A Demand Controller is a microcomputer load control system that monitors the amount of energy being used in your home and can turn off selected devices until power consumption has lessened. Maximum tolerable loads can be set by the home owner with the highest-conservation setting for dishwashers to start only when electricity prices are at their lowest, or when wind power has kicked on. This can save the home owner 20% to 70% off their energy bill.

Electricity use per home has risen 23% from 1981 to 2001, according to the Department of Energy. Electronics and appliances, and our decreasing tolerance for sweating through the summers are mainly to blame for this increase. The Census Bureau says 46% of single-family homes completed in the U.S. in 1975 had air conditioning. By 2006 it was 89%.

Raw materials that fuel power plants are soaring in price and being eyed more skeptically by regulators concerned about air quality and greenhouse gases. We simply cannot continue to build more coal plants even if they do claim to be cleaner burning. More efficient use of what we already have can be the better answer. A mere 5% improvement in U.S. electric efficiency would prevent 90 large coal-fired power plants from having to be built over the next 20 years, according to Jon Wellinghoff, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

In some states, residents can get rebates if they let the utility trigger radio transmitters on their air conditioners that cycle the chillers off for a few minutes in strained summer hours.

Companies such as EnerNOC have built software and sensor networks that can remotely dim lights or raise refrigerator temperatures inside businesses, in an instant. For homes, upgraded electric meters can offer near-real-time feedback on energy use. And new generations of appliances and thermostats can coordinate with each other and electric meters over in-home wireless networks.

Whatever smart system is adopted, it is sure to be an improvement for both the environment and the home owner.

China’s whitewashed green initiative

China plans on shutting down many Beijing-area factories and cement plants for two months beginning in late July as a key part of the effort to clean the city's famously polluted air for the Olympic Games. Sorry China, temporary closures, while all eyes are on you during the Olympics does not count as cleaning up the environment.

Oh but they are planning on banning the use of half the city's 3.5 million vehicles, disallowing spray paint and other harsh chemicals to be used outdoors, closing about one-tenth of the city's gas stations, and halting construction in the Beijing area, which now has about 40 square miles of construction sites. This is only a temporary measure. They are basically going to put the city on hold during the Olympic games.

Their idea of staging “green games” does not involve anything more than to temporarily mothball 19 heavily polluting enterprises, including steel mills, coke plants and refineries. Coal-burning power plants, in China, account for a marked increase in soot, toxic chemicals and other climate-changing gases emitted into the atmosphere last year. In early April, a dense cloud of pollutants over Northern China sailed to nearby Seoul, sweeping along dust and desert sand before wafting across the Pacific. An American satellite spotted the cloud as it crossed the American West Coast.

The increase in global-warming gases from China's coal use will probably exceed that for all industrialized countries combined over the next 25 years, surpassing by five times the reduction in such emissions that the Kyoto Protocol seeks.

Sulfur dioxide production threatens the health of China’s citizens, contributing to about 400,000 premature deaths a year. It also causes acid rain that poisons lakes, rivers, forests and crops. Photo courtesy of Chang W. Lee, New York Times.

China uses more coal than the United States, the European Union and Japan combined. Every week to 10 days, another coal-fired power plant opens somewhere in China that is big enough to serve all the households in Dallas or San Diego.

China has a history of buying cheap and often antiquated equipment from well connected domestic suppliers rather than importing costlier more fuel efficient modern equipment from other industrialized nations that would better serve to help clean up the gases and other pollutants emitted from their coal burning plants.

China is beginning to enjoy the increased access to electricity that until only recently was available for a few hours in the evening for many rural families. Bringing electrical power to hundreds of millions of people will take some time and the quickest and cheapest way to do this is through burning through their abundant supply of coal. Unfortunately, the rest of the world is suffering from the resultant pollution.

Filters near Lake Tahoe in the mountains of eastern California "are the darkest that we've seen" outside smoggy urban areas, said Steven S. Cliff, an atmospheric scientist at the University of California at Davis.

Shutting down a few factories and banning cars from Beijing’s roads may help visitors breathe a little easier during the Olympics but China has a long way to go clean up the air we will all breathe after the Olympics are over.

Alliant Energy Corp. - disingenuous environmentalism

Alliant Energy Corp., a utility holding company based in Madison, Wisconsin, “has been quietly nurturing a side business called WindConnect, which offers expertise to help get wind-energy projects built. It is Alliant ’s fastest-growing non-utility business and is their most in-demand of their services.

WindConnect gets involved in measuring wind speeds, designing projects and assessing their environmental impact, along with meeting with land owners, contracting with construction crews and building access roads, said Frank Greb, WindConnect vice president and general manager. “When the business started in 1999, the primary focus was building substations and helping developers connect their wind facilities to the electric grid; therein, the WindConnect name. We have grown way beyond that, ” Greb said.

WindConnect, actually a subsidiary of Alliant’s RMT subsidiary, has been involved in more than 30 wind-power projects around the United States, including projects in New York, California, Washington, New Mexico and Wisconsin - the company claims it has been involved with.

WindConnect earned revenues of $44 million in 2005, $64 million in 2006, and expects to top $150 million this year. Overall, Alliant reported $3.4 billion in total revenue in 2006.

The story isn’t all good. Alliant is currently planning to build a new coal-fired power plant. Ow! Bad news for the environment. I was going to suggest this might be a good company for investing in but this coal power plant just took it off the table. How can they pretend to be for the environment and then build one of the biggest reasons we are in this mess?

This just proves once again that the environment is not a good enough reason for energy companies to pursue any technology. They only respond to market pressures.

The company is publicly traded on the NYSE, stock symbol LNT.