Americans for Prosperity now sees children flying kites as a major threat to society.

Earlier today, I opened my email box to find an uproarious AFP promotion for a protest in Asbury Park and Ocean City, New Jersey this Friday.

What are they so upset about?

An event so dastardly and maniacal, it has the potential to tear down everything we love about our freedoms as Americans. I almost couldn’t stomach it when I found out more.

Yes, it’s “extremist” kids from the Boys and Girls Club and local schools flying kites in support of offshore wind energy.

Don’t worry, AFP is on the case (as explained on their website, accompanied by the smoking wind turbine):

You heard that right! Friday is “Global Wind Day” and environmental extremists throughout New Jersey will be celebrating by flying kites at beaches along the Jersey Shore and calling for more and more of our tax dollars to be used to subsidize their crazy offshore wind pipe dreams!

AFP will be going toe to toe with the environmental extremists to combat their radical agenda and tell the truth about the costs of offshore wind.

Yes, that’s right. With monetary assistance from the Koch Brothers, AFP will be going toe to toe with these kite-flying kids who represent such a threat to the free market.

Here’s how the Sierra Club describes the event in support of Global Wind Day: “We’ll be gathering at a beach near you for a kite-flying rally and celebration of NJ’s offshore wind potential. Bring your family, friends and kites.”

The horror!

In order to combat these “extremist” families and their kite-flying antics, AFP is throwing in all the resources it can — chartering six buses (yes, six) to bring people in from around the state.

How will this battle unfold? Will the crusading free-marketeers be able to withstand this beach full of radical children? Tune in Friday on Global Wind Day…..

Starting tonight, the NBA Finals, will, for the first time, feature two weather phenomena battling it out.

Or, as a friend put it, “This is the first climate-change-sensitive championship showdown in NBA history.”

In truth, I lost interest in the outcome of the NBA playoffs after Linsanity ended, and the Knicks bombed out. Given how folks feel about “King” James outside of sea-level-rise threatened Miami — he’s only one percentage point more popular than Governor Rick Scott in Florida (who, incidentally, abolished the Florida Energy & Climate Commission that was responsible for overseeing the state’s adaptation plan) — most folks will probably be rooting against the Heat. And that’s an apt foreshadowing of what most Americans will be doing every summer in the coming decades assuming we don’t start slashing greenhouse gas emissions soon.

Of course, that would mean they are rooting for the Thunder, which has its own climatological ironies (and don’t get me started on Oklahoma — see “Oklahoma, Where the Senator Mocks the Deadly Heat Wave“).

Insured losses due to thunderstorms and tornadoes in the U.S. in 2011 dollars. Data and image from Property Claims Service, Munich Re.

May the strongest weather system win!

by Max Frankel

A123 Systems, the troubled Massachusetts-based battery maker, is banking on a new lithium ion battery technology to boost its prospects. To date, A123 may be best known for a costly recall of a product earlier this year and its precipitous decline in value on the stock market

The company is calling the lithium ion battery, named the Nanophosphate EXT, a “game-changing breakthrough” for energy storage.

“By delivering high power, energy and cycle life capabilities over a wider temperature range, we believe Nanophosphate EXT can reduce or even eliminate the need for costly thermal management systems,” said David Vieau, CEO of A123 Systems, in a statement today.

A123 has faced increased scrutiny and skepticism in the wake of its battery recall earlier this year. The company was set to receive $249 million in government financing to build a new factory in Livonia, Michigan, but has only received about half of that money after failing to reach production targets. The factory sits largely unfinished and the company was recently forced to reduce the number of workers there. A123 has reported loses every year since 2005, including $125 million in losses for the first quarter of this year in the wake of the recall.

Despite all of its financial trouble, the U.S. government has remained cautiously confident in A123 because of its engineering acumen. With the exception of the recent defective batteries, A123 has remained on the cutting edge of lithium ion battery technology, and the Nanophosphate EXT is the latest example.

Though the specifics of the new Nanophosphate EXT battery are proprietary, A123 has suggested that the battery’s electrodes (anode and cathode) and electrolyte have been redesigned.

Though lithium ion batteries are relatively light weight, many are needed to power a vehicle. This takes up a lot of space, adds weight, and reduces the efficiency (and therefore range) of the car. According to A123, the Nanophosphate EXT packs between 20% and 30% more power than traditional lithium ion batteries. If true, this has the potential to substantially reduce the number of batteries required in hybrids and plug-in electric vehicles, thus boosting performance.

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I wrote a piece last week on the debate about environmental strategy: Should climate hawks be focused on “yes” to things in order to foster a positive message? Or should they be saying “no” more often to disastrous projects?

Most would agree it’s a healthy combination of both. And the chart below, courtesy of KC Golden of the GRIP blog, perfectly illustrates why. Unfortunately, we’re so far down the business as usual path, there’s a lot more “no” being voiced than “yes.”

Related Post:

• Socolow Re-Reaffirms 2004 ‘Wedges’ Paper, Urges ‘Monumental’ Levels of Clean Energy Deployment ASAP
• The full global warming solution: How the world can stabilize at 350 to 450 ppm

The once staid International Energy Agency continues its string of blunt, must-read reports laying bare the reality of our climate and energy system.

While so many “experts” and politicians make hand-waving pronouncements about how the primary solution to climate change is more R&D or how cheap natural gas is the answer to our problems, the IEA is one of the few international bodies with a comprehensive energy and economic model that cuts through the BS.

As their new report, Energy Technology Perspectives 2012, makes clear, new natural gas investments can play at best a limited, very temporary role “if climate objectives are to be met.” The only viable response to the threat of catastrophic climate change is rapid deployment of existing carbon-free technology.

The Executive Summary offers the key conclusion that the extra investment needed to achieve the 2°C Scenario (2DS) would be a net money saver:

Achieving the 2DS would require USD 36 trillion (35%) more in investments from today to 2050 than under a scenario in which controlling carbon emissions is not a priority. That is the equivalent of an extra USD 130 per person every year. However, investing is not the same as spending: by 2025, the fuel savings realised would outweigh the investments; by 2050, the fuel savings amount to more than USD 100 trillion. Even if these potential future savings are discounted at 10%, there would be a USD 5 trillion net saving between now and 2050. If cautious assumptions of how lower demand for fossil fuels can impact prices are applied, the projected fuel savings jump to USD 150 trillion.

Perhaps because people have misinterpreted their recent reports on natural gas — as I discuss in my May 30 post, “IEA Finds ‘Safe’ Gas Fracking Would Destroy A Livable Climate” — the IEA has tried to be clearer here. And they have succeeded. Consider the how the report was covered in the NY Times by Matthew Wald, who is no greenie:

Reducing carbon dioxide emissions by enough to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is “still within reach,’’ the International Energy Agency reported on Monday, but at the moment, trends in energy use are running in the wrong direction.

In the latest version of Energy Technology Perspectives, a report issued biennially by the agency, it said the technology to achieve that goal is available. But as Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the agency, put it, “we’re not using it.’’ Since the agency published its first Energy Technology Perspectives in 2006, the evidence of climate change has only grown stronger, she said, but “if anything, it has fallen further down the political agenda.’’

Point #1: Delay makes no sense, since we have the technology to start aggressive emissions reduction and delay is very costly. The IEA explains here that “every additional dollar invested can generate three dollars in future fuel savings by 2050.” It has previously explained that, “Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.”

Point #2: If natural gas is a bridge fuel, then the bridge is really, really short one. Here’s the NY Times again:

Coal consumption, for example, is still rising around the world, and that is “the single most problematic trend in the relationship between energy and climate change,” the report said. Building more efficient coal-fired plants operating at higher temperatures could cut emissions by 30 percent per kilowatt-hour. But to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, coal use would have to fall by 45 percent from 2009 levels, the report said.

Natural gas is not the answer to this problem, the report points out. Gas-fired plants may emit only half as much carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour generated than coal-fired plants, but by 2025 the amount emitted will be higher than the average for the entire electric system, it said.

The United States and some other countries are feverishly building new natural-gas-fired generating equipment, the report adds, but the level of emissions from gas raises “questions around the long-term viability of some gas infrastructure investment if climate objectives are to be met.”

The report expands on that point, to make clear that post-2030, natural gas must increasingly play a supporting role to renewables:

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Photo: USGS

by Kiley Kroh

The Arctic is warming at an alarming rate – twice as fast as the rest of the planet – and according to a new report, those changes will be a key driver of geopolitics in the coming years.

As the rapidly melting ice unlocks commercial opportunities in shipping, tourism and oil and gas extraction, the world’s largest economies are jockeying for control of the region. According to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, the melting of the Arctic is a “bellwether for how climate change may reshape geopolitics in the post-Cold War era.”

The widely held notion that climate change will occur gradually over the 21st century, allowing ample time for society to adapt, is belied by the unprecedented pace of both climate change and policy developments in the Arctic today. Such rapid changes will challenge governments’ abilities to anticipate and diplomatically resolve international disputes within the region.

Accelerating changes in the region are causing sea ice to melt at a rate exceeding scientists’ predictions.  The absence of ice will open up strategic waterways, such as the Northwest Passage, for longer periods of time and allow more opportunity for activities like offshore oil exploration that require open water. Analysts believe the economic impact could be significant – new and expanded shipping routes can significantly reduce the transit time between Asia, North America and Europe, and oil companies like Royal Dutch Shell are eager to unlock the “great opportunity” for fossil fuels they believe lies beneath the pristine Arctic waters.

But increased opportunity will also lead to increased conflict. In analyzing recent policy statements and actions of the Arctic states, the report notes that while the countries seem “focused on building a cooperative security environment in the region,” there is an “apparently contradictory trend toward modernizing their military forces in the Arctic … Consequently, if political cooperation in the region should sour, most of the Arctic nations will have forces that are prepared to compete in a hostile environment.”

Further complicating Arctic claims is the absence of the U.S. in the Law of the Sea treaty, or UNCLOS, which details the rights and responsibilities of nations when it comes to use and protection of the world’s oceans. The treaty also provides an important framework for resolving territorial disputes in the Arctic.  UNCLOS is ratified by every other developed country and is supported by a broad coalition that includes five former Republican secretaries of state, the Chamber of Commerce, and major environmental groups.  America’s failure to ratify this key treaty puts us at an immediate disadvantage in frontier regions like the Arctic.

And what of the environmental implications?  With more vessels trying to navigate the narrow straits and channels of the Northwest Passage, commercial fishing vessels, cruise ships, and drilling rigs operating in the previously inaccessible Arctic Ocean, the risk of a collision or oil spill increase exponentially.

As detailed in the Center for American Progress report, Putting a Freeze on Arctic Ocean Drilling: America’s Inability to Respond to an Oil Spill in the Arctic, the U.S. lags far behind other Arctic nations in infrastructure and preparedness to respond to a major event.  There are no U.S. Coast Guard stations north of the Arctic Circle, and we currently operate just one functional icebreaking vessel. Alaska’s tiny ports and airports are incapable of supporting an extensive and sustained airlift effort. The region even lacks such basics as paved roads and railroads.

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Last month was a big one for the German solar industry. According to figures released by a German water and energy trade association, distributed solar photovoltaic systems produced 10 percent of Germany’s total electricity consumption for the month of May. That’s a 40 percent increase over May of 2011.

On the 25th and 26th of May, Germany was able to meet one third of its peak demand with solar alone.

There are now over one million solar systems installed across Germany. In 2011, solar accounted for 3 percent of the country’s total electricity generation — a 60 percent increase over 2010.

A sunny month and a continued boom in installations contributed to the increase in generation. In the first quarter of 2012, deployment of solar PV systems was more than three times higher than the first quarter of 2011. In the rush to get systems placed in service before Germany administers steep cuts to its feed-in tariff program, installers put 1,800 MW online in the first three months of the year. That’s roughly what the entire U.S. industry installed in 2011.

But the continued growth in German installations and increase in solar generation is also sparking calls for more cuts to the country’s incentives. The feed-in tariff, which provides system owners with a guaranteed rate for every unit of energy fed into the grid, has been the key reason for Germany’s success. But with solar costs dropping and generation increasing, the premiums given to producers have been reduced substantially in an effort to cool the market.

In 2011, Germany got roughly 20% of its electricity from all renewable energy technologies.

Treaty Gives Us a Stronger Hand in the Region

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, center, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, right, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin E. Dempsey testify on Capitol Hill in May before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the Law of the Sea Convention. Photo: AP.

by Nina Hachigian

China’s rise adds to a growing list of reasons to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. Senate ratification of the treaty, which sets out a legal framework for conduct in the world’s oceans, will put the United States in an even stronger position to preserve our freedom of navigation in the South and East China Seas against any potential Chinese attempts to restrict our access, now and in the future. It will also allow us to be an even more forceful advocate for a rules-based process when it comes to territorial disputes in those waters and will lend Washington more credibility as it pushes China to follow international laws and norms.

Let’s start with that final reason.

Ratification puts the United States in a stronger position as it works to integrate China into the international system

If the United States ratifies the Law of the Sea Convention, we will have more credibility when we argue that China needs to become a “responsible stakeholder”—in the words of former President George W. Bush’s Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick—in the international system.

America has been pressing Beijing to join international frameworks of rules and norms to create a level, predictable playing field for all; to bring China into the work of tackling shared threats across the world; and to ensure that China’s rise supports rather than disrupts the global system that America and our allies created after World War II. These rules and norms support international trade and economic integration across the world and helped enable China’s astronomical economic growth in recent decades.

It’s true the People’s Republic of China has come a long way since its early days when it totally shunned the international community—and vice versa. Today China is deeply engaged in the international system on a number of levels. In international venues such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the G-20, the Chinese show up, they are serious, and they often contribute constructively to policy questions.

Yet China still falls far short of its international commitments when it comes to World Trade Organization rules, international intellectual property standards, International Monetary Fund guidelines on its currency, and the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights, to name a few important areas.

The tables are turned on the Law of the Sea: Because of our failure to ratify the convention, the United States stands outside the international system that we champion. China, 161 other nations, and the European Union have all ratified the convention. The United States remains a “nonparty” to the convention, along with a handful of other nations, including some political pariahs such as Syria, North Korea, and Iran.

It is difficult for America to be a credible champion of rules and norms in the international system when we have not signed on to the international law that governs what can happen in the oceans that cover nearly three-fourths of the planet.

Ratification gives us a stronger position as we navigate issues in the South China Sea

More specifically, ratifying the Law of the Sea Convention will lock in the terms that are extremely favorable to America in our disputes with China over freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. We currently have regular disagreements with the Chinese over where America’s military assets can travel in the oceans near China’s shores. The Law of the Sea would address these issues because it explicitly lays out rules and definitions in ways that the United States helped shape when the convention was written.

Let’s take a very brief detour into maritime legal terms: The Law of the Sea Convention provides clear definitions—ones that the United States prefers—of a state’s “territorial waters” and also its jurisdiction in the all-important “exclusive economic zone.”

Under the convention, a coastal state’s “territorial waters” start from its nautical baseline—basically where the ocean hits the shore at low tide—and extends 12 nautical miles out to sea.

The Law of the Sea convention says these territorial waters are part of the sovereign territory of the coastal state. This means coastal states can make laws that apply to activities on these waters and own any resources in the waters and the seabed, including fish and other sea life, oil, natural gas, and metals and minerals. (There is another “contiguous” zone 24 miles out that is relevant to immigration and health laws but not to this article.)

The next zone, extending out to 200 nautical miles from shore, is the nation’s exclusive economic zone. In this zone the coastal state has rights for the purposes of “exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, whether living or non-living.” Other countries have freedoms of “navigation and over-flight,” among others.

Only the coastal state can therefore exploit its exclusive economic zone’s resources. But its domestic laws do not apply in the zone, and the coastal state cannot stop another country’s civilian or military ships from traveling through it.

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A round-up of the top climate and energy news. Please post additional links below.

Climate change will make U.S. western wildfires, like those now raging in parts of Colorado and New Mexico, more frequent over the next 30 years, researchers reported on Tuesday. [Reuters, U.C. Berkeley news release]

Climate change is widely expected to disrupt future fire patterns around the world, with some regions, such as the western United States, seeing more frequent fires within the next 30 years, according to a new analysis led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, in collaboration with an international team of scientists.

By the end of the century, almost all of North America and most of Europe is projected to see a jump in the frequency of wildfires, primarily because of increasing temperature trends. At the same time, fire activity could actually decrease around equatorial regions, particularly among the tropical rainforests, because of increased rainfall.

The study, published today (Tuesday, June 12) in Ecosphere, an open-access, peer-reviewed journal of the Ecological Society of America, used 16 different climate change models to generate what the researchers said is one of the most comprehensive projections to date of how climate change might affect global fire patterns.

“In the long run, we found what most fear — increasing fire activity across large parts of the planet,” said study lead author Max Moritz, fire specialist in UC Cooperative Extension. “But the speed and extent to which some of these changes may happen is surprising.”

Bank of America Corp , which has faced criticism for dealings with coal companies in recent years, on Monday set a new 10-year, $50 billion goal to provide loans and other financing for environmentally friendly energy projects. [Reuters]

A fast-growing wildfire raged through dry forests and hillside subdivisions in northern Colorado on Monday, charring homes and forcing hundreds of families to evacuate in the latest out-of-control blaze to scorch the parched West. [New York Times]

The U.S. still lagged behind other nations in 2011 in the share of energy it gets from renewable sources, in spite of a more than 300% increase in funding for green power projects over the last decade. [Los Angeles Times]

Mitt Romney’s criticism of President Barack Obama for promoting green-energy subsidies may keep the former Massachusetts governor from boasting about his own contribution to his state’s expanding clean-energy industry. [Businessweek]

A report from a new institute at the State University at Buffalo asserting that state oversight has made natural gas drilling safer is causing tumult on campus and beyond, with critics arguing that the institute is biased toward industry and could undercut the university’s reputation. [New York Times]

Huge amounts of carbon trapped in the soils of U.S. forests will be released into the air as the planet heats up, contributing to a “vicious cycle” that could accelerate climate change, a new study concluded. [Washington Post]