Imagine if, in 1963, two years after JFK’s famous speech to Congress, the New York Times had run a story, “Space program fails to live up to promise.”  That will give you some idea of how bad a recent NYT story on the clean energy economy was, “Number of Green Jobs Fails to Live Up to Promises.”

The story is triply terrible:  It’s incorrect and premature and misleading.  So of course it has been quoted endlessly by the right-wing media.  It’s sad when the U.S. press isn’t any better than the UK press (see “Over Half the Coverage of Renewable Energy in Mainstream British Press is Negative“).

First, the core inaccuracy:

A study released in July by the non-partisan Brookings Institution found clean-technology jobs accounted for just 2 percent of employment nationwide and only slightly more — 2.2 percent — in Silicon Valley. Rather than adding jobs, the study found, the sector actually lost 492 positions from 2003 to 2010 in the South Bay, where the unemployment rate in June was 10.5 percent.

Talk about a bait and switch.  The NYT cites the Brookings study, but then pulls out one tiny piece of it to make the exact opposite argument of the study.  As Climate Progress wrote, Brookings actually found nationwide:

From 2003 to 2010, the clean [energy] economy grew by 8.3% — almost double what the overall economy grew during those years….

“The pace of growth really is torrid in that sector,” says Mark Muro, a senior fellow at Brookings Metropolitan Program and a co-author of the report. “This confirms the intuition that these exciting industries really are growing as fast as we think they are.”

(Note: We incorrectly reported earlier that the entire sector saw 8.3% growth from 2003 to 2010. We have since corrected that error to reflect the real time frame for the growth of the whole sector— 2008-2009. Only one third of the sector — the clean energy part — saw 8.3% growth between 2003 and 2010.)

On top of that, median salaries for cleantech-related jobs are $46,343, or about $7,727 more than the median wages across the broader economy.  But you’d never know that from the NYT hit job.

Then we have this wildly premature B.S. from the Times:

Read more

JR:  Best Earthquake Tweets (via Ezra Klein):

@ModeledBehavior: “More and more scientists are questioning whether that was a real quake. It is a theory that’s out there.”

@MichaelSLinden: “US Geological Survey’s budget was cut by some $20 million this year. #justsaying”

@politicoroger: “We wouldn’t be having earthquakes like this if Hillary were president.”

@bradplumer: “A nuclear reactor near epicenter of VA earthquake is designed to withstand a 5.9-6.1 quake: bit.ly/nVW1Tq We got 5.8”

by Peter Sinclair, Climate De-Crocker Extraordinaire.  Sinclair put up this post shortly after the magnitude 5.9 quake, centered outside of Charlottesville, VA, shook the East Coast.  I certainly felt it in my basement in DC!  I’ll add some comments at the end.

For those that have not yet heard, the East coast USA, including the DC area, was hit today by the largest earthquake yet recorded in that area. The Washington Post reports:

RICHMOND, Va. — Federal officials say two nuclear reactors at the North Anna Power Station in Louisa County, Va., were automatically taken off line by safety systems around the time of the earthquake.

The Dominion-operated power plant is being run off three emergency diesel generators, which are supplying power for critical safety equipment. The NRC and Dominion are sending people to inspect the plant.

A fourth diesel generator failed, but it wasn’t considered an emergency because the other generators are working, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Dominion said it declared an alert at the North Anna facility and the reactors have been shut down safely and no major damage has been reported.

The earthquake was felt at the company’s other Virginia nuclear power station, Surry Power Station in southeast Virginia, but not as strongly there. Both units at that power station continue to operate safely, Dominion said.

The quake also caused Dominion’s newest power station, Bear Garden in Buckingham County, to shut down automatically.

As of now, no reports of shutdowns, oil spills, or radioactive leaks at any wind turbines.

Windbaggers and climate deniers like to say that renewables are “intermittent, unreliable power”. But, when large power plants like nukes trip offline, they very often do so instantaneously, presenting a real challenge to electric grids.  By contrast, when winds calm, wind power generally slows predictably, allowing system operators hours to adjust and shift loads.

My wind video below, explains why the “intermittent” dog don’t hunt.

Read more

The disaster at the Fukushima power plant in Japan highlighted an important danger inherent in nuclear power plants, as the devastating earthquake there threatened the surrounding area with the spread of radiation.

Now, multiple news outlets are reporting possible incidents at nuclear power plants across the east coast following the surprising earthquake this afternoon.
The North Anna Power Station near Richmond, Virginia lost offsite power and is now using diesel generators:

A nuclear power plant in central Virginia has lost offsite power in the wake of a 5.8 earthquake centered northwest of Richmond, Va., U.S. nuclear officials said. [...] The North Anna Power Station, which has two nuclear reactors, is now using four diesel generators to maintain cooling operations. The plant automatically shut down in the wake of the earthquake.

In York, Pensylvannia, two nuclear power plants have been placed on low-level alert:

Two area nuclear-powered plants declared low-level alerts Tuesday afternoon after tremors from an earthquake in Virginia rattled some local communities.

Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station and Three Mile Island in Dauphin County both declared an unusual event, said David Tillman, a spokesman for Peach Bottom.

A spokesperson for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that “several of the 26 reactors in the region declared an unusual event due to the quake, but no significant damage was reported.”

The American Petroleum Institute, a lobbying organization for multinational oil companies, is furiously responding to a blistering editorial from the New York Times yesterday that sharply criticized the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. API, which is funded by top tar sands and oil pipeline companies, has tweeted several links bashing the editorial.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, another appendage of the oil lobby (Chevron and other oil corporations donate generously to the Chamber), is now joining in the push back. The Chamber’s Sean Hackbarth, a Republican blogging consultant, posted an item on the website Chamber Post to denounce the Times for daring to align itself with brave protesters using civil disobedience to stop the Keystone XL.

Of course, if the Chamber had its way, we would have a Scopes monkey trial about climate science and we would allow oil companies to write the curriculum for school children about energy.

Oil lobbyists can tweet and hire as many GOP consultants they desire. But nothing changes the fact that the Keystone XL will be bad for the climate, and dangerous for thousands of American communities living near the proposed site. Oil lobbyists have the money for much more advertising and public relations, but money can’t buy the passion exhibited by protests at the White House.

Click here for a slideshow of the latest protests.

Morning satellite image of Irene, showing a hint of an eye starting to pop out.

Weather Underground has just introduced an embeddable map for those who want to track Hurricane Irene (it loads slowly, so I put it after the jump):

Read more

Brazil’s national electric company just wrapped up an auction for contracts with wind, biomass, hydro and natural gas developers. And for the first time ever, the price per megawatt-hour from the wind plants came in below the price for natural gas.

The auctions covered 44 new wind projects worth 2 GW of capacity. The owners of those wind farms signed contracts to sell electricity for 99.58 reais ($61.93) a megawatt-hour — about 6.2 cents per kilowatt-hour. The prices for natural gas projects came in at 103 reais per MWh ($64.48). The price difference isn’t staggering, but it marks a major downward pricing trend for wind, which was priced 19% higher on average in auctions last year.

The Brazilian government issued a press release after the auctions:

These energy auctions were the first in Brazil for 2011. [The President and CEO of Brazil’s Energy Research Company (EPE), Mauricio] Tolmasquim noted that they were significant for two key reasons:  they reflect a new feasibility of market competition between wind and natural gas sources – something unheard of internationally; and they demonstrate that wind prices continue to fall in Brazil.

“That wind power plants have been contracted at two digit prices, below R$ 100/MWh, showcases the energy market competition through auctions.  That wind power could reach these lows vs. natural gas was unimaginable until recently,” said Mr. Tolmasquim.

Read more

Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) appeared on a local TV show this week to talk about a variety of issues. At one point, he got into a conversation with host Mark Tate about the environment and at what level it makes sense to be concerned about pollution and environmental degradation.

While Kingston was not sympathetic to many of Tate’s environmental arguments, he did say that it makes sense to look at issues like dirty oil’s environmental impact from a global perspective rather than simply looking at their domestic effects:

KINGSTON: For us to be putting oil in the gas tank whether it be a Prius or F-150 and then pretending we’re not being hypocritical because we don’t drill our own oil, that’s silly. Do we really believe Dubai is going to be more environmentally friendly than the EPA? [...] Since oil is fungible we should be worried about environmental standards worldwide.

HOST: No, no, I think we absolutely should. I’m glad that you’re a fan of the environment, I’m glad you’ve come around.

KINGSTON: Nobody likes dirty water, dirty air, we’ve got to get, we’ve got to get beyond that.

Watch it:

Kingston is absolutely right that we should be addressing environmental issues in a global way. He should back up his words with his votes and public leadership and support national and international efforts to move us away from fossil fuels.

Derrick Kuzak, Ford group VP, Global Product Development, and Takeshi Uchiyamada, Toyota EVP for R&D sign a MOU to co-develop a new rear-wheel-drive hybrid system for pickups and SUVs.

Ford and Toyota to jointly develop hybrid drivetrains for pickups and SUVs

Ford Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. said they will work together to develop an advanced hybrid drivetrain system for light trucks and sport-utility vehicles.

Read more

by Michael Conathan

Last week in Colorado, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, again laid out a strong case for investment in new environmental satellites to replace our current aging infrastructure. As we’ve reported on multiple occasions, it’s already too late to prevent at least an 18-month gap in some coverage, meaning future forecasts of extreme weather events will be as much as 50 percent less accurate—just as the frequency of such events is rapidly increasing.

Not even two-thirds of the way through the year, 2011 has already set the record for the most individual disaster events causing more than a billion dollars in damage, and hurricane season hasn’t even started yet. The New York Times had the details of the event:

“The nation is increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather,” said Dr. Lubchenco, who sought emphatically to link that vulnerability to the importance of financing for NOAA.

In the first half of August, she said, 5,000 heat records were broken across the United States. About 2,000 of those were for the highest maximum temperature on a given day, and 3,000 were for the highest minimum temperature. This means nights as well as days have been getting hotter.

From January to July, 6.1 million acres across the country burned in wildfires, breaking the previous record by more than a million acres. At the end of July, 26 percent of the United States was suffering extreme or severe drought conditions, while 33 percent was extremely or severely wet.

While the House Appropriations Committee endorsed the transfer of $430 million from NOAA’s ocean and fisheries programs to ensure there would be no cuts to the National Weather Service and to fund the purchase of new satellites, the reality is this amount represents less than half of what is needed.

Meanwhile, this action defunds programs, including those integral to ocean monitoring as well as the ocean and coastal economy and job creation. Specifically the bill would:

Read more

by Adam Smith, in a cross-post from the Public Campaign Action Fund

This is a Media Matters cross-post.

In just over six minutes, four hosts of Fox’s The Five peddled six distortions while launching an unrelenting attack on clean energy investments.

The Five: Wrong About The Relative Size Of Clean Energy Jobs

Read more

Australia passes CO2 offset laws, carbon pricing next

Australia’s parliament endorsed the world’s first national scheme that regulates the creation and trade of carbon credits from farming and forestry on Monday, to complement government plans to put a price on carbon emissions from mid-2012.

Read more