… Jim Gibbons on receiving the Desert Research Institute’s annual Nevada Medal this year is here. It’s worth reading. Given the focus this week on solutions, let me quote this part:

Although the fossil fuel industry pedals misinformation, claiming that renewable energies can only be a niche contribution to energy needs, that contention defies common sense. As proof of the contrary, consider just one of the renewable energies, solar power. The technology for solar thermal power stations already exists, power stations can be built rapidly, and as the market for them increases their unit costs will fall steadily, as the cost of coal power continues to rise. There is enough solar energy in a small fraction of our desert Southwest to provide all of the electrical needs of the United States. Nevada has the potential to be a leader in this field, providing power for itself and for distant locations as a low-loss grid is developed. Leadership would provide great economic benefit to Nevada and provide a large number of high-pay jobs and new businesses.

I couldn’t agree more on solar thermal, of course.

Note that renewable “fuels”, in addition to eliminating CO2 emissions, are cost-free and the source will last practically forever. This is in stark contrast to coal. One reason that the cost of coal has been shooting up is that coal is a finite resource requiring increasing efforts for extraction. The notion that the United States has a 200-year supply of economically extractable coal is a myth. I strongly recommend that you invite Prof. David Rutledge of the California Institute of Technology to brief you on current analyses of coal reserves.

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According to the Washington Times, “President Bush is poised to change course and announce as early as this week that he wants Congress to pass a bill to combat global warming, and will lay out principles for what that should include.” However, “it is not clear exactly what Mr. Bush will propose.” Although this announcement comes as we head into the Earth Day weekend, Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino claimed it’s just a coincidence.

Stephen Dinan writes that Bush and conservatives are now focusing on the possibility that “runaway” global warming legislation will cause a “disaster” and a “nightmare.” Asked about the Washington Times story, Dana Perino warned today of a “regulatory train wreck with many different laws, such as the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act.” Perino all but admitted this leaked announcement is a “trial balloon” to try out new right-wing talking points — when she was asked when the Bush plan would be released:

It could be never.

Watch it:

In fact, it is not government action that is the potential runaway train wreck, as Bush administration officials have made clear:

• Howard Frumkin, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “CDC considers climate change a serious public health concern.”
• Dale Hall, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: “We need to do something about climate change starting yesterday.”
• Stephen L. Johnson, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: “Severe heat waves are projected to intensify in magnitude and duration over the portions of the U.S. where these events already occur, with likely increases in mortality and morbidity, especially among the elderly, young and frail.”
• Michael J. Savonis, Federal Highway Administration: “Warming temperatures are likely to increase the costs of transportation construction, maintenance, and operations. More frequent extreme precipitation events may disrupt transportation networks with flooding and visibility problems. Relative sea level rise will make much of the existing infrastructure more prone to frequent or permanent inundation.”

Their polluter-funded message of denial having finally been beaten back, the right wing is now attempting to subvert action by any means possible, including pulling the classic polluter claim that solutions are more dangerous than the problem.

But that will only be true if our response to climate change is designed by the polluters themselves.

UPDATE: A Siegel at Energy Smart debunks the Perino press conference.

The decarbonization data makes clear that if you want to beat 450 ppm and avoid catastrophic climate impacts, a significant price for carbon (plus aggressive technology deployment) is much more important than technology breakthroughs.

That is a central point of this post. That is what I learned in the mid-1990s when I helped to run the billion-dollar office at DOE in charge of federal clean energy technology breakthroughs and deployment — and had the chance to work with the top scientists and technology modelers at the national labs to figure out how we can cut emissions most quickly and cost-effectively.

The pursuit of the Holy Grail of multiple technology breakthroughs is in fact a side show — and for many, like Bush/Luntz/Gingrich/Lomborg, that pursuit is meant as a complete rhetorical distraction to the public so we can continue to avoid action, as I have repeatedly blogged (see here or here, for instance). It was specifically designed by conservative strategist Frank Luntz as a core delaying strategy (see here).

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After Saturday’s fine round at Augusta — which would have won him the event had he duplicated it on Sunday — I’m sure Tiger was terribly disappointed with his final round. Especially given how stellar his play was earlier in the year. Heck, the greatest golfer of all time (sorry, Jack) would have won had he merely made all of his putts within 6 feet on Sunday, since everyone around him was choking.

Congrats to Trevor Immelman. But as Bud Poliquin writes (here) — Tiger is the only one who should feel disappointment over his play: “That he was a ‘disappointment” while finishing all the way back in second place in a major should boggle those with minds.”

Related Posts:

• Tiger Woods Wins “Hottest Major of All Time”
• Tiger Woods and Global Warming

So once again we are told by the mainstream media (assuming the Washington Times counts as mainstream), “Bush prepares global warming initiative.” Hmm.

Where have we heard this before? September 2006, “President Bush is preparing an astonishing U-turn on global warming,” which flamed out fast [duh!], see here and here.

His much-hyped State of the Union climate reversal was yet another blue Lucy-removes-the-football moment, see here.

This new PR offsensive could conceivably be a more serious-looking do-nothing effort because now Bush wants to blunt the move towards a genuine so-so U.S. climate bill, Lieberman-Warner (see here). But Bush is the past — and the future is Obama, Clinton, or McCain. Anway, here is the whole article:

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I promised this week would focus on technology. Other than energy efficiency (see here), I don’t believe any set of technologies will be more important to the climate fight than concentrated solar power (CSP).

I have a long article on CSP in Salon, “The technology that will save humanity: The solar energy you haven’t heard of is the one best suited to generate clean electricity for generations to come.”

OK, maybe “will” should be “may help” [I'm an optimist, sue me!] and CP readers have heard about CSP for a while (see here). But I do think CSP deserves much more attention:

It is the best source of clean energy to replace coal and sustain economic development. I bet that it will deliver more power every year this century than coal with carbon capture and storage — for much less money and with far less environmental damage….

How much less? Many industry experts told me CSP will likely deliver power for well under $.10 per kilowatt hour fully installed in the next decade.

What is its market potential? I think it could be more than two wedges, which is several thouand gigawatts:

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