Okay, it isn’t a shock to long-time readers that the US Geological Survey sharply scaled back projections of economically-recoverable US coal (see “Are we approaching peak coal? Part 1” and “Part 2“).  As I reported in January, the USGS concluded:

The coal reserves estimate for the Gillette coalfield is 10.1 billion short tons of coal (6 percent of the original resource total).

Although it didn’t get much media attention, this December report was a shocker because the USGS is highly credible and the Gillette field, within Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, “is the most prolific coalfield in the United States” and in 2006 provided “over 37 percent of the Nation’s total yearly production.”

But I think it’s a shocker that the Wall Street Journal finally makes it their front page story, “U.S. Foresees a Thinner Cushion of Coal.”  The piece discusses the USGS survey — and facts on the ground:

Mining companies report they have to dig deeper and move more earth to extract coal from aging mines, driving up costs. Utilities have grown skittish about whether suppliers can ship promised coal on time. American Electric Power Co., the nation’s biggest coal buyer, says it has stepped up its due diligence to make sure its suppliers can make deliveries after some firms missed shipments last fall. It even bought a mine to lock down supplies.

“We are very much concerned, and it’s getting worse,” said Tim Light, senior vice president for AEP.

The WSJ has an important graph comparing coal production by region.  And yes, the WSJ used the term “Peak Coal,” though perhaps “Peak Coal East of the Mississippi” might be more accurate.

Q:  What happens if coal gets more expensive for Eastern and Southeastern utilities, because of the rising cost of Eastern coal and/or the transportation costs associated with Western coal (especially as peak oil drives prices back to record levels and beyond over the next several years)?

A:  A bunch of good things from the perspective of trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the lowest possible cost while jumpstarting the transition to a clean energy economy.

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Memo to Washington Post:  Please, please trade editor Fred Hiatt to the Wall Street Journal editorial page where his penchant for allowing unfact-checked crap into the paper — and for writing it himself — would no longer hurt the reputation of a (once) great newspaper.

There are lots of reasons for progressives and the progressive media to criticize the “B-” grade Waxman-Markey bill.  Most notably, the 2020 target is too weak, too easy to meet with the over abundance of low-cost clean energy strategies available in this country.  There are lots of reasons for status quo centrists to criticize the bill.  Most notably, they don’t get that global warming is a big deal (see “David Broder is the stenographer of those centrists who are fatally uninformed about global warming“).

But what kind of newspaper would attack the bill because it sets a standard that requires new buildings to become more energy efficient?  That is a hard-core conservative critique.  Pretty much everybody else understands the multiple market barriers that work against energy-efficient design — including the fact that the overwhelming majority of buildings are not built by the people who occupy them.  Construction and management companies emphasize minimizing first cost, spending the least amount of money upfront, which has the effect of maximizing lifecycle cost, leading to much higher energy bills that otherwise rational decision-making would lead to.

And so most reasonable, non-conservative observers understand and support national standards for energy-efficient appliances and buildings, such as you find in the Waxman-Markey bill (see “Better buildings soon? Energy and climate bill would set national energy codes“).  But not if you work for the editorial page of the Washington Post, which is usually derided as leftist by the right-wing and derided as centrist by progressives, but is now just plain derided by everybody.

Let’s go through the critique in Sunday’s unsigned Washington Post editorial, a piece that is both na¯ve and paranoid at the same time (which one can safely assume ed page editor Fred Hiatt had a big hand in) and Hiatt’s signed column today (which he apparently wrote because Krauthammer, Will, Samuelson, and the occasional Schlesinger column don’t satisfy his need for pushing right wing disinformation).

First we have the conspiracy-theory pushing Sunday editorial:

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This is the most comprehensive discussion I’ve seen of everything China is doing to green itself.  It is by Julian Wong, a Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress, and Andrew Light, a Senior Fellow.  It was first published here.  Below:  A security guard looks on as a slogan is projected onto Yongdingmen Gate in Beijing, China. The Chinese have recognized that it’s climate inaction””not climate legislation””that will lead to its own economic undoing.  As a result, I am hopeful there will be a U.S.-China climate deal this fall.

A common refrain from climate action naysayers is that, “China is building two coal-fired power plants a week!” They insist that the United States should wait until this major emitter takes on binding commitments to climate change mitigation before it decides to adopt global warming pollution reduction policies in the American Climate and Energy Security Act (H.R. 2454). They further claim that if such a bill became law, the United States would be transferring its jobs to countries such as China and India that are doing nothing to curb emissions. But that thinking is exactly wrong.

Critics fairly point to the fact that 80 percent of China’s power is derived from dirty coal, and that China recently surpassed the United States as the word’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide. Yet China’s per capita emissions remain a fifth that of the United States, and its historical cumulative per capita emissions from 1960 to 2005 are less than one-tenth that of the United States.

Still, the Chinese have recognized that it’s climate inaction””not climate legislation””that will lead to its own economic undoing. As the U.S. Congress debates the merits of enacting renewable electricity and energy efficiency standards, China has already forged ahead with building its own low-carbon economy, laying the foundation for clean-energy jobs and innovation.

China ranked second in the world in 2007 in terms of the absolute dollar amount invested in renewable energy, according to the Climate Group. It spent $12 billion, which put it just behind Germany’s $14 billion. These investments have placed China among the world leaders in solar, wind, electric vehicle, rail, and grid technologies. And now approximately 9 percent of China’s $586 billion economic stimulus package will go toward sustainable development (excluding rail and grid) projects.

China is expected to unveil in the coming weeks another extensive and unprecedented stimulus package””reported to be in the range of $440 billion to $660 billion“”dedicated solely to new energy development over the next decade, including generous investments in wind, solar, and hydropower. If those expectations are fulfilled, China could emerge as the unquestioned global leader in clean-energy production, significantly increasing its chances to wean its energy appetite off coal, and at the same time ushering in an era of sustainable economic growth by exporting these clean-energy technologies to the world.

The bottom line: China is not there yet, but it is beginning to transition to a clean-energy economy through a wide range of actions. The United States should recognize China’s efforts and encourage China to expand upon them. We have sketched this claim before, but let’s run though the numbers in more detail.

Energy efficiency

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UPDATE:  At the end, I’m going to respond to what has now become a widespread myth that because Waxman-Markey supposedly mutes the electric price signal to consumers, it hurts the cause of energy efficiency.

The Subcommittee on Energy and Environment will hold a hearing titled, “Allowance Allocation Policies in Climate Legislation:  Assisting Consumers, Investing in a Clean Energy Future, and Adapting to Climate Change” on Tuesday June 9, [at 9:30 am, info here, webcast here].  The hearing will examine allocation policies under the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES).

The allocation of the greenhouse gas emission allowances is certainly one of the most controversial and complicated parts of the Waxman-Markey bill.  Here are some key overview posts:

• A useful summary of Waxman-Markey
• Robert Stavins: “The appropriate characterization of the Waxman-Markey allocation is that more than 80% of the value of allowances go to consumers and public purposes, and less than 20% to private industry.”
• UPDATED exclusive report: Preventing windfalls for polluters but preserving prices “” Waxman-Markey gets it right with its allocations to regulated utilities

But if you really want to become an expert on the pros and cons of the issue, I would suggest that you tune into the hearing, where both sides will get a full airing of their views, with the following expert witness:

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Could India Become a Solar Leader?

India may be gearing to turn itself into the global leader in solar power generation, a sign that major developing nations could become renewable energy hubs to rival Germany and the United States.

Called the National Solar Mission, the Indian plan outlines a target for 20,000 megawatts of solar capacity by 2020….

“This would be the most ambitious solar plan that any country has laid out so far,” said Siddharth Pathak, a climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace India.

India would generate 100,000 megawatts of solar power by 2030 and 200,000 megawatts by mid-century under the plan.

House cap-and-trade bill would trim budget deficit — CBO

The long-awaited CBO scoring of the Waxman-Markey bill is here — and significantly overestimates likely costs:

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This post introduces guest blogger Chelsea Sexton, my friend and costar of the 2006 documentary film “Who Killed the Electric Car?“  At a young age, Chelsea began working for GM marketing their ill-fated electric car, the EV1.  She even married an EV1 service technician!  Now she serves as the Executive Director of Plug In America (full bio here).  So when he was offered a chance to test drive the centerpiece of GM’s effort to revive the electric drive, she jumped.  This post was first published on her newly minted blog.

Plug-ins and electric cars, of course, are a core climate solution, since electric drives are more efficient, easily powered by carbon-free energy and indeed far cheaper to operate per mile than gasoline, even when running on renewable power. And they are the key alt-fuel strategy needed to deal with the energy/economic security threat of rising dependence on imported oil and the inevitably grim impacts of peak oil (see “Why electricity is the only alternative fuel that can lead to energy independence“).  I think the Volt was overdesigned (see “CMU study suggests GM has wildly oversized the batteries in the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid“), but very much hope it succeeds.  I say that even though GM’s executive “champion” of the Volt — the inane global warming denier, Bob Lutz, remains stuck in a fatally wrong view about EVs and the future of cars, saying in a long but dreadful Washington Post article, that the Chevy Volt “is an important symbol. We need it. It has a chance to change our image.”  Yes, Bob, that’s what the car is all about, symbolism.  Can someone fire him, already?

But I digress.  The rest of this post is Sexton describing the story of her test drive.

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