by Noreen Nielsen

This morning, ConocoPhillips announced its 2011 fourth-quarter earnings, reporting profits of $3.4 billion — a 66 percent gain– bringing total profits in 2011 to $12.4 billion. Below is a quick look at some other facts about ConocoPhillips:

• ConocoPhillips has spent over $16 million lobbying Congress in 2011, ranking in as the fifth largest spender last year – and number one in the oil and gas industry.
• ConocoPhillips has contributed over $200,000 to federal campaigns in 2011, with 90 percent of the contributions going to Republicans.
• ConocoPhillips used 88 percent of their 2011 profits – $11 billion – to buy back their own stock.  That enriches their shareholders, but it doesn’t add to oil supplies or investments in alternative fuels or other new technologies.
• The five biggest oil companies – BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell – are likely to make $130 billion in profits in 2011. Added together, the Big Five oil companies are sitting on cash resources of $59 billion and made nearly $1 trillion in profits over the past decade.

Chevron Corp. plans to release its quarterly figures on Friday, followed by Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell next week.

The Department of Agriculture’s plant hardiness maps are finally reflecting a fact that gardeners have already realized — the United States is changing dramatically with global warming pollution. The USDA released a new plant hardiness zone map to replace the 1990 map, reflecting twenty years of rapid global warming:

The 1990 map was based on temperatures from 1974 to 1986, the new map from 1976 to 2005. The nation’s average temperature from 1976 to 2005 was two-thirds of a degree higher than it was during the old time period, according to the National Climatic Data Center.

The new map is generally one half-zone warmer than the previous map throughout much of the United States. Cities as varied as Boston, Honolulu, St. Louis, Des Moines, Iowa, St. Paul, Minnesota, and Fairbanks, Alaska, are in newer, warmer zones. Almost all of Ohio, Nebraska and Texas are in warmer zones.

The Washington Post quoted several experts who noted the new map, whose changes in hardiness zones are based on rising minimum temperatures across the nation, isn’t news to gardeners.

Boston University biology professor Richard Primack:

People who grow plants are well aware of the fact that temperatures have gotten more mild throughout the year, particularly in the wintertime.

George Ball, chairman and CEO of the seed company W. Atlee Burpee:

Climate change, which has been in the air for a long time, is not big news to gardeners.

Stanford University biology professor Terry Root:

It is great that the federal government is catching up with what the plants themselves have known for years now: The globe is warming and it is greatly influencing plants (and animals).

Vaughn Speer, an 87-year-old master gardener in Ames, Iowa, said he has seen redbud trees, appear ten miles north of their traditional limit in recent years. Our nation’s forests are dying with the changes. Lodgepole pines, aspens, walnut trees, and other dominant species adapted to a climate without greenhouse pollution are already suffering in our hotter planet.

In coming decades, the rate of global warming will increase significantly, a result of the rapid rise in fossil fuel pollution, making it ever more difficult for plants to adapt, and destabilizing all of our nation’s ecosystems.

How to Build America’s Energy Future

by Kate Gordon

President Barack Obama last night presented in his State of the Union address a blueprint for sustained growth in our economy consisting of four key parts: manufacturing, energy, worker preparedness, and American values. When it comes to America’s global leadership on clean energy, these four are inextricably linked.

A strong clean energy industry will give rise to more American manufacturing jobs, especially for skilled workers. This in turn will help rebuild our struggling middle class and reinforce the basic American idea that the economy must work for everyone, not just a wealthy few. Here’s how the four parts work together to build what the president says is an economy that can last.

Scaling up America’s clean energy sector

America is already in a leadership position on clean energy. In 2011 we reclaimed the title of “World’s Largest Energy Investor” from China. U.S. investment in these technologies rose a staggering 33 percent to nearly $60 billion, whereas investment in China remained steady at about $47 billion. Globally, U.S. venture capital dominates the cutting-edge clean energy investment market, with U.S. venture dollars accounting for 76 percent of the $2.2 billion in clean-technology venture investments across the world in 2011. Visionary programs such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s targeted subsidies to renewable energy developers have catapulted us into this leadership position, and contributed to bringing renewable energies to a place where they are nearly cost-competitive with the much more established, much longer-subsidized traditional fossil fuels.

The president’s energy recommendations in his State of the Union address will continue this trend. As my colleague Dan Weiss writes, the speech included important recommendations to increase renewable energy development on public lands, provide incentives to businesses to upgrade their buildings and factories, and support the U.S. Navy in its goal of making the largest purchase of renewable energy in history. President Obama also called on Congress to show similar leadership by passing a clean energy standard, and by finally extending the Production Tax Credit for clean energy development.

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Our guest blogger is A. Siegel, of Get Energy Smart.

In association with the State of the Union address, the White House released “A Blueprint for An America Built to Last.” Within it, “A Blueprint to Make the Most of America’s Energy Resources,” from which we learn that “nuclear power, efficient natural gas, and clean coal” are “renewable energy” sources:

The President called on Congress to build on our success in positioning America to be the world’s leading manufacturer in high-tech batteries and reiterated his call for action on clean energy tax credits and a national goal of moving toward clean sources of electricity by setting a standard for utility companies, so that by 2035, 80% of the nation’s electricity will come from clean sources, including renewable energy sources like wind, solar, biomass, hydropower, nuclear power, efficient natural gas, and clean coal.

This is, almost certainly an issue of poor writing. It could have read “nuclear power, efficient natural gas, clean coal, and renewable energy sources like wind, solar, biomass, and hydropower.” That rewrite, however, would have put renewables at the back of the line and hurt the President among those strongly supportive of greater investment in renewable energy deployment and research — that is to say, the majority of Americans. Yet, in last year’s State of the Union address the President said that “clean energy jobs” meant nuclear power, offshore oil and gas drilling, and “clean coal.”

All the uranium on planet Earth was formed 6.6 billion years ago and is not “renewable.” Now, if we wish to speak in terms of tens of millions of years, one could argue that coal, natural gas, and oil are renewable. Today’s biomass will, over that sort of geologic time, create (renew, one might say) new fossil fuel supplies. However, in any rational discussion, these are not “renewable” fuels within any context of human civilization.

This section, however, has far more serious problems — most importantly, the President’s whole-sale throwing in the hat with the “natural gas is good for the environment and economy” propaganda that is a Potemkin village when it comes to addressing the nation’s real challenges.

Voters just love government investment in renewable energy — much more than their representatives in Washington, it seems.  I was reading an analysis of the State of the Union Address based on the response of “a group of 50 swing voters armed with dial meters” and came across this nugget:

Not surprisingly, the moment in the speech that brought the most positive reaction was Obama’s mention of the death of Osama bin Laden. It drew an average reading of 80 on the 0-100 scale used by the meters. Obama’s call for more investment in renewable energy drew nearly as strong a reaction, however, said Andrew Baumann, another of the pollsters who conducted the study. The passages of the speech that talked about phasing out subsidies for oil companies and competing with China and Germany for new developments in wind power and solar energy did particularly well.

And while small dial groups are hardly definitive by themselves, Climate Progress readers know that poll after poll after poll show the same thing (see Democrats Taking “Green” Positions on Climate Change “Won Much More Often” Than Those Remaining Silent and links to polls therein).

This enthusiasm has not waned even with all the attacks on clean energy — see Independents Support Federal Investment in “Green Jobs” 2-to-1 Despite Solyndra Media Storm:

In dozens of focus groups we have conducted this month across the country on a wide variety of subjects, when voters are asked where they would like new jobs in their state to come from, the first words out of their mouths are almost always the same – clean energy and related technology.  Voters believe that the clean energy economy is here and is growing, and they want their state to have a part of it.

And yet in the face of this overwhelming popularity of clean energy, we’re staring at job-killing cuts in federal clean energy investment and tax credits.  Why?  As a German State Minister explained: We Can Decarbonize With Renewables Because “We Don’t Have the … Koch Brothers.”

Again, the Kochs haven’t won over the majority of Americans or even the majority of swing voters — only the majority of that narrow slice of the electorate that drives conservative politics, the Tea Party (see “Independents, Other Republicans Split With Tea-Party Extremists on Global Warming“).

Some day, some masterful, Churchillian politician will figure this all out and lead the country toward true clean energy revolution. Some day.

 

 

Current proposed and forecasted coal-fired capacity in the U.S., as projected by the Energy Information Administration’s scenario in 2011.

In 2010, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projected that coal would drop to 44% of America’s electrical generation by 2035. Actual generation dropped to that level in 2011.

This week, the agency again adjusted its long-term figures for coal in the U.S., projecting that generation will fall to 39% by 2035. But groups on the front lines of fighting coal plants say those figures are still far too conservative.

Due to a combination of cheap natural gas, higher coal prices, increasingly cost-competitive renewable energy, and an aggressive community of activists working to prevent the build of new coal plants, the coal sector is facing an unprecedented decline in generation. At least, that’s what leaders of Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign are saying.

“The pipeline has essentially dried up,” said Bruce Nilles, the senior director of the Beyond Coal campaign, to Climate Progress. “Our view is that the rush is almost over.”

Here are some of the top indicators for coal’s future that Sierra Club pointed to after this week’s release of the EIA’s figures:

• At least 33,000 megawatts worth of existing coal-fired power plants are expected to retire in the coming decades, not including any retirements due to the recently-finalized mercury and air toxics standard from the Environmental Protection Agency. For reference, an average-sized coal-burning power plant is approximately 500 megawatts.
• The biggest difference from last year’s EIA projection is that more coal retirements will be driven by rising coal prices, state renewable energy standards and EPA clean air standards. All these signs point to reduced market share for coal and expanded market share for clean energy.
• No new coal plants are predicted to be constructed in the time period, beyond those few that are already under construction.
• The share of electricity production from clean energy sources (including hydropower and biomass) should increase from 10 to 16 percent during the time period.
• Overall electricity demand growth is expected to remain below one percent annually.

Certainly, the outlook for coal isn’t good. But there’s a common misconception that coal is completely dead.

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by Daniel J. Weiss

President Barack Obama described a “Blueprint for an America Built to Last” in his State of the Union address last night. It is designed to keep alive the promise of “an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.”

The plan includes a clean energy agenda that would help achieve this promise with well-paying jobs, lower energy bills, and cleaner air and water. Hopefully Republican congressional leaders will help him build it.

These energy proposals are reinforced by the Energy Information Administration’s just-released Annual Energy Outlook 2012 Overview, which includes the latest energy data and future projections. These predictions reveal that we must invest more in energy efficiency and clean renewable electricity while we produce more domestic oil and gas.

Below are the highlights of President Obama’s proposal and the new Energy Information Administration information that reinforces their importance. They include:

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The White House announced Tuesday that Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) successfully killed the nomination of Dr. Scott Doney to be chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Over a year ago, Vitter issued a hold on the nomination of the widely esteemed senior scientist of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on behalf of the offshore drilling industry, E&E News reports:

Doney’s nomination, which enjoyed bipartisan support, was blocked beginning more than a year ago by Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), who demanded that Obama administration officials testify before Congress on the Interior Department’s decision to halt deepwater drilling in the wake of the BP PLC oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

A Vitter spokesman told E&E News that “Vitter had no specific objections to Doney but had significant concerns with the administration’s handling of Gulf drilling.”

The NOAA chief scientist position has been vacant for more than a decade, unfilled by either the George W. Bush or Barack Obama administrations.

Doney is a top expert on how the global carbon cycle and ocean ecology respond to natural and human-driven climate change, including ocean acidification from the burning of fossil fuels.

Last week, the White House announced the withdrawal of the nomination of Rebecca Wodder to be Interior’s assistant secretary for fish, wildlife, and parks, after failing to lift blocks from Vitter and Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK).

The Chevy Volt has received the highest ratings possible for overall safety

by Roland Hwang, reposted from NRDC’s Switchboard

Top safety regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Transportation Administration (“NHTSA”) have closed the books on the Chevy Volt safety investigation. NHSTA concluded last Friday that it does not believe the Volt and other electric vehicles “pose a greater risk of fire than gasoline-powered vehicles.” This is good news for drivers, the economy, and our energy future.

Unfortunately, there are some in Washington D.C. that are attempting to turn a prudent safety investigation into a referendum on our nation’s commitment to clean energy and ending our dependence on oil. Congressman Darrell Issa will hold a hearing today with the country’s top safety regulator, David Strickland, and the CEO of GM, Dan Akerson, as the main witnesses.

Let’s quickly review the facts of the investigation:

• First, no fires have been reported in real-world to be caused by lithium ion batteries that power the Volt and other electric vehicles including the Nissan Leaf, Tesla Roadster, and the hybrid versions of the Hyundai Sonata, Infinity M35, Buick LaCrosse, and Mercedes S400. The Volts in question caught fire under laboratory test conditions that NHSTA and GM were unable to replicate in subsequent tests. With an abundance of caution due to the novelty of the technology, NHTSA chose to launch its safety investigation in the absence of any real world incidents, something it rarely does.
• Second, GM moved quickly to install retrofits that strengthen the battery case and ensure the integrity of the liquid cooling system. Crash tests by both NHTSA and GM of Volts with these modifications have produced no fires.
• Third, gasoline vehicles carry a significant risk of fire.  According to the National Fire Protection Association, there were 184,500 reported vehicles fires in 2010. This is high rate of fire, about 0.75 fires for every 1,000 vehicles.  With about 17,000 Volts and Leafs driven tens of millions miles to date, the first year of electric vehicle experience supports NHTSA’s conclusion that the Volt and other electric vehicles do not pose a greater risk of fire than gasoline-powered vehicles.

The Volt received the highest ratings possible for overall safety from both NHTSA and the independent Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (”IIHS”), neither of which intends to alter its ratings as a result of the investigation. The IIHS crash tests found no evidence of damage to the Volt’s battery packs. “If we had found that the battery pack had been damaged or certainly if we had subsequent concerns about fire risk – that would have raised red flags,” IIHS spokesman Russ Rader told Reuters.

Rather than promoting clean energy technologies to get America off oil, electric vehicle naysayers in Washington D.C. have chosen instead to attack the Volt. If successful, these attacks will only serve to benefit oil-exporting countries in the Middle East and elsewhere, at the expensive of workers building electric cars in Michigan, Tennessee, and California.

Fortunately, Volt owners know better. Ninety-three percent of Volt drivers told Consumer Reports they would “definitely buy (the Volt) again,” the highest ranking of any car ever included in the survey.  That’s a hopeful sign that consumers are ignoring the political theatrics and are voting with their wallets for an oil free future.

Roland Hwang is the transportation program director for NRDC’s energy program. This piece was originally published at NRDC’s switchboard.

What’s the only thing worse than turning a Congressional investigation into a months-long political circus? The leaders of that investigation not having a firm grasp of the policies they’re supposed to be examining.

California Republican Darrell Issa chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, one of the top bodies responsible for looking into the loan guarantee to the now-bankrupt solar manufacturer Solyndra. So you’d think that Mr. Issa would, after almost four months of investigation, be able to distinguish the extraordinary differences between a tax credit and a loan guarantee.

You would, sadly, be wrong.

In a shockingly ignorant commentary on the President’s State of the Union address last night, Issa blamed tax credits — the foundation of energy policy in this country — on the Solyndra bankruptcy, calling them a “scandal.” He was responding to this tweet, which was a response to the President’s call for Congress to extend vital tax credits for wind and other clean energies:

In a YouTube video message, Issa explained:

“We know that not only doesn’t it work out, but there are loads of additional scandals coming out and certainly the Administration is trying to double down on his ability to play political favoritism in the name of clean energy.”

Never mind that Issa has been a strong supporter of loan guarantees for nuclear energy and has requested multiple grants for clean energy companies in his district. Issa has also been a vociferous supporter of permanent tax credits for the oil and gas industry, which he calls absolutely necessary for job creation.

Yet, somehow, Issa and his colleagues in Congress have been completely silent on extending expiring short-term tax credits for the wind industry — a lapse that may cost the American wind industry 37,000 jobs next year. And when asked for his characterization of tax credits for clean energy, Issa gets them confused with loan guarantees and calls them a “scandal.”

For the record, here is the gaping difference between the two:

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In the GOP State of the Union rebuttal, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) made the fanciful claim that President Obama’s energy decisions have “destroyed” “tens of thousands of jobs” and have had no benefit on public health:

The extremism that stifles the development of homegrown energy, or cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would employ tens of thousands, or jacks up consumer utility bills for no improvement in either human health or world temperature, is a pro-poverty policy. It must be replaced by a passionate pro-growth approach that breaks all ties and calls all close ones in favor of private sector jobs that restore opportunity for all and generate the public revenues to pay our bills.

Watch it:

It isn’t a surprise that Daniels — a long-time climate-denier and friend of oil and gas — boldly claimed coal regulations have no effect on public health, when new mercury pollution controls will prevent 11,000 premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks, and 130,000 asthma attacks annually. His jobs estimate for Keystone XL has also been debunked by multiple studies, instead coming closer to 5,000 temporary jobs.

Daniels’ rush to defend coal and oil at the expense of public health comes as little surprise. Since 2004, Daniels has received $64,200 from the oil and gas industry, according to National Institute on Money in State Politics data. He has received another $735,662 from mining and utilities.

Visit the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund website. Support climate scientists – give to the fund

by Scott A. Mandia, Climate Science Legal Defense Fund

Joshua Wolfe and I are very pleased to announce the official launch of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF) home page. CSLDF is now a project of the non-profit group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The official press release is below.

Please spread the word to all so that CSLDF can grow its support base. Cross-post the press release, Facebook it, Tweet it, e-mail it, etc. to all of your contacts and tell them to do the same.  Let us send a strong message to those that have harassed and attacked our scientific experts and dissuaded countless others from entering the field of climate science.

CLIMATE SCIENCE LEGAL DEFENSE FUND GETS NEW BACKING

PEER Sponsors Effort to Counter Fossil-Fueled Attacks on Climate Scientists

Washington, DC — The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF) has found a non-profit home in Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) which provides it fiscal sponsorship and logistical support. CSLDF lets scientific colleagues and the public directly help climate scientists protect themselves and their work from industry-funded legal attacks.

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Other stories below: Bernie Sanders pledges to roll back fossil fuel subsidies; Not all wetlands are created equal

State of the Union 2012: Obama speech full text

…Our experience with shale gas shows us that the payoffs on these public investments don’t always come right away. Some technologies don’t pan out; some companies fail. But I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy. I will not walk away from workers like Bryan. I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany because we refuse to make the same commitment here. We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That’s long enough. It’s time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that’s rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that’s never been more promising. Pass clean energy tax credits and create these jobs.

We can also spur energy innovation with new incentives. The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change. But there’s no reason why Congress shouldn’t at least set a clean energy standard that creates a market for innovation. So far, you haven’t acted. Well tonight, I will. I’m directing my Administration to allow the development of clean energy on enough public land to power three million homes. And I’m proud to announce that the Department of Defense, the world’s largest consumer of energy, will make one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history – with the Navy purchasing enough capacity to power a quarter of a million homes a year.

Of course, the easiest way to save money is to waste less energy. So here’s another proposal: Help manufacturers eliminate energy waste in their factories and give businesses incentives to upgrade their buildings. Their energy bills will be $100 billion lower over the next decade, and America will have less pollution, more manufacturing, and more jobs for construction workers who need them. Send me a bill that creates these jobs.

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