The anti-science disinformers are ecstatic over an analysis that says by 2020 we might be entering a long period of anomalously low solar activity.  The headline at Fox Nation is:

Not.  Not even close, actually.

Yes, there is a credible prediction based on independent studies that we could possibly be entering a so-called “grand minimum” in solar activity.  And yes, the last one on record, the “Maunder minimum,” which occurred between 1645 and 1715, coincided with the so-called Little Ice Age.

But the LIA wasn’t just driven by a drop in solar forcing –  it was also driven by a burst of volcanic activity (see “A detailed look at the Little Ice Age“).  And now we have human-caused greenhouse gases that have overwhelmed the much, much smaller solar forcing.

You’d never know it from the anti-science crowd, but last year Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) published a major analysis of this precise situation, “On the effect of a new grand minimum of solar activity on the future climate on Earth,” (PDF here).  That peer-reviewed study concluded that if we did see a Maunder minimum this century:

In summary, global mean temperatures in the year 2100 would most likely be diminished by about 0.1°C

That means, on our current emissions path, we would be only about 9°F to 11°F warmer than preindustrial levels in 2100, rather than, say about 9°F – 11°F warmer.  I would note that the 2010 analysis did not include major carbon cycle feedbacks like the tundra, whose impact will likely exceed that of any drop in solar irradiance this century (see NSIDC bombshell: Thawing permafrost feedback will turn Arctic from carbon sink to source in the 2020s, releasing 100 billion tons of carbon by 2100).

Here are three key points:

• The Sun is “the dominant source of energy for Earth’s climate system” as the GRL paper notes, but “changes associated with solar variability are small” and “their contribution to recent warming is negligible” (see links below).
• 2010 was tied with 2005 as the hottest year on record in spite of coming at the end of “the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century.”
• As NASA wrote during the deep 2009 minimum, “let’s assume that the solar irradiance does not recover. In that case, the negative forcing, relative to the mean solar irradiance is equivalent to seven years of CO₂ increase at current growth rates. So do not look for a new ‘Little Ice Age’ in any case.”

A Maunder Minimum can’t stop catastrophic global warming — only we can, by slashing CO2 emissions!

The GRL analysis was in fact done because of this deep solar minimum, which is plotted below:

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Turns out that one of the most inconspicuous home fixtures is one of the biggest energy hogs — even when they aren’t recording or replaying programs!

Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) allow users to record television programs to a storage device (hard drive, memory card, etc.).  They also use more electricity than a refrigerator! (albeit, an energy efficient one.)

The startling state of DVR efficiency was brought to light by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The report finds:

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Our guest blogger is Kiley Kroh, Associate Director for Ocean Communications at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Thanks to Gov. Paul LePage’s (R-ME) recent assault on jobs and innovation, investors at this week’s EnergyOcean International Conference in Portland, Maine are wondering if their money would be better spent elsewhere.  Portland was chosen for the conference location because of Maine’s reputation as a leading state to invest in alternative energy and Maine’s entire Congressional Delegation will be awarded the "Political Pioneer Award" for their political leadership in promoting alternative energy.

The state’s Tea Party governor, however, seems bound and determined to undo any progress made under the previous administration.  Last month, the LePage administration unveiled LD 1570, which would repeal the 2007 Act to Stimulate Demand for Renewable Energy requiring power to companies increase the amount of electricity derived from renewable sources by 1 percent a year through 2017.  The law aimed to diversify Maine’s energy portfolio and reduce dependence on fossil fuels – simultaneously, it worked to create jobs and increase investment in the state, including “more than $1 billion by wind energy developers alone.”

LePage defended LD 1570 by claiming that it would help lower what are the 12^th highest energy rates in the nation – costs that he contends are “exploding.”  As the Lewiston Sun Journal notes, the governor’s assertion that energy costs are skyrocketing is completely false. 

A Press Herald analysis, reviewed by the Maine PUC for accuracy, found the 2007 renewable energy requirement adds only $4.80 a year to the average residential electric bill.

The governor also alleged that creating jobs through "corporate welfare" is not sustainable, as "the majority of these ‘green jobs’ are temporary.”

Those actually working in the sector, however, paint a very different picture.  Jackson Parker, president and CEO of Reed & Reed, a major player nationally in the construction of commercial wind farms, predicted LD 1570 would drive away business investment by creating regulatory uncertainty while yielding only modest energy savings.

It is anti-wind, it is anti-business and it is anti-jobs.

Testifying against the bill, Paul Williamson, director of the Maine Wind Industry Initiative, pointed out that manufacturing of wind power components was the fastest-growing manufacturing sector in the U.S. during the past two years. 

Ray Dackerman, the U.S. director for London-based Condor Wind Energy told the Portland Press Herald that Maine has an attractive wind resource and a skilled manufacturing sector, “but we cannot ignore that the new administration isn’t embracing the offshore wind industry … We need to go to the path of least resistance.”

Killing jobs and deterring investors certainly seems to contradict the giant “Open for Business” sign LePage unveiled earlier this year.

Just as innovators and businesspeople are touting their accomplishments and the potential for both tidal energy and offshore wind development in Maine, the state’s governor looks increasingly out of touch with reality. Here are a few statistics he may want to note: a recent UMaine survey of 6,000 Mainers that shows 95 percent of them in support of deepwater offshore wind.  Another recent poll also found that only three in ten Mainers approve of the job LePage is doing.

On a party-line vote, the House Appropriations Committee approved a FY 2012 energy and water budget that “contains deep cuts to Obama clean energy priorities, including to solar energy, fuel efficient vehicle funding, energy efficiency research, weatherization and biomass research and development,” $1.9 billion below Obama’s request, with a 90 percent cut to weatherization programs for working families.

On a voice vote, the committee adopted an amendment by subcommittee chair Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) to cut $1 billion in high-speed rail funding to provide emergency flood-related funding to the Army Corps of Engineers for the Mississippi River valley.

The Tea Party continues to fund climate disaster relief by cutting programs that fight climate pollution and build clean-energy resilience. Their oil-fueled policy of robbing Peter to pay Paul will accelerate devastating the global warming disasters that threaten America and the world.

Kids enjoy the fountain at Chicago’s Millennium Park. Smog and power plant toxics could aggravate asthma and other respiratory problems in children this summer as the weather heats up.

Jorge Madrid and Susan Lyon, in a CAP cross-post

It’s a classic anthem that much of America’s youth can’t wait to celebrate:

School’s out for summer! School’s out forever!

Many young people will be spending less time in the classroom and more time having fun outdoors as the school year draws to a close and the summer weather heats up. Unfortunately, this seasonal reprieve from classrooms, tests, and homework could be putting millions of American children’s health in harm’s way.

Summer “smog,” or ground-level ozone, forms in hot weather, aggravating asthma and other breathing problems particularly for children spending increased time outdoors. Hot, sunny days provide the perfect condition for smog levels to go through the roof—resulting in “code red” days, meaning that outdoor activities should be severely restricted, especially for young children and the elderly.

And it’s not just summer smog: Asthma rates and other respiratory problems are higher in places with bad air quality year round. Though asthma has no known cure, it is severely aggravated by dirty air and can be controlled by limiting exposure to asthma triggers such as smog and toxic air pollutants from coal-fired power plants.

The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, is already working on tightening pollution standards for both ozone and power plant air toxics. These two proposals are both critical to cleaning up our air. But in the meantime, as we head into summer months, children and families need to be especially careful about limiting exposure to bad air and dangerous pollutants by monitoring the Air Quality Index and staying indoors at peak pollution times.

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This afternoon, former VIce President Al Gore praised GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney for acknowledging the scientific consensus that world is getting warmer and humans are responsible. On his blog, Gore wrote: “While other Republicans are running from the truth, he is sticking to his guns in the face of the anti-science wing of the Republican Party.”

Gore’s comments are likely to further inflame influential voices within the GOP who cling to the notion that global warming is a “hoax.” Last week, Rush Limbaugh blasted Romney on climate change:

Bye-bye, nomination. Another one down. We’re in the midst here of discovering that this is all a hoax. The last year has established that the whole premise of man-made global warming is a hoax, and we still have presidential candidates that want to buy into it.

Romney has also found himself subject to criticism from the Club for Growth and Tea Party activists.

Of course, the real question is not whether global warming exists but what we are going to do about it. Romney previously embraced a cap-and-trade program for carbon emissions, calling it “good for business.” But, like most of the rest of the GOP field, he’s since reversed his position.

This is the ad the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority censored as “too controversial”:

“Too controversial? Too controversial is voting to gut the Clean Air Act, for 40 years the bulwark of our environmental policy,” said Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org. “Maybe the T thinks spreading that news will scare people too much–it’s sweet of them to be so protective of their riders, but Brown’s vote is the real horror.”

Those of us who have lived in Boston remember the subway system, the ‘T’ fondly.  Yet why should they censor a factually accurate ad?

As Blue Mass Group notes, the MBTA put on their buses the ‘end-of-the-world’ ad, which, to put it kindly, had little basis in fact

The good news is that 350.org is going to place its crowd-funded ads around Boston via other means.  Here’s some background on this sad affair from 350.0rg:

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Since 2004, 26 states have put long-term energy efficiency resource standards (EERS) into place. Like renewable energy standards, these programs set long-term targets for demand reductions that power providers must meet – usually by helping end-use customers save energy.

A new report out from the American Council on Energy Efficiency Economy (ACEEE) looks at 19 of those programs that have been in place for over two years. And guess what? Thus far, the programs are working.

According to ACEEE, “almost every state with an EERS is on track, meeting, or exceeding goals in 2010.”

To date, 13 states have achieved 100% of their targets, 3 states are at 90% of their targets, and only 3 others are below 80%.
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A round-up of climate and energy news. Please post other stories below.

Ethanol Subsidies Survive Senate Vote, Splinter GOP

Costly subsidies for homegrown fuel won a vote of confidence Tuesday on Capitol Hill. In a key test vote, the Senate blocked a measure that would have immediately ended both federal subsidies and protective tariffs for corn-based ethanol fuel.

The outcome showed the continued clout of farm states. But it also showed that most Senate Republicans are willing to get rid of at least one tax break.

Where senators stand on ethanol tax subsidies often has more to do with which state they’re from than which party they belong to.

“This is a very controversial subject,” says Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). “We have members in our conference on both sides of this issue.”

Still, Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn had been trying for months to force colleagues to take a stand on the more than $5 billion in tax breaks for the ethanol industry this year.

Joe Romm:  I am not a fan of our corn ethanol policy as I made clear made clear during the last food crisis (see “The Fuel on the Hill” and “Can words describe how bad corn ethanol is?” and “Let them eat biofuels!“).  In a world of blatantly increasing food insecurity — driven by population, dietary trends, rising oil prices, and growing climate instability — America’s policy of burning one third of our corn crop in our engines (soon to be 37% or more) is becoming increasingly untenable, if not unconscionable (see “The Corn Ultimatum: How long can Americans keep burning one sixth the world’s corn supply in our cars?“).  Heck, even former Pres. Bill Clinton start talking about this in a Washington Post piece  headlined, “Clinton: Too much ethanol could lead to food riots.”  But yesterday’s vote makes clear the subsidies will not go quietly….

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Our guest blogger is Brian Komar.

The March on Blair Mountain was one of the most inspiring, successful, peaceful volunteer-led protest efforts I’ve ever experienced in my life.

After Grammy-winning singer Kathy Mattea gave an incredible speech and performance, the five-day march ended with more than 1000 rally-goers marching up Blair to make it clear that the coal companies are not going to blast the historic mountain without a fight. Most inspiring of all, the marchers were almost equal parts labor and environmentalists from Appalachia and from around the world. The entire crew that pulled off the march did a remarkable job and deserve our gratitude (and donations).

The night before the rally, there was a free screening of the mountaintop-removal documentary The Last Mountain in Charleston, WV. Bobby Kennedy Jr. and documentarian Bill Haney were joined by many of the freedom fighters highlighted in the film. More than 550 people from across the region packed the gorgeous Capitol Center.

The Last Mountain also screened at Bonnaroo, and had a sold-out opening in Nashville Thursday night, helping spread the message of the fighters for Blair Mountain and the birthright of Appalachia.

This week, the film the coal companies don’t want you to see opens in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Philadelphia, and we’re holding a special screening in Minneapolis at the Netroots Nation convention. This documentary is becoming part of a new organizing model to leverage culture to help end mountain-top removal and the corporate trampling of democracy.

Take action, pledge to see the film, organize a watch party, and spread the word on Twitter and Facebook, especially with friends in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Philadelphia.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will appear Thursday at the Embarcadero Cinemas in San Francisco for a Q&A after the 7:20 p.m. show.

The top five ways companies are integrating renewables into the grid are:

1.  Intelligent Demand Response
2.  Microinverters and Maximum Power Point Trackers
3.  Wind Energy Management Tools
4.  The Virtual Power Plant
5.  The Hybrid Solar-Gas Power Plant

Explanations of each of these with videos are below.

BACKGROUND

Intermittent renewables at high penetrations will bring new challenges for the grid. But how big will they be? And is it true that wind and solar will necessarily need storage or natural gas back-up at high levels?

The International Energy Agency wanted to know, so it modeled a variety of high-penetration scenarios in eight geographic regions around the world. Hugo Chandler, a senior policy analyst with the IEA explains the organization’s findings to Climate Progress:

Variability is not just some new phenomenon in grid management. What we found is that renewable energy is not fundamentally different. The criticisms of renewables often neglect the complementarities between different technologies and the way they can balance each other out if spread over certain regions and energy types.

Grid operators are constantly working to balance available supply with demand – it’s what they do. There are always natural variations that cause spikes in demand, reductions in supply or create disturbances in frequency and voltage. Once you see there are a variety of ways to properly manage that variability, you start whittling away at the argument that you always need storage or a megawatt of natural gas backup for every megawatt of renewable energy.

Theoretical modeling is important. But what companies are doing in reality?

Here’s five of the top methods for integrating renewable energy into the grid – proving that intermittency isn’t the show-stopper that critics make it out to be.

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By Tom Kenworthy, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Even with a huge Exhibit A staring them in the face in the form of the 469,000-acre Wallow fire in Arizona — the largest in the state’s history — Senate Republicans on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee couldn’t be drawn into a discussion of the realities of climate change yesterday.

Committee chairman Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) gave them an opening at the outset of the hearing on federal wildland fire policy. He drew the link between climate change and the four Arizona fires now burning that have in total burned over 663,000 acres – more than 1,000 square miles. With climate change, Bingaman correctly noted, “droughts will be more frequent in the Southwest and they will last longer than they have in the past.”

But committee Republicans Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), James Risch (R-ID) and Dean Heller (R-NV) preferred to talk about the federal government’s aging fleet of air tankers, this year’s heavy snowpack in the northern Rockies, the threat of an endangered species listing of the sage grouse and those (overblown) environmental lawsuits against forest thinning projects. Actually looking into a key driver of the last decade’s huge increase in big western wildfires? A non-starter.

That left it to Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) to draw out U.S. Forest Service chief Tom Tidwell, who unequivocally said his agency’s scientists see climate change at work in the desert southwest: more drought, quicker snowmelt, longer wildfire seasons. “I’ve been on a lot of large fires in my career,” said Tidwell, who flew over the Wallow fire last weekend. “It definitely topped anything I’ve seen before.” Franken noted that his colleagues should recognize that these fires are “the cost of climate change”:

A lot of what we are talking about today is the cost of climate change. And sometimes when we talk about energy and we talk about the amount of carbon dioxide that goes into our atmosphere, and we talk about cost, I think that it would be really good for members to take into account this kind of cost. This is a real cost. We’re talking about real dollars here. A lot of the focus of this hearing today has been the cost of this. And I think that it would be well and good for members to understand that this is related to climate change, and how important it is for us to address this and to take national action to reduce our carbon emissions.

Watch it:

 

 

The Wallow Fire is now expected to become the largest fire in Arizona history, bigger even than the 2002 Rodeo-Chediski fire that burned about 470,000 acres. Read more

UpStart n. 1. A company or organization with innovative approaches to energy use, carbon pollution, resource consumption, and/or social equity, 2. A company or organization overcoming market barriers to build the new clean energy economy.

by Lisbeth Kaufman

Finally, roof-top solar power is becoming  affordable for the broad reach of the middle class.  And we can thank the UpStarts with innovative ‘solar service’ business models for making solar photovoltaics (PV) accessible to the average homeowner.

Companies like SolarCity, SunRun Homes, and Sungevity are remaking and retaking financing, installation, and system maintenance – and delivering power often at prices lower than the customer’s current electricity bill.

This sector has become so successful, it recently caught Google’s eye.

As part of its RE<C campaign, Google has made a few high-profile investments in large-scale solar and geothermal technologies since 2008. But the risky nature of those investments means they might not pay off for many more years.

This week, Google switched gears and invested $290 million, its largest investment yet, in SolarCity, one of the pioneering solar services companies. Google’s $290 million will go into a fund that supports the installation of solar systems and the creation of the financial products that make solar services cost-competitive today.

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Welcome to Clean Start, ThinkProgress Green’s morning round-up of the latest in climate and clean energy. Here is what we’re reading. What are you?

The massive fire in Arizona is now the largest in the state’s history. “The monster fire has some people wondering—does climate change mean there will be more fir
es like this in the future?” [TNR; NY Times]

Reps. Barney Frank introduced an amendment that would double funding to the CFTC in the face of drastic cuts proposed by the GOP agriculture spending bill. According to the Hill, Democrats spent some of the day Tuesday arguing that the cuts to the CFTC “would only make it harder for the agency to prevent commodity price spikes caused by speculation.” [The Hill]

Today the Senate EPW Committee convenes  a hearing on “The Clean Air Act and Public Health.” CAP’s Christina C. DiPasquale, Valeri Vasquez write that, “One of the witnesses will be Cathy S. Woollums, Senior Vice President of MidAmerican Energy.  She will reiterate recent statements by other big polluting utilities – including American Electric Power – and threaten rate hikes and job loses if the proposed power plant health safeguards become final.” [CP]

“New regulations on mercury, arsenic and other toxic air pollution from power plants proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in March would not provide a drag on the current economic recovery and would in fact have a slightly positive impact on job growth in coming years.” [EPI]

The Hill’s E2 blog reports on the ongoing battle in the Senate over ethanol subsidies. “The Senate on Tuesday rejected Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-Okla.) amendment that would almost immediately end a major ethanol tax break,” but more votes on subsidies are expected soon. [E2]

New Jersey Democrats introduce resolution to stop Christie from pulling out of RGGI. Assemblymembers “introduced a resolution that would protect funding sources for clean energy and support New Jersey’s membership in RGGI, a 10-state carbon emissions cap and trade program to reduce greenhouse gasses in the region 10 percent by 2018.” [NJ Herald]

By CAP’s Daniel J. Weiss, Christina C. DiPasquale, Valeri Vasquez

Today the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works convenes  a hearing on “The Clean Air Act and Public Health” to discuss the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to reduce mercury, lead, and other toxic air pollution from power plants.  One of the witnesses will be Cathy S. Woollums, Senior Vice President of MidAmerican Energy.  She will reiterate recent statements by other big polluting utilities – including American Electric Power – and threaten rate hikes and job losses if the proposed power plant health safeguards become final.

MidAmerican is owned by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.  In 2005, the utility was the sixth largest coal fired electricity generator in the United States.  MidAmerican’s power plants produce large amounts of toxic pollution. A CAP analysis of 2009 Toxics Release Inventory data (the latest available) found that MidAmerican’s power plants in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Utah and Wyoming spewed a total of nearly 7,000 pounds of lead and mercury into the air we breathe and put our children’s lives and health at risk [click here for spread sheet].  These and other toxics are known to cause neurological, developmental and respiratory harm.

MidAmerican Energy’s 2009 toxics by the pound:

• 1.8 million pounds of acid gases emitted, which the American Lung Association reports trigger “irritation to skin, eye, nose throat, [and] breathing passages.”

• 4,063 pounds of lead emitted, which affects kidney function, the nervous system, immune system, reproductive and development systems, as well as the cardiovascular system and oxygen carrying capacity of the blood, according to the EPA.

• 2,689 pounds of mercury emitted, which harm vital organs and brain function, according to Physicians for Social Responsibility
  

Woollums’ prepared written testimony says that MidAmerican “began planning emission control projects targeting…mercury emissions prior to 2005.”  Yet despite this six year head start, MidAmerican assets that it will still face hardship under EPA’s proposed safeguards.   It threatens rate increases and jobs losses if EPA finalizes its proposed airborne toxic chemical reduction standards on time.  Wollum’s writes that

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