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Fwd: [GW-ACT-LEADERS] Renewables 2010 Global Status Report
by James Kotcon 06 Aug '10

06 Aug '10

Those who say "It can't be done" need to get out of the way of those who are doing it. JBK >>> Edward Mainland <emainland(a)COMCAST.NET> 8/4/2010 1:03 PM >>> These latest numbers can serve to answer those who contend that renewable power can't be scaled up fast enough as fossil fuel sources are supplanted by cleaner energy options and the transition proceeds toward a low-carbon energy economy.. Note in particular the explosive growth in the solar PV market -- 60% yearly for the past decade. Correct policies, supported by Sierra Club and other advocates of renewable power, can help keep these trends bending upward. -- Ed M. Renewables 2010 Global Status Report · $150 billion was invested in new renewable energy capacity in 2009; up from $20 billion in 2004. · Worldwide, about 500,000 people are employed in the wind industry, and 600,000 in solar energy · Nearly half (47%) of all new power generation capacity built in 2008 and 2009 worldwide was renewable · 305 gigawatts of existing renewable electric power generation capacity worldwide (by comparison: the entire US power generation capacity is 1000 gigawatts) · At current rates of construction, another 500 gigawatts of renewable electric power generation will be online by 2020 · Solar water and space heating provided another 180 gigawatts of thermal capacity · Solar hot water is used in 70 million households, mostly in China · 38 gigawatts of wind power were added in 2009, bringing the world total to 159 gigawatts · Global photovoltaics market has grown 60% per year every year for the past decade, increasing 100-fold since 2000. · More than 100 countries have renewable policies Download the report here: http://www.ren21.net/globalstatusreport/REN21_GSR_2010_full.pdf - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS list, send any message to: CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp To view the Sierra Club List Terms & Conditions, see: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/terms.asp

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Re: [EC] Hydro-Fracking Team on the Club's online Activist Network
by Paul Wilson 04 Aug '10

04 Aug '10

I don't see anybody from WV on this Team. So I hope some of you will explore the SC Activist Network and join Team that you are interested in. cheers, paul w. http://connect.sierraclub.org/Team/Hydrofracking_Team -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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Fw: Renewables 2010 Global Status Report
by Jim Sconyers 04 Aug '10

04 Aug '10

Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Edward Mainland <emainland(a)COMCAST.NET> To: CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Sent: Wed, August 4, 2010 1:03:54 PM Subject: Renewables 2010 Global Status Report These latest numbers can serve to answer those who contend that renewable power can't be scaled up fast enough as fossil fuel sources are supplanted by cleaner energy options and the transition proceeds toward a low-carbon energy economy.. Note in particular the explosive growth in the solar PV market -- 60% yearly for the past decade. Correct policies, supported by Sierra Club and other advocates of renewable power, can help keep these trends bending upward. -- Ed M. Renewables 2010 Global Status Report · $150 billion was invested in new renewable energy capacity in 2009; up from $20 billion in 2004. · Worldwide, about 500,000 people are employed in the wind industry, and 600,000 in solar energy · Nearly half (47%) of all new power generation capacity built in 2008 and 2009 worldwide was renewable · 305 gigawatts of existing renewable electric power generation capacity worldwide (by comparison: the entire US power generation capacity is 1000 gigawatts) · At current rates of construction, another 500 gigawatts of renewable electric power generation will be online by 2020 · Solar water and space heating provided another 180 gigawatts of thermal capacity · Solar hot water is used in 70 million households, mostly in China · 38 gigawatts of wind power were added in 2009, bringing the world total to 159 gigawatts · Global photovoltaics market has grown 60% per year every year for the past decade, increasing 100-fold since 2000. · More than 100 countries have renewable policies Download the report here: http://www.ren21.net/globalstatusreport/REN21_GSR_2010_full.pdf - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS list, send any message to: CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp To view the Sierra Club List Terms & Conditions, see: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/terms.asp

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Fwd: Great NYT piece on relative costs of nukes, solar, ee
by James Kotcon 03 Aug '10

03 Aug '10

Great piece. I was not aware of it until this article pointed it out, one of the reasons current nuclear energy costs are so "cheap" is that the utilities just wrote off the capital costs of all those nukes that went belly-up in the 80s, to the tune of over $140 billion. JBK >>> Jeff Schmidt <jeff.schmidt(a)sierraclub.org> 7/27/2010 11:44 AM >>> News - Great NYT piece on relative costs of nukes, solar, ee July 26, 2010 Nuclear Energy Loses Cost Advantage By DIANA S. POWERS The New York Times PARIS — Solar photovoltaic systems have long been painted as a clean way to generate electricity, but expensive compared with other alternatives to oil, like nuclear power. No longer. In a “historic crossover,” the costs of solar photovoltaic systems have declined to the point where they are lower than the rising projected costs of new nuclear plants, according to a paper published this month. “Solar photovoltaics have joined the ranks of lower-cost alternatives to new nuclear plants,” John O. Blackburn, a professor of economics at Duke University, in North Carolina, and Sam Cunningham, a graduate student, wrote in the paper, “Solar and Nuclear Costs — The Historic Crossover.” This crossover occurred at 16 cents per kilowatt hour, they said. While solar power costs have been declining, the costs of nuclear power have been rising inexorably over the past eight years, said Mark Cooper, senior fellow for economic analysis at the University of Vermont Law School’s Institute for Energy and Environment. Estimates of construction costs — about $3 billion per reactor in 2002 — have been regularly revised upward to an average of about $10 billion per reactor, and the estimates are likely to keep rising, said Mr. Cooper, an analyst specializing in tracking nuclear power costs. Identifying the real costs of competing energy technologies is complicated by the wide range of subsidies and tax breaks involved. As a result, U.S. taxpayers and utility users could end up spending hundreds of billions, even trillions of dollars more than necessary to achieve an ample low-carbon energy supply, if legislative proposals before the U.S. Congress lead to adoption of an ambitious nuclear development program, Mr. Cooper said in a report last November. The report, “All Risk, No Reward for Taxpayers and Ratepayers,” was a response to a legislative wish list developed by the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group. The institute has called for a mix of U.S. subsidies, tax credits, loan guarantees, procedural simplifications and institutional support on a large scale. At the state level, the industry has also pressed the case for “construction work in progress,” a financing system that requires electricity users to pay for the cost of new reactors during their construction and sometimes before construction starts. With long construction periods and frequent delays, this can mean that electricity users start to pay higher prices as much as 12 years before the plants produce electricity. The institute’s Web site says the financing system “reduces the cost ratepayers will pay for power from the plant when it goes into commercial operation,” by lowering interest payments on capital costs and spreading the costs over time. “The utilities insist that the construction work in progress charged to ratepayers also include the return on equity that the utilities normally earn by taking the risk of building the plant — even though they have shifted the risk to the ratepayers,” Mr. Cooper said. “If the plant is not built or suffers cost overruns, the ratepayers will bear the burden.” History suggests that the risk of this is not negligible. In 1985, Forbes magazine dubbed the construction of the first generation of U.S. nuclear plants “the largest managerial disaster in business history.” The first round of plants resulted in write-offs through bankruptcies and “stranded costs” — investments in existing power plants made uncompetitive by deregulation — which essentially transferred nearly $100 billion in liabilities to electricity users, said Doug Koplow, an economist and founder of Earth Track, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which campaigns against subsidies it considers environmentally harmful. “Although the industry frequently points to its low operating costs as evidence of its market competitiveness, this economic structure is an artifact of large subsidies to capital, historical write-offs of capital, and ongoing subsidies to operating costs,” Mr. Koplow said. From 1943 to 1999 the U.S. government paid nearly $151 billion, in 1999 dollars, in subsidies for wind, solar and nuclear power, Marshall Goldberg of the Renewable Energy Policy Project, a research organization in Washington, wrote in a July 2000 report. Of this total, 96.3 percent went to nuclear power, the report said. Still, these costs pale in comparison with the financial risks and subsidies that are likely to accompany the next wave of nuclear plant construction, Mr. Cooper said. A November 2009 research report by Citigroup Global Markets termed the construction risks, power price risks, and operational risks “so large and variable that individually they could each bring even the largest utility to its knees.” Those risks were mentioned in a 2009 report by the credit rating agency Moody’s. “Moody’s is considering taking a more negative view for those issuers seeking to build new nuclear power plants,” the report said. “Historically, most nuclear-building utilities suffered ratings downgrades — and sometimes several — while building these facilities. Political and policy conditions are spurring applications for new nuclear power generation for the first time in years. Nevertheless, most utilities now seeking to build nuclear generation do not appear to be adjusting their financial policies, a credit negative.” Adding to the risks facing any reactor construction program, only one of five proposed designs under consideration by U.S. utilities has ever been built, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said. “No one has ever built a contemporary reactor to contemporary standards, so no one has the experience to state with confidence what it will cost,” said Stephen Maloney, a utilities management consultant. “We see cost escalations as companies come up the learning curve.” Market risk has been heightened by the recent recession. “The current crisis has decreased energy demand even more than the 1970s oil price shocks,” Mr. Cooper said. The recession “appears to have caused a fundamental shift in consumption patterns that will lower the long-term growth rate of electricity demand.” Meanwhile, most of the projects that have created the increase of license applications to the regulatory commission have already experienced difficulties. “About half of the projects that have been put forward at the start of the next generation of reactors have been delayed or canceled,” Mr. Cooper said. “Those that have moved forward have suffered substantial cost escalation and several have received negative financial reviews. “Of the 19 applications at the N.R.C., 90 percent have had some type of delay or cancellation, run into a design problem, suffered cost increases and/or had the utility bond rating downgraded by Wall Street.” Despite the economic challenges, the nuclear power industry remains unfazed. “This is not a hospitable environment in which to commission any large base-load power plant,” said Marvin Fertel, president and chief executive of the Nuclear Energy Institute, in a briefing to the financial community. Still, he said: “Fortunately new nuclear plants won’t be in service until 2016 or later, so today’s market conditions are not entirely relevant.” Mr. Cooper said the industry’s equanimity was based, at least partially, on the supportive cushion provided by loan guarantees and work-in-progress financing. “With such financing the utility is making a one-way bet, allowing it to make a profit even when the project fails,” he said. “The people bear the risks and costs; the nuclear utilities take the profits. Without loan guarantees and guaranteed construction work in progress, these reactors will simply not be built, because the capital markets will not finance them.” Without public guarantees, nuclear projects often cannot get financing. AmerenUE, the Missouri utility, suspended in April 2009 plans to build a $6 billion, 1,600-megawatt reactor at its Callaway County nuclear site, after trying unsuccessfully to get the State Legislature to repeal a longstanding ban on work-in-progress financing. The continued existence of the ban “makes financing a new plant in the current economic environment impossible,” the utility said. Similarly, Florida Power and Light said in January that it would not proceed beyond licensing with plans to build two new reactors at its Turkey Point site, after the Florida Public Service Commission rejected its request to pass on a $1.27 billion cost increase to its users. Yet, despite episodic resistance at the local level, financial support for the industry at the U.S. government level has been increasingly evident in successive versions of climate and energy bills before the U.S. Congress, including the most recent, the American Power Act, which is delayed in the Senate until after the summer recess. Nuclear subsidies in the Senate proposal include five-year accelerated depreciation; tax credits for investments and production and eligibility for the advanced energy tax credit; an increase in government insurance against regulatory delays; access to private activity bonds; and a $36 billion increase in loan guarantees, bringing the total to $56 billion. That remains less than the Nuclear Energy Institute’s goal of $100 billion, an amount it describes as “a minimal acceptable loan volume.” Still, Mr. Fertel said in his financial briefing that “‘strong political support’ understates our position.” Federal loan guarantees cut nuclear construction financing costs by allowing the utilities to sell bonds at a lower interest rate. But at the same time the guarantee means that “the U.S. Treasury, and therefore the taxpayers, are on the hook for the value of the loans should they go bad,” Mr. Cooper said. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the average risk of default for such Department of Energy loan guarantees is about 50 percent, which is the historic rate for the nuclear industry. Mr. Koplow of Earth Track said two of the other subsidies in the Senate bill, the investment tax credit and five-year accelerated depreciation, would together “be worth between $1.3 billion and nearly $3 billion on a net present value basis per new reactor. “This is equivalent to between 15 and 20 percent of the total all-in cost of the reactors, as projected by industry.” Over all, Mr. Koplow said, the proposed subsidy package would undermine the equity requirements of the nuclear loan guarantee program, designed to ensure that investors have a strong interest in the long-term success of the venture. “Although investors will get all the profit if the reactor project is successful, they will bear virtually none of the financial risk if the project fails,” he said. “This is a disastrous incentive structure.” By distorting energy markets, these subsidies would “effectively make the government the chooser of which energy technologies will be winners and which will lose,” he said. The American Power Act “does not build a neutral policy platform on which all energy technologies must compete.” The tax breaks for nuclear would “greatly impede market access for competing energy sources,” Mr. Koplow said. He said handing out huge subsidies would also cloud the transparency of decision-making. “This approach,” he said, “which replaces price signals with decisions by a handful of often unnamed individuals within the U.S. Department of Energy, plays to none of the inherent strengths of the U.S. market system to spur innovation and effectively allocate risks and rewards. Further, the basis, and sometimes scale, of these subsidy decisions is largely hidden from the public view.” For Mr. Cooper, the core issue at stake is one of opportunity cost. “While the cost estimates of nuclear power continue to rise, the potential for energy efficiency measures to reduce the need for energy are far cheaper,” he said. Lower-cost, low-carbon technologies are already available, and cost trends for several others indicate that a combination of efficiency and renewable technologies could meet projected power needs while also achieving aggressive carbon-reduction targets, Mr. Cooper said. In a June 2009 report drawing on several earlier studies, Mr. Cooper said that energy efficiency, cogeneration and renewable sources could meet power needs at an average cost of 6 cents per kilowatt hour, compared with a cost of 12 cents to 20 cents per kilowatt hour for nuclear power. Choosing the nuclear route, and constructing 100 new reactors, would translate into an extra cost to taxpayers and electricity users of $1.9 trillion to $4.4 trillion over the 40-year life of the reactors, compared with the costs of developing energy efficiency and renewable sources, the report said. Mr. Cooper said it would make sense for policy makers, standing in the place of the market, to choose the least costly alternatives first. “In an attempt to circumvent the sound judgment of the capital markets, nuclear advocates erroneously claim that subsidies lower the financing costs for nuclear reactors and so are good for consumers,” he said. “But shifting risk does not eliminate it. Furthermore, subsidies induce utilities and regulators to take greater risks that will cost the taxpayers and the ratepayers dearly. “The risks that have dismayed Wall Street should be taken seriously by policy makers because they would cost not just hundreds of billions of dollars in losses on reactors that are canceled, but also trillions in excess costs for ratepayers when reactors are brought to completion by utilities that fail to pursue the lower-cost, less risky options that are available. “The frantic effort of the nuclear industry to increase federal loan guarantees and secure ratepayer funding of construction work in progress from state legislatures is an admission that the technology is so totally uneconomic that the industry will forever be a ward of state, resulting in a uniquely American form of nuclear socialism.” - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the CONS-FRED list, send any message to: CONS-FRED-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp Sign up to receive Sierra Club Insider, the flagship e-newsletter. Sent out twice a month, it features the Club's latest news and activities. Subscribe and view recent editions at http://www.sierraclub.org/insider/

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Fwd: [GW-ACT-LEADERS] Where next for the wrecked US climate bill?
by James Kotcon 03 Aug '10

03 Aug '10

A call for trench warfare, i. e., a return to the courts instead of Congress. JBK >>> Edward Mainland <emainland(a)COMCAST.NET> 8/2/2010 1:38 PM >>> Where next for the wrecked US climate bill? There is a chance to build on the rubble of the Senate's failure to cap carbon emissions, says Eric Pooley Eric Pooley for Yale Environment 360, part of the Guardian Environment Network, Thursday 29 July 2010 14.57 BST http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/29/wrecked-us-climate- bill Senate Democrats hope to pass a narrower energy bill this week that would increase the liability of companies for oil spills, for instance in the Gulf of Mexico. Photograph: Sipa Press / Rex Features Following the rocky path of climate legislation in the U.S. Congress these past years brought me back to the 1980s, and my time as a crime reporter in New York City. After a shooting in those days, a homicide detective named Marty Davin would go to the hospital and intercept the gunshot victim on a gurney outside the emergency room. If the victim was conscious, Davin would lean over and ask, "Who killed you?" That usually got the victim's attention, along with an I'm-not-dead-yet protest. Davin would reply, "You are going to die. You might as well tell me who did it." As I interviewed the sponsor of whichever emissions-reduction bill had just been gunned down, I often thought of Davin. The politicians and climate campaigners would assure me that they were still alive — passage of a carbon cap was inevitable, they'd say — and I'd remind myself that they had survived countless near-death experiences. But what happened last week, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced he would not even try to bring a compromise climate bill to the Senate floor, was not just another setback. Sometimes dead really is dead — and for this Congress, barring a miracle, climate action is finished. With an ugly election looming in November, it may be years before we get another chance to debate a bill that prices carbon. And the consensus approach to federal climate action — the idea that cap- and-trade was the most politically viable policy — may well be dead, too. This is a time to take stock. The first question is whether this was a failure of policy; a failure of politics, message, and messenger; or both? Second, is there a Plan B around which the climate campaign should now unify? And third, what needs to be done to allow a better outcome when the next opportunity finally does appear? No one who follows climate politics could have been very surprised by Reid's move. The bigger shock was his decision to remove from the bill a mandate that utilities must generate 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources. (Proponents hope to offer it as a floor amendment.) It was if the Senate was saying: Anything remotely effective, we're not going to do. When Reid pulled the plug, I thought back to a snowy afternoon in Copenhagen last December. Sitting with Al Gore in an empty hotel café, I asked him to contemplate this very moment. "If the United States doesn't act," he replied, "if the Senate defeats the legislation or waters it down to a point where it is not even worth having a bill, that is an event horizon beyond which it is difficult to see." He parsed the same issues then that climate campaigners are parsing now: "It may mean there is a fundamental flaw in the international political approach, but I'm not sure there is a good alternative. The reality is so dire that a new plan would have to emerge — but just now I can't imagine what it would be." Gore had a point. When the goal is emissions reduction, there aren't many alternatives: You've got to reduce emissions. The Plan B options now being offered by various advocates should be vigorously debated, but all of them seem vulnerable to the same polluted politics that killed the cap. Advocates of the carbon tax are ready to take a run at their goal, and Godspeed — but it is hard to see how politicians who were terrified to support a cap (because opponents labeled it a tax) will suddenly become bold enough to support a carbon tax. Policy groups such as the Breakthrough Institute argue that instead of making dirty fuels more expensive, it's time for intensive energy research and development to make clean fuels cheaper. That sounds reasonable, but without the revenue stream that a cap or tax would provide — and in an era of budget cutbacks — it is hard to see government supplying the massive, long-term funding their plan requires. Is the cap so fundamentally flawed that it should be abandoned forever? I don't think so. I believe it needs to be liberated from legislative bloat and rehabilitated as a modest first step: a tool for regulating power sector emissions, the job it performed so successfully in the 1990s, when America tamed acid rain. It's worth remembering that while climate politics were bogging down, climate policy mechanisms were being improved. Clever wonks found ways to cushion consumers and high- carbon industries from the price impact of the cap, while preserving a price signal for generators. Trading restrictions were added to keep speculators out of the carbon game. Though the term cap-and-trade has been demonized, the cap itself isn't broken. Some will argue that this latest setback is proof that the U.S. will never cap carbon. I reject that view. All we can say for sure is that the U.S. will never cap or price carbon until the politics of the issue change — so the first order of business must be to begin improving the political atmosphere. During the three years I worked on The Climate War, a narrative of the campaign to pass a carbon cap, I came to realize I was writing a political thriller, a whodunit with multiple culprits. Let's look for lessons by considering some of the culprits, starting with the most obvious. 1. The Professional Deniers. Gore and environmental leaders made a tactical error several years ago when they declared the science "settled" and refused to engage the forces of denial and delay. The basic science was indeed settled, but the resulting message vacuum was the perfect medium for those who sow doubt and confusion about global climate change. It shouldn't be surprising that so many Americans remain skeptical about global warming. For 20 years, this loose network of PR pros, working for industry associations and anti-tax think tanks, has spread doubt about climate science and fear about climate economics, claiming that any attempt to cap CO2 would wreck the American economy. Their disinformation, amplified via the Internet, helped poison the debate. To counter the deniers' campaign, President Obama needs to speak out forcefully, and champions of the clean energy economy must point to the new jobs that are already being created by the renewable energy economy and show Americans precisely where they fit into it. 2. Senate Republicans. Most climate campaigners understand the folly of trying to remake the American energy system without bipartisan support. But it's hard to forge centrist solutions when an entire party is denying there's a problem and vilifying the solutions. A scaled-back approach, one that can be sold as a modest, incremental step and not a new industrial revolution, might fare better. There was a time — 2007 and 2008, to be precise — when some Republicans were moving away from deny-and-delay tactics. (In 2007, briefly, Newt Gingrich supported the carbon cap.) More recently, opposition to climate action has become a litmus test in the GOP. Arizona Republican John McCain, who sponsored the Senate's first serious climate bills but now faces a primary challenge from the right, recently called a successor bill "a farce." His mantle of Republican climate courage passed to Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who took so much heat from his own party that he withdrew from the climate bill he helped write. Graham's position has been incoherent since then, but he has signaled support for a cap on the power sector. That could be something to build on. 3. Senate Democrats. After Reid pulled the plug, Democrats were quick to blame Republicans for obstruction. But what about the obstructionists within the Democratic ranks? Harry Reid didn't have the clout to force action on this issue because a dozen or more centrist Democrats — from states that either mine coal or produce much of their electricity from it — were dug in against it. It is impossible to tell if the senators were truly concerned about what the cap would do to their state economies — nonpartisan studies suggest its impact would be minimal — or just worried about what attack ads would do to them. Again, a more modest first step could change the dynamic. The crucial thing is to get started. 4. The Green Group. At a meeting in February 2007, the Green Group, an unofficial association of the leaders of the big U.S. environmental non-profits, told Harry Reid they supported a single legislative goal: An economy-wide cap. Their strategy was to assemble the broadest possible coalition to push the broadest possible bill. Given the magnitude of the crisis and the need to reduce emissions quickly, this made sense. Politically, though, it proved disastrous, because it led to bills of such cost, scope, and complexity that they scared the pants off timid legislators. The Green Group held out for an economy-wide bill even after it became clear, in late 2009, that it was unachievable in the Senate. Only recently did 5. The Power Barons. When the eleventh-hour search for a compromise began, the utilities got too greedy. If they had to go it alone, they argued, they deserved virtually all of the carbon allowances in the program for free. This left too few for other crucial purposes, such as cushioning manufacturers from higher electricity prices. Worse, in exchange for supporting a carbon cap, some utilities demanded relief from Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations governing conventional pollutants such as mercury. Like the greens, they asked for too much and got nothing. (The greens, however, were overreaching on behalf of the planet, not their own coffers.) Some utility bosses were relieved to see the bill die. Those feelings may prove short-lived as the battle to reduce emissions moves to the EPA and the courts. Some advocates, such as Lee Wasserman of the Rockefeller Family Fund, regard the decision to negotiate with the power barons as the height of folly. Washington, they argue, should simply dictate the terms of surrender to the polluters. Such a stance ignores an important fact: It isn't possible to remake the U.S. energy system without negotiating with the power barons. Punishing generators means punishing households that pay electricity bills. That doesn't mean, however, that the politicians should give the barons everything they want. But there was only one player with the clout to cut a fair deal with them, and he was missing in action. 6. The President. Barack Obama chose not to lead on this issue. His decision to address health care reform before energy and climate change doomed the latter. With advisors Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod whispering that climate was a losing proposition (a self-fulfilling prophesy, to be sure), Obama never threw himself behind a particular climate bill. He left it to the Senate, the Green Group, and the power bosses — all of whom were sorely in need of adult supervision. The real grownups in this tale were Rep. Henry Waxman and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who last year surprised the Obama Administration by taking a comprehensive climate bill to the House floor. The White House had no choice but to help whip the vote, and it passed. Then Obama stopped trying, and the Senate refused to take up the legislation. It was a colossal failure of nerve, and a decision that likely destroyed any chance of achieving climate action in Obama's first term. Since the president and his political advisers thought an economy-wide cap was too heavy a lift, Obama should have led a tactical retreat to what, in the past several months, became the last-ditch compromise position: the cap on the electric power sector. Had negotiations focused on this months ago instead of weeks ago, and had the president thrown his weight behind it then, we might today be celebrating a step forward instead of mourning another failure. Only Obama had the authority to call this audible early. The environmental NGOs and their allies were too invested in the economy-wide approach; they needed Obama to lead them. He refused. To the bitter end, the White House pursued what his aides called a "stealth strategy" that deployed the president only sparingly. As a result, he failed to take advantage of the BP oil spill. When its terrible scope became apparent, in June, Obama began talking about the need to cap carbon and accelerate the transition to clean energy. But it was a fleeting moment. Many climate campaigners knew the climate bill was dead on June 15, when Obama gave his long-awaited Oval Office address on the oil spill. Instead of making an explicit connection to the climate bill — and explaining that by capping carbon the U.S. could speed its transition to clean energy and help break its addiction to fossil fuels — Obama whiffed. He had a road map but didn't try to share it with the people. "We don't yet know precisely how we're going to get there," he said. Today, with that map in shreds, we surely don't. As climate campaigners wait however long it takes to get another shot at legislation, there is important work to be done. Greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. have been dropping — and not just because of the recession. The task is to build on this trend during the economic recovery. Changes in our energy infrastructure are making this possible. In Texas, our highest-emitting state and a bastion of climate skepticism, carbon emissions have been declining since 2004 thanks in part to a renewable energy standard — signed into law by then-Gov. George W. Bush — that accelerated the installation of wind power and created thousands of jobs along the way. The Department of Energy now has 7,000 clean energy projects across the country — projects that save money, create jobs, and reduce emissions. According to an analysis by the World Resources Institute, by leveraging existing authority over the next ten years the U.S. could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent to 12 percent below 2005 levels. This is far short of the 17 percent reduction Obama promised in Copenhagen and nothing close to what needs to be done. But if we continue cutting emissions before asking voters to embrace a cap, we prove that cuts are both technologically feasible and economically sustainable. And we'll be in a better position when the next legislative opportunity comes. Until then, the climate war will be waged by cities, states, regional cap-and-trade programs, and, above all, the EPA, which early next year is set to begin regulating stationary sources of CO2 — power plants and large factories. Welcome to the "glorious mess" — Michigan Rep. John Dingell's phrase for the tangle of regulation and litigation that will follow when Congress fails to act. We are about to experience precisely the sort of costly, protracted, plant-by-plant trench warfare the cap was intended to avoid. Since the utilities and the manufacturers weren't willing to cut a deal, this is what they get. The fragile period of compromise and cooperation between environmentalists and big business may now be coming to an end. Green groups that have invested time and money into the legislative process are now putting on their war paint and returning to the courts, with a renewed focus on stopping new coal- fired power plants and shutting down the oldest and dirtiest ones. Tough new EPA rules for conventional pollutants will help, and so will new EPA carbon regulations. Perhaps these strict new regulations will refresh the power bosses' appetite for a cap. But they have plenty of lawyers, and the long, ugly battles over implementation of EPA regulations could extend the current period of uncertainty by many years. Republicans (and some Democrats) will try to strip EPA of its authority over carbon, or at least delay implementation of its new rules. In effect, the Senate will be saying that Congress alone should have the power to act — so that it can then not exercise that power. Obama's aides say the president will be fully engaged in the battle to save EPA authority over carbon. It is a fight that he can't possibly duck, because it is our last line of defense. As Gore reminded me in Copenhagen, "The fact that this is extremely hard doesn't mean we should quit." -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "SC CNRCC CONST Climate & Energy" group. To post to this group, send email to sc-cnrcc-const-climate--energy(a)googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sc-cnrcc-const-climate--energy+unsubscribe(a)googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sc-cnrcc-const-climate--energy?hl=en. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS list, send any message to: CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp Sign up to receive Sierra Club Insider, the flagship e-newsletter. Sent out twice a month, it features the Club's latest news and activities. Subscribe and view recent editions at http://www.sierraclub.org/insider/

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Fw: Register TODAY for EPA's Coal Ash Webinar: Aug 5 and Aug 12
by Jim Sconyers 02 Aug '10

02 Aug '10

Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Lisa Evans <levans(a)EARTHJUSTICE.ORG> To: COAL-COMBUSTION-WASTE(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Sent: Mon, August 2, 2010 10:26:37 AM Subject: Register TODAY for EPA's Coal Ash Webinar: Aug 5 and Aug 12 All- Please participate in EPA's webinars THIS WEEK and NEXT WEEK on Aug 5 and Aug 12. The information is pasted below (See http://www.epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/industrial/special/fossil/ccr-rule/ccr-webina…): -- Thursday, August 5, 2010, 2:00 pm-3:30 pm EDT - Environmental/Health, Environmental Justice, and Community impacts -- Thursday, August 12, 2010, 2:00 pm-3:30 pm EDT - Industry and Beneficial Use impacts All stakeholders are welcome to attend both webinars - the presentation by EPA staff will be identical. To register for the webinars: After registering you will be given a phone number that can be used to listen to the webinar. If you plan to ask a question during the webinar, you will need to use the GoToWebinar chat feature and not the phone line. The phone line is for listening purposes only. For August 5th: To register, go to GoToWebinar: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/993822802 For August 12th: To register, go to GoToWebinar: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/709912418 Thanks. Lisa Evans Senior Administrative Counsel Earthjustice 21 Ocean Ave. Marblehead, MA 01945 T: (781) 631-4119 F: (212) 918-1556 www.earthjustice.org *please consider the environment before printing The information contained in this email message may be privileged, confidential and protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, any dissemination, distribution or copying is strictly prohibited. If you think that you have received this email message in error, please notify the sender by reply email and delete the message and any attachments. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the COAL-COMBUSTION-WASTE list, send any message to: COAL-COMBUSTION-WASTE-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp Sign up to receive Sierra Club Insider, the flagship e-newsletter. Sent out twice a month, it features the Club's latest news and activities. Subscribe and view recent editions at http://www.sierraclub.org/insider/

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kentucky coverage of coal 527
by William V. DePaulo, Esq. 01 Aug '10

01 Aug '10

coal money to candidates<http://bluegrasspolitics.bloginky.com/2010/07/27/coal-execs-hope-to-spend-b…>

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Re: [EC] 'Energy Storage' Rules in California To Help Meet GHG-Reduction Goals
by James Kotcon 31 Jul '10

31 Jul '10

A very good read, and something to think about in West Virginia. If we are serious about developing renewables in a big way, we need to start planning for energy storage too. JBK >>> Edward Mainland <emainland(a)COMCAST.NET> 7/31/2010 12:43 AM >>> Here is the actual study referred to below, which can help everyone better understand the various facets of renewables' "intermittency". - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS list, send any message to: CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp Sign up to receive Sierra Club Insider, the flagship e-newsletter. Sent out twice a month, it features the Club's latest news and activities. Subscribe and view recent editions at http://www.sierraclub.org/insider/

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Fwd: Numbers Documenting EVs' Advantage Over Gasoline Cars No Matter Where
by James Kotcon 31 Jul '10

31 Jul '10

FYI, Good analysis. JBK >>> Edward Mainland <emainland(a)COMCAST.NET> 7/30/2010 11:19 PM >>> Grid sets electric cars' green standard David R. Baker, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer Monday, July 19, 2010 When you drive an electric car in California, you're not just driving on electricity - you're driving on natural gas, nuclear power, hydropower and coal. Drive an electric car in, say, Georgia, and it's mostly coal and nuclear. Public fascination with electric cars is growing, as people and politicians look for ways to fight global warming and wean America off oil. Palo Alto's Tesla Motors has developed a cult following for its pricey electric sports cars, and Nissan by year's end will start selling a less-expensive, all-electric sedan dubbed the Leaf. The buzz tends to obscure a basic fact - electric cars are only as green as the power grid that supplies their juice. They don't burn fossil fuels or spew greenhouse gases into the air. But most of the power plants that generate their electricity do. Many energy analysts, however, love them anyway. Even when power plant emissions are included, electric cars still pump far less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than do their gasoline-burning brethren, analysts say. "In California, you plug into the grid with an electric vehicle, and you're going to see a two-thirds reduction in your global warming pollution," said Roland Hwang, transportation program director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "It's a big benefit." Note that he mentioned California. The amount of greenhouse gas emissions saved by electric cars varies widely from state to state. California's grid is relatively carbon-free, drawing 14.4 percent of its electricity in 2008 from nuclear plants, 11 percent from large hydroelectric dams and 10.6 percent from renewable sources such as geothermal plants and wind farms, according to the California Energy Commission. More than 45 percent of the state's electricity comes from burning natural gas, which produces less carbon dioxide than coal. Many states in the Midwest or Southeast, however, rely heavily on coal. There, electric cars will still produce fewer emissions than gasoline vehicles, but the difference won't be as great. "A Tesla in Georgia would give you about the same greenhouse gas emissions as a good Prius," Hwang said, referring to Toyota's popular hybrid car. "You're not going backward, but you're only doing as well as a Prius." Different figures Figuring out the greenhouse gas emissions associated with different kinds of cars and fuels has become something of a cottage industry, with many researchers coming up with their own estimates. Those estimates have taken on greater importance as state and federal officials wrestle with energy policy and climate change. Researchers use an approach called "well to wheels," in which they study the greenhouse gas emissions generated by making fuel and delivering it to customers as well as burning it in a car. A well-to-wheels study of gasoline, for example, looks at the emissions produced by pumping crude oil from the ground, shipping it to refineries, processing it into gasoline, delivering the gas to stations and burning it while driving. The Natural Resources Defense Council, using data from the U.S. Department of Energy and the California Air Resources Board, estimates that a typical gas-powered car produces 465 grams of carbon dioxide per mile. Electric cars feeding off of California's power grid produce 142 grams per mile. Electric cars plugged into the grid elsewhere in the country - drawing power from the nation's average mix of natural gas, coal and nuclear plants - produce 214 grams of carbon dioxide per mile. A study for the California Energy Commission, which estimated greenhouse gas emissions from cars two years from now, yielded comparable results. Cars burning gasoline will produce 473 grams of carbon dioxide per mile, the study found, while electric cars in California will produce 123 grams. Energy analysts say the benefits of electric cars will increase as the use of renewable power grows. It's far easier to "de-carbonize" the electricity grid than it is to cut the greenhouse gas emissions from millions of fuel-burning cars. 'Cleaner over time' "Even if the grid is dirty now, we expect it to get cleaner over time," said Patricia Monahan, deputy director of the clean vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "In the long run, by 2030, we really need to be on a path to electrification if we want deep greenhouse gas reductions." Electric car owners tend to know exactly where their power comes from. Some even take steps to make that power greener. Steve Casner of Sunnyvale stuck solar panels on his house. The software engineer owns both a Tesla and an electric Rav4, which Toyota sold from 1997 to 2003. (The Japanese automaker announced Friday that it would develop a new electric Rav4 with Tesla's help, with the vehicles hitting the market in 2012.) "Some people would say to me that I was just diverting my pollution elsewhere, so I said, 'I can solve that problem,' " Casner said. "I can't make gasoline at my house, but I can make electricity." Casner charges his cars at night, so they don't draw their electricity directly from the solar panels. But he usually generates more electricity in the afternoon than he can use, selling the excess back to the grid. He figures it all evens out. "We treat the grid as a big battery," he said. E-mail David R. Baker at dbaker(a)sfchronicle.com. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/19/BU0M1EF33T.DTL This article appeared on page D - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS list, send any message to: CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp Sign up to receive Sierra Club Insider, the flagship e-newsletter. Sent out twice a month, it features the Club's latest news and activities. Subscribe and view recent editions at http://www.sierraclub.org/insider/

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Fwd: from the Center for Media and Democracy: Fight Over Fracking
by Paul Wilson 30 Jul '10

30 Jul '10

The Weekly Spin, *July 28, 2010* CMD ReportsFight Over Fracking<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=OutUuUjbSQpcfvZKGeEO…> by Anne Landman The state of New York has some of the cleanest drinking water in the country, but natural gas drilling is threatening water resources there. At issue is whether drilling companies know enough about how to protect groundwater sources from contamination by a drilling procedure called " fracking<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=gnTHN13PbrETjWSsLvNG…>," the term used for the hydraulic fracturing of rock formations to make them produce more gas. Citizens also doubt whether existing rules and regulations can assure drilling companies will do enough to protect water sources, and whether there are enough qualified staff people to enforce current and future drilling regulations. In the Gulf of Mexico, drilling technology outpaced the industry's knowledge of how to cap an out-of-control well and clean up an environmental disaster caused by drilling activities. Similar problems exist with the natural gas drilling. Increasingly, land owners report that exposure to fracking chemicals has made them sick and that fracking contaminated streams and drinking water wells on their property, rendering them unusable. Gas companies fight having to reveal the secret cocktail of chemicals that make up their proprietary "fracking fluids," and fracking was exempted from the national Safe Drinking Water Act during the George W. Bush<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=SbolKFoR0jmLDLn1jVRI…>Administration, so there is little help for citizens trying to stop drilling companies from using the procedure. A Web site called "Clean Water Not Dirty Drilling"<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=SKITnPswqeZwJWxPn%2F…>is urging people to contact the New York State Senate to ask for a "time out" on drilling until more is known about how to make the activity safer. Go here<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2FPLkPlx08QXjNj706y…>to watch the video. Read the rest of this item<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=rMfl6bToBWVvalO%2BW%…> -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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