President Barack Obama’s 2011 budget would cut $2.28 billion in coal subsidies over the next decade. These $228 million-a-year cuts are dwarfed by the $545 million-a-year subsidies for carbon capture and sequestration technology, which Obama insists on calling “clean coal technology.” How are Kentucky lawmakers responding to this effective doubling of subsidies for the coal industry? By using Orwellian language — “coal” becomes “domestic energy production” — to defend the existing subsidies and attack Obama for destroying jobs.

Rep. Ben Chandler (D-KY), who has received $91,042 from oil and coal interests.

We’ll have to examine the new budget proposal we received this morning, but we are very concerned about any possible impact this repeal could have on Kentucky jobs.

Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY), who has received $691,565 from oil and coal interests:

The president can’t have it both ways. You can’t seek to end our dependence on foreign oil and get America working, while at the same time imposing policies that harm domestic energy production and kill jobs. This is just another politically motivated assault that takes dead aim at coal, severely limiting coal companies in their ability to create jobs and keep production lines open. Worst of all, it hurts Appalachia’s hardworking coal mining families at a time when the commonwealth faces over 10.7 percent unemployment.

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY), who has received $782,449 from oil and coal interests.

These new taxes will mean less domestic energy production, a substantial increase in the price of power for American homes and businesses, less revenue, as well as jeopardizing thousands of jobs. I would encourage the administration to refocus their attention on funding clean coal technologies, along with the commercial deployment of advanced technologies that are necessary to ensure the United States has clean, reliable, and affordable energy.

This guest repost is by Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson.

For the first time, the Pentagon’s primary planning document addresses the threat of global warming, noting that it will accelerate instability and conflict around the globe. Former Senators John Warner (R-VA) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) added language requiring the department to consider the effects of climate change on its facilities, capabilities, and missions to the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act. The Department of Defense’s Quadrennial Defense Review, officially released today, discusses the department’s “strategic approach to climate and energy”:

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Climate politics can be very strange indeed.  Because cap-and-trade bills like Waxman-Markey are seen as having no chance of passing the Senate, some enviros appear to be shifting their support to bills that are politically even less attractive and environmentally even less adequate.

The latest misguided missile is the Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal (CLEAR) Act put forward by Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) “” full text and info here.  Supporters call it “Cap-and-Dividend,” but right now I think the best term for it is, “Cap-and-Divide,” since it has no chance whatsoever of becoming law but is serving to undercut the tripartisan effort by Graham, Kerry, and Lieberman to develop a bill that might get 60 votes.

I’m all for pursuing innovative solutions to get a comprehensive climate and energy bill, which conventional wisdom keeps saying is highly improbable this year.  But to be a “solution,” such a bill would need to achieve the emissions reductions in 2020 required for a global deal — in the range of 17% –  and, of course, it has to be politically viable.

Cap-and-Divide, however, doesn’t even pass the environmental viability test, as the first-rate researchers at World Resources Institute have shown (click to enlarge figure, full analysis here).  And while W-M is far from perfect environmentally, as I’ve said many times,   it would enable a global deal.  W-M’s biggest problem is that it can’t get 60 votes in the Senate or even close.   But “cap-and-divide” is certainly less politically viable than Waxman-Markey or Kerry-Boxer.

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$54 billion in loan guarantees make little policy or political sense

Today’s guest post is by Daniel J. Weiss, Senior Fellow and Director for Climate Strategy at American Progress.  For more on the Texas reactor, see Toshiba tells San Antonio its new twin $13 billion nukes will cost $4 billion more! The city balks. This looks like a job for clean energy.”

President Barack Obama’s proposed FY 2011 budget includes some important proposals to invest in clean energy, but it also includes a nuclear bombshell.  The budget will seek at total of $54 billion in loan guarantees for nuclear power.  This would require a $36 billion increase over the existing $18.5 billion for nuclear loan guarantees, a program created under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 – none of which has been issued yet.  And while they loan guarantee proposal cheered some pro-nuclear senators, it has not garnered their support for comprehensive, bipartisan clean energy and climate change legislation.

None of the four “top-tier” project proposals inspire confidence: all have “rising cost estimates, delays related to reactor designs, and credit downgrades,” according to Taxpayers for Common Sense.

For instance, one of the top four pending applications for a loan guarantee for reactors in Texas may be withdrawn by the utility proposing it, NRG Energy.   The project was supposed to be a joint venture with San Antonio’s municipal utility, but the latter is having second thoughts due to enormous estimated cost increases that would bring the project from the initial $5.4 billion to at least $17 billion.

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For the first time, the Pentagon’s primary planning document addresses the threat of global warming, noting that it will accelerate instability and conflict around the globe. Former Senators John Warner (R-VA) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) added language requiring the department to consider the effects of climate change on its facilities, capabilities, and missions to the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act. The Department of Defense’s Quadrennial Defense Review, officially released today, discusses the department’s “strategic approach to climate and energy”:

Climate change and energy are two key issues that will play a significant role in shaping the future security environment. Although they produce distinct types of challenges, climate change, energy security, and economic stability are inextricably linked. The actions that the Department takes now can prepare us to respond effectively to these challenges in the near term and in the future.

The QDR notes that climate change affects the Department of Defense “in two broad ways”: first, global warming impacts and disasters will “act as an accelerant of instability or conflict,” and second, military installations and forces around the globe will have to adapt to rising seas, increased extreme weather, and other effects of global warming:

Assessments conducted by the intelligence community indicate that climate change could have significant geopolitical impacts around the world, contributing to poverty, environmental degradation, and the further weakening of fragile governments. Climate change will contribute to food and water scarcity, will increase the spread of disease, and may spur or exacerbate mass migration. While climate change alone does not cause conflict, it may act as an accelerant of instability or conflict, placing a burden to respond on civilian institutions and militaries around the world.

The military is working on not just responding to the impacts of global warming, but also mitigating the threat by reducing global warming emissions. Increased use of renewable energy and energy efficiency not only lessens the military’s enormous carbon footprint, but also delivers immediate security benefits:

Energy efficiency can serve as a force multiplier, because it increases the range and endurance of forces in the field and can reduce the number of combat forces diverted to protect energy supply lines, which are vulnerable to both asymmetric and conventional attacks and disruptions.

The military’s overall agenda is backed up by specific action. In line with President Obama’s executive order to devise a greenhouse pollution reduction plan, the Department of Defense has committed to cutting emissions from its non-combat facilities by 34 percent by 2020. The Air Force, long dependent on billions of gallons of imported oil, is investing deeply in all forms of renewable energy. The Army is making major investments in battery technology, renewable energy, and electric drive vehicles.

As Vice President Gore has noted repeatedly, the “climate crisis, the security crisis and the economic crisis have a common thread” — our dependence on fossil fuels. If we continue the status quo, threats will continue to multiply on every front — a fact our military, if not our politicians now in the Senate, now recognizes.

Solar Thermal Power, Mojave Desert, 354 MW

The World’s Biggest Green Energy Projects

The U.S. government, desperate to add jobs to a feeble economy, is looking skyward for help: to the wind and the sun.

“We should put more Americans to work building clean energy facilities,” Obama said to applause during his State of the Union address Wednesday. Solar and wind power projects tend to appeal to politicians on both sides of the aisle. They are clean and domestic sources of power, and thanks to this government largesse, they are growing fast.

The American Wind Energy Association reported last week that in 2009 the nation’s wind power grew 39%, and that it has grown by 39% annually for the past five years. It’s a similar story with other technologies, like solar power, and abroad, where generous government subsidies in Europe and huge government-backed projects in India and China are fueling growth.

Of the top 10 largest renewable energy projects in the world, five were completed in the last two years.

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… goes to Mike Musgrove of the Washington P0st for his piece, “As carmakers plug ‘green,’ Washington Auto Show consumers have plenty of questions.”

As evidence of the kind of questions that puzzled consumers have about how plug-in cars work, Musgrove writes:

The unmistakable message is that the day of the electric and hybrid car is at hand. But it’s also clear that there are plenty of questions among the crowd about how this alternatively fueled world is supposed to work.

“What if you’re driving and you don’t have any power left?” asks John Wu, who is checking out the Chevy Volt with some friends. “Won’t you just be stuck there?” The guys make cracks about Volt drivers running low on juice and pulling up to a stranger’s house, begging for access to an outlet.

Funny stuff — if you were writing a piece trying to mock regular people in the vein of the 1980s-era David Letterman.  But in fact there is nothing wrong with regular folks being underinformed about a brand new product — people would come up to me all the time when I first bought the Prius and asked me where you plug it in.

Most people just aren’t that plugged into the latest techno-news.  Why should they be?  There aren’t any for sale yet, after all!

What’s wrong and definitely not funny at all is that the reporter is underinformed — and has actually produced a piece that is only going to further confuse the public.  Rather than correcting the glaring error of the people he quotes, his next sentence is a non sequitur:

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The Thrilla in Vanilla:  Me vs. Heritage’s David Kreutzer on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer show:

[This audio link and their website are having problems today.]

A ref would have stopped this one a few minutes into the “fight” …

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