The latest weekly Drought Monitor update set another grim record. The brutal U.S. drought expanded to 65.45% of the contiguous U.S. — the highest ever in the Monitor’s 12-year history. The previous record was 64.8% — set just last week.

In the third quarter alone, crop production dropped $12 billion “due to this summer’s severe heat and drought.”  The drop in farm inventories was so sharp in the last quarter that it wiped 0.2% off of U.S. GDP in the latest revision.

In Texas, the drought has killed more than 300 million trees. Nearly 98% of Nebraska is in extreme to exceptional drought — 3 months ago, none of it was!

Climate Central explains:

The drought is the worst to strike the U.S. since the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s and lengthy droughts of the 1950s. It came on suddenly and largely without warning, and although the main trigger was most likely the pattern of water temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, the drought was exacerbated by extremely hot temperatures during the spring and summer. Climate studies have shown that the odds of severe heat waves are increasing due to manmade climate change.

As I wrote in July, “We’re Already Topping Dust Bowl Temperatures — Imagine What’ll Happen If We Fail To Stop 10°F Warming.” The WashPost reported in August:

The United States will suffer a series of severe droughts in the next two decades, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. Moreover, global warming will play an increasingly important role in their abundance and severity, claims Aiguo Dai, the study’s author.

His findings bolster conclusions from climate models used by researchers around the globe that have predicted severe and widespread droughts in coming decades over many land areas…

“We can now be more confident that the models are correct,” Dai said, “but unfortunately, their predictions are dire.”

For more on what the models have been saying, see “James Hansen Is Correct About Catastrophic Projections For U.S. Drought If We Don’t Act Now.” I’ll do a post on Dai’s latest work in October.

Related Posts:

• Video: Chronicling The Extreme 2012 Drought
• My Nature Piece On Dust-Bowlification And the Grave Threat It Poses to Food Security

by Graham Readfearn, via DeSmogBlog

Dr. Russell McKenzie, an associate professor at Southeastern Louisiana University Department of Management and Business Administration, is rather pleased with the guy he has secured to speak to students and the public about the economic cost of cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

“We are honored to have someone of his stature speaking,” he told an online university community newspaper. In another story, Dr McKenzie added: “It’s not every day you have the opportunity to have a world renowned speaker to come to Southeastern”.

So who is this global powerhouse on climate change and economics? Sir Nicholas Stern, perhaps, author of the UK government’s “Stern Review”? Could it be James Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and famed climate scientist?

No. The “world renowned speaker” appearing at Southeastern Louisiana University on 2 October is none other than Lord Christopher Monckton, the British hereditary peer who believes climate scientists are part of a plot to introduce a socialist world government.

Apparently, the university is “honored” to host a man who told told climate scientists through a partisan crowd that “we are coming after you. We are going to prosecute you, and we are going to lock you up”.

Honored to have someone who compared former Australian government climate policy advisor Ross Garnaut to a Nazi? Honored to have someone who tells young climate change campaigners that they are the “Hitler youth“? Honored to be in the presence of a person shown to have misrepresented climate science (repeatedly) and yet is promoted by coal mining magnate and world’s richest woman Gina Rinehart?

And yes, honored to host a man who has written that the chances of Barack Obama having been born in the US are  ”no better than 1 in 62,500,000,000,000,000,000“.

The lecture in question has been well promoted through official university channels and through a university-based website for student journalists which has written not one, but two stories promoting the event. Between 75 and 120 people are expected to attend.

News went out earlier this week to staff and students via the university’s weekly newsletter and on a 21 September daily bulletin, which included a link to a flyer promoting the event. The fawning newsletter article provided a potted biography of Lord Monckton:

Read more

Gunnar Ries, via Flickr

by Robert Hutchinson and Molly Miller, via the Rocky Mountain Institute

Why just talk about energy when what people really need is comfort?

For example, when researching Reinventing Fire we spoke with a regional insulation installer who says he never needs to bring up energy to make a sale. He walks into a potential customer’s house, finds an overly chilly (often north facing) room and says, “Is this space uncomfortable? I bet you don’t use this room much.”

Why might selling space usability and comfort—as opposed to selling energy savings—work as a go-to-market model?

Because people get really engaged about comfort and not always excited about energy efficiency (confusion or…snore).

At home, at work, and even in our cars, comfort influences not only our happiness and well-being, but also our effectiveness and productivity. Studies show increased productivity and decreased absenteeism is directly tied to comfort; even a tiny increase in productivity has huge financial ramifications.

But it’s more than productivity. In many places (think Singapore or Houston) moving between high heat and humidity and freezing air-conditioned cabs and buildings feels as it if it is not very healthy. People certainly complain about it and blame summer colds on it!

Not only is cranked-up AC—or even a little bit of cold air near the door—potentially unhealthy, it can lead to Junk Under Your Desk Syndrome (JUYDS). If you need a heater or a fan in your personal workspace, you have this affliction. Or, rather, your building has this affliction—and it pays the price.

(If this blog were about energy, like many of our other blogs, we would mention that JUYDS can be death to plug loads, which make designing really good buildings very challenging these days, because they are so difficult to predict upfront—and increasingly, so large.

We spend thousands of dollars on Herman Miller chairs for people’s ergonomic comfort in our office buildings, but put little thought into their thermal comfort.

The good news today is we know much more about comfort and controls than we used to. First, well-designed, highly efficient buildings are also much more comfortable because they are usually meant to keep temperature stable—no freezing or broiling first thing in the morning, then the opposite later. Read more

A “seminal” 2009 study in Science of Arctic temperatures found that human-caused warming had overtaken 2,000 years of natural cooling (see Figure). A new study of the high Arctic provides further evidence for that conclusion.

Story via Columbia University

Summers on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard are now warmer than at any other time in the last 1,800 years, including during medieval times when parts of the northern hemisphere were as hot as, or hotter, than today, according to a new study in the journal Geology.

“The Medieval Warm Period was not as uniformly warm as we once thought–we can start calling it the Medieval Period again,” said the study’s lead author, William D’Andrea, a climate scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “Our record indicates that recent summer temperatures on Svalbard are greater than even the warmest periods at that time.”

The naturally driven Medieval Warm Period, from about 950 to 1250, has been a favorite time for people who deny evidence that humans are heating the planet with industrial greenhouse gases. But the climate reconstruction from Svalbard casts new doubt on that era’s reach, and undercuts skeptics who argue that current warming is also natural. Since 1987, summers on Svalbard have been 2 degrees to 2.5 degrees C (3.6 to 4.5 degrees F) hotter than they were there during warmest parts of the Medieval Warm Period, the study found.

Photo: William D'Andrea

Researchers produced the 1,800 year climate record by analyzing levels of unsaturated fats in algae buried in the sediments of Kongressvatnet lake, in western Svalbard. In colder water, algae make more unsaturated fats, or alkenones; in warmer water, they produce more saturated fats. Like pages in a book, the unsaturation level of fats can provide a record of past climate.  So far, most Arctic climate records have come from ice cores that preserve only annual layers of cold-season snowfall, and thus cold-season temperatures. But lake sediments, with their record of summertime temperatures, can tell scientists how climate varied the rest of the year and in places where ice sheets are absent.

“We need both ice core and lake sediment records,” said Elisabeth Isaksson, a glaciologist at the Norwegian Polar Institute who was not involved in the study. “Here, Billy has found something that tells a different, more detailed story.”

In looking at how summers on Svalbard varied, researchers also discovered that the region was not particularly cold during another recent anomalous period–the “Little Ice Age” of the 18^th and 19^th centuries, when glaciers on Svalbard surged to their greatest extent in the last 10,000 years and glaciers in many parts of Western Europe also grew. They suggest that more snow, rather than colder temperatures, may have fed the growth of Svalbard glaciers.

Read more

by Jennifer Morgan, via WRI Insights

Australia, one of world’s most carbon-intensive countries, recently began implementing a comprehensive national policy to address climate change and transition to a clean-energy economy. Yesterday, WRI had the pleasure of hosting Mark Dreyfus, Australian Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, who outlined his country’s plans to a group of business, congressional, and NGO representatives.

One point that came through at the event is that Australia’s recent energy and climate choices can be very instructive to the United States. This post provides a quick look at Australia’s new policy and explores how it can inform and inspire U.S. efforts to move toward a low-carbon future.

Why Did Australia Adopt a National Climate and Energy Policy?

Australia faces a high level of climate risk, with significant vulnerability to sea level rise as well as to extreme weather eventslike drought, heat waves, and wildfires. At the same time, the country is heavily dependent on carbon-intensive resources. Australia has the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions of any country in the developed world, and it’s the 15th largest emitter overall.

Recognizing the major environmental and economic risks of continuing with business as usual, as well as the opportunities involved in shifting to clean energy, Australia decided to transform its economy toward a more sustainable path. The policy change involved a long and at times acrimonious political debate, but the country’s leaders decided that they could no longer afford not to act.

What Does the Country’s New Climate Policy Look Like?

The Clean Energy Future Package, in effect since July, includes a national emissions reduction target of 5 percent below 2000 levels by 2020 and 80 percent below 2000 levels by 2050. To meet these targets, the Package features a range of policy instruments that will put a price on carbon, promote renewable energy (setting a target of 20 percent of Australia’s electricity coming from renewables by 2020), encourage energy efficiency, and reduce pollution.

The centerpiece of the policy is the carbon price, starting at $23 AUD/ton until July 2015. After that, a flexible phase will begin where the market will set the price. Around 500 businesses – large emitters spanning sectors that cover 68 percent of Australia’s emissions – will be required to pay for their pollution under the carbon pricing mechanism.

Australia has also created institutions to ensure that the system works effectively. A Climate Change Authority will monitor and advise on the level of pollution caps, operation of the carbon price and other initiatives, and progress toward meeting targets. A Clean Energy Regulator will administer the carbon price mechanism, the Renewable Energy Target, a Carbon Farming Initiative, and the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Program. A Productivity Commission will monitor and report on what kinds of climate change policies other countries are implementing, as well as focus the effects of the program on jobs and competitiveness. In addition, a Clean Energy Finance Corporation is being created to invest in renewables and energy efficiency. Australia hopes that these elements, as well as others, will help the country meet its emissions and pollution-reduction targets.

Australia has also paid close attention to the issue of fairness across the economy. In particular, the government thought about how to ensure that poorer households were protected from potentially higher energy costs. The country also put in a program to shield energy-intensive industries from the carbon price.

What Is Particularly Relevant for the United States?

As Secretary Dreyfus pointed out at the WRI event, there are many similarities between Australia and the United States in the context of climate and energy policy. For example, the countries share similar emissions profiles, are extremely fossil-fuel dependent, and face highly partisan policy environments in which climate change is a divisive issue. While there are many lessons America can learn from the Australian experience, four key ones jump out:

1. It’s clear that a mix of policy instruments is needed across the economy. A carbon price is very important, but it’s not enough to actually create the needed transformation. Policies and incentives around renewable energy and energy efficiency are also needed, and creating a specific finance corporation to invest in clean technologies can be an effective part of an overall package.
2. “Fairness” is a vital component of any policy deal. Australia had a long discussion nationally about how to create a fair approach. The country utilized various tools such as carbon policy and tax policy to protect households from any higher energy costs and shield energy-intensive industries from competitiveness concerns. Like Australia, the United States has a wide divergence of economic circumstances, both in households and on the industry side. The Australian plan shows that with political leadership and time, effective solutions can be found.
3. We must not lose sight of the science when creating policies. Australia recognized its own vulnerability to climate change and shared that risk analysis with its citizens through town hall meetings across the country. It also created an independent commission to monitor these risks and make recommendations. The United States also faces significant climate risks, from sea-level rise in Florida to forest die-back in the West. It’s very instructive for the United States to understand how Australia assessed its own risk and built institutions to forge a strong link between science and policymaking.
4. Persistence is essential. The Australian government had been trying to implement a comprehensive climate package for many years, and on the fourth try – despite intense opposition – it finally succeeded. It’s important for the United States to not give up, to learn from past debates, and to keep working to develop an effective approach that can meet the joint goals of economic growth and reduced emissions.

In the end, every country has to find its own way to address climate change risks and position itself in the clean-energy economy. The United States is currently a step behind Australia in determining its own pathway. Hopefully some inspiration from Down Under will motivate U.S. business and government to join the growing number of countries that are tackling climate change one step at a time.

Jennifer L. Morgan oversees the Institute’s work on climate change issues and guides WRI strategy in helping countries, governments, and individuals take positive action toward achieving a zero-carbon future. This piece was originally published at WRI Insights and was reprinted with permission.

Opine away!

By Chris Britt via Slate

by Richard W. Caperton, Adam James, and Matt Kasper

Energy efficiency is a win-win-win for the United States. It saves homeowners money, it puts Americans back to work, and it helps avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change. But energy efficiency investments are tough for some people to make because they typically involve relatively large up-front costs for benefits spread into the future. The Weatherization Assistance Program exists to help make sure all Americans share benefits of energy efficiency.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 allocated $5 billion for the Department of Energy’s Weatherization Assistance Program with the highly ambitious goal of weatherizing 600,000 homes by the end of the three-year Recovery Act period.[1] In crafting the Recovery Act, President Barack Obama understood that scaling up the weatherization program would be a key part of the strategy to jumpstart the economy through creating American jobs, supporting small businesses, saving everyday people money on their energy bills, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions

After a slow start, the Weatherization Assistance Program gained momentum and on Thursday, September 27, 2012 weatherized the 1 millionth home just nine months after passing the 600,000 mark.[2] This achievement marks a major milestone. Across America, the Weatherization Assistance Program has been a success.

While this is a great achievement for President Obama and the Department of Energy, the real beneficiaries are the families who have had their homes retrofitted. Any household at or below 200 percent of the poverty line qualifies to apply for retrofit services. Although 38 million households are eligible for weatherization services, priority has been given to families with children and homeowners who are elderly or disabled.[3]

The Weatherization Assistance Program also has environmental benefits. Energy use in homes, offices, and industrial facilities is a leading contributor to climate change. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, buildings in the United States account for nearly 40 percent of the nation’s total energy use and 65 percent of electricity consumption.[3] Because the construction, operation, and maintenance of buildings involves large amounts of energy, water, and other resources, buildings produce 30 percent of the greenhouse gasses emitted in the United States each year.

Read more

We’ve got a lot of coal plants set to close in America. Based upon whose estimates you look at, we could see 19 and 35 gigawatts of coal plant closures over the next 5-8 years. That could mean a turnover of around 5 percent of our total electricity generation fleet by 2020.

Before you start blaming the Environmental Protection Agency for its over-regulation, consider this: Analysts say that a large portion of those coal plants would retire without new EPA air pollution rules. That’s because our coal fleet is pretty old — the median age of U.S. facilities is 46 years. At the same time, the cost of coal is increasing while the cost of natural gas remains very low, thus encouraging companies to phase out coal plants in favor of natural gas.

Along with the dubious claims that the shift away from coal is a result of “EPA overreach,” one of the frustrating things about the reaction to U.S. coal plant closures is the lack of imagination about what comes next. Some people assume it’s either/or: either you maintain a fleet of old coal plants or you compromise the integrity of the electric grid. It’s a silly fallacy that completely ignores all the other technologies that could take the place of these coal plants — options like baseload and peaking renewables, efficiency, and better grid management tools.

And it doesn’t have to be anything too fancy. A new report out from The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) shows how simple approaches to energy efficiency can make up for the fleet of coal plants that will soon be taken offline.

According to ACEEEE, combined heat and power — a process that uses excess heat from electricity generation for air-conditioning or water heating, or uses excess heat to generate electricity — could make up for 100 percent of coal plant closures in certain states:

These conversations [around coal plants closures] have largely ignored an alternative that could meet future demand needs, reduce emissions, and save consumers money: energy efficiency. Energy efficiency offers benefits in addition to its low costs, however. It reduces overall emissions; can be deployed quickly compared to other forms of generation; reduces peak demand, minimizing the need for peaking plants; and reduces the general stress on vulnerable parts of the distribution system.

So instead of cause for alarm, these retirements can be looked at as a unique opportunity to replace what were already old, comparatively inefficient, and dirty electricity generation assets with cleaner, more cost-effective resources. Well-considered in energy efficiency resources like CHP can help utilities meet future demand while reducing overall emissions and costs borne by consumers as well as society at large.

A typical new natural gas-powered CHP system can generate electricity at a cost of 6 cents/kWh, while the cost of new natural gas-powered traditional generation or nuclear-powered generation can range from 6.9 to 11.3 cents/kWh. CHP is not only more cost-effective than traditional centralized generation, but it is also cleaner and more efficient, squeezing more useful energy out of every unit of fuel. CHP can generate electricity and thermal energy at efficiencies of up to 85 percent, while the average electric generation efficiency of U.S. power plants is about 33 percent.

The report looked at 12 key states facing a substantial number of coal plant retirements. While CHP can’t fill in the entire gap in every state (the feasible penetration in states ranges from 2 percent to 100 percent), the detailed assessment of potential shows a massive resource sitting in front of us — 56 GW worth.

These CHP plants, which could be integrated into manufacturing facilities, commercial buildings, or existing power plants, already make up nearly 9 percent of America’s electricity portfolio. They can be run on coal, biogas, natural gas, and a variety of other renewable fuels. It’s a cheap resource available today that we already know how to integrate.

There are some substantial barriers, of course. The major problem is that increasing efficiency may mean less revenues for utilities integrating these projects. In order to spur more activity, utilities may need to be compensated for investing in efficiency, rather than compensated for every unit of electricity they sell. Another barrier is the lack of attention paid to CHP in state-level renewable energy and efficiency targets. By establishing firm targets, states can put in place a legal framework for utilities to make these investments.

The Obama Administration clearly understands the important role that CHP can play in the transition of our electric grid. Last month, the White House announced a goal of 40 GW of CHP over the next 10 years — a target that could bring between $40 and $80 billion of investment in the technology. The Executive Order directs federal agencies to integrate promotion policies and to provide technical assistance for utilities and industrial companies looking to develop projects.

Common sense solutions like CHP are a major economic opportunity for America. Instead of complaining and pointing fingers about the closure of old, dirty coal plants, we should be looking forward and thinking creatively about how we make the transition to a cleaner, more efficient electricity system. For a country that takes such pride in innovation, it’s baffling that this doesn’t get more serious discussion in policy circles.

By Jessica Goad

Tomorrow is the 19^th annual National Public Lands Day, the “nation’s largest, single-day volunteer event for public lands.”  More than 170,000 Americans will volunteer their time helping to restore and conserve their favorite places.

It’s a good time to reflect on why we have set aside more than 700 million acres of federal public lands that are managed by the government on behalf of all Americans.  This is especially true considering that a number of politicians have demonstrated their ignorance of this national asset.  Even Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told the Reno Gazette-Journal in February that he doesn’t know “what the purpose is” of public lands.

Public lands have a wide variety of purposes, from contributing to the economy to being an important part of our heritage.  Here is our list of the top five purposes and benefits of public lands:

1.  They provide a place for all Americans—not just the wealthy few—to play.  America’s system of public lands leaves them open to everyone, no matter how rich or poor.  And this is unique—as Rep. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) wrote, “In most countries in the world, if you aren’t landed gentry, good luck hunting and fishing. Your best bet in many of those places is to pay a steep price to hunt and fish on someone else’s private land.”  Public lands reflect many of our democratic ideals, such as equality and liberty.

2.  They are part of our national heritage.  Currently America boasts 397 national park units, 103 national monuments, and 757 wilderness areas.  Each of these represents a time or place that is important to our history as an American people.  From the newly created Chimney Rock National Monument that honors Native Americans, to Yellowstone National Park that echoes the spirit that drew us westward, to Fort Monroe National Monument that tells the story of slavery and the Civil War, our public lands are part of our collective memory as a nation.

3.  They create economic development and jobs.  America’s lands have for hundreds of years provided the natural resources that keep our economy moving.  Today, public lands are the source of coal, oil, gas, timber, and other minerals, and their extraction provides economic benefits and jobs.  Additionally, protecting public lands stimulates economic development by way of tourism and the active outdoor industry.  A recent report from the Department of the Interior found that in 2011, the agency contributed $385 billion to the economy and supported 2 million jobs (this number does not include the contributions of the U.S. Forest Service).

4. They help provide clean air and clean water. Mountains, forests, and rivers are the source of many of the natural amenities on which we depend.  Public lands provide these resources to a vast number of people—for example, more than 124 million Americans get their clean drinking water from national forests.  And forests and grasslands filter carbon pollution from the air caused by burning fossil fuels and other industrial activity.  Protecting these places from development and keeping them in tact will ensure that future generations are able to continue relying on them.

5.  They are crucial to helping our country adapt to climate change. Public lands are important both on the mitigation and adaptation sides of climate change.  Forests are extremely important to the long-term storage of carbon—the Forest Service reports that forests and wood products are responsible for sequestering 200 million tons of carbon every year, equivalent to “about 10 percent of annual emissions from fossil fuels.”  Additionally, large tracts of intact lands will be critical to ensuring that species are able to migrate to more suitable habitats as global warming changes the landscape.

This is also an important time to be talking about public lands issues because they have made appearances in a number of elections this year.  Other than Romney’s gaffe, public lands have played a role in the New Mexico and Montana Senate races, Utah’s governor race, and in a ballot initiative in Arizona.  For the very existence of public lands to continue, it is important that we understand the positions that our candidates have on public lands issues, and what their visions are for them in the future.

Jessica is the Manager of Research and Outreach for the Public Lands Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

by Katie Valentine

Aviation accounts for 13 percent of transportation carbon dioxide emissions globally. By 2050, the IPCC projects that aviation will account for 5 percent of global warming. As technologies improve, Airplanes are getting more efficient. But some of those efficiency improvements are being cancelled out by increasing aviation demand, particularly in developing countries.

So what to do? Some companies rethinking the airplane in order to realize far greater efficiency. Boeing is rolling out a new project, called the EcoDemonstrator, that is serving as a test bed for technologies that can dramatically reduce fuel consumption:

This next generation Boeing 737-800 came to D.C. last week after 45 days of flight testing in Glasgow, Montana. These tests allowed Boeing engineers to gather data on how the energy-saving additions and modifications performed in flight – in place of seats, the cabin of the plane was filled with racks of computers and monitoring equipment.

The technologies being tested on the ecoDemonstrator include:

• Adaptive wing edges that change to accommodate different phases of flight, reducing fuel consumption by increasing aerodynamics
• Variable area fan nozzles that adjust to optimize airflow during takeoff and landing, reducing takeoff noise and fuel consumption
• A regenerative hydrogen fuel cell that provides an additional source of power and stores energy when electricity demand is low
• iPad-like devices on the flight deck that provide satellite weather reports and find the most fuel-efficient ways to avoid weather and other flight constraints
• Carpet made from recycled materials that can be replaced tile by tile as it is worn, instead of replacing the entire carpet

The 737-800 is the first plane in the multi-year ecoDemonstrator program developed by Boeing, American Airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration’s Continuous Lower Energy, Emissions and Noise (CLEEN) program in July 2011. The program will test different planes with fuel-saving and noise-reducing technologies in 2013, 2014 and possibly 2015. After this year’s testing is done, the new technologies will be removed and the plane will be returned to American Airlines.

Hopefully, though, the technology tested on the ecoDemonstrator will pave the way for more fuel-efficient aircraft in the future – aviation carbon dioxide emissions are set to quadruple by 2050 if new policies or technologies aren’t put in place to drastically cut fuel use.

Katie Valentie is a graduate of the University of Georgia. She currently interns on the international climate policy team at the Center for American Progress.

by Tam Hunt, via Renewable Energy World

Yet again, the Los Angeles Times has published an attack on renewable energy masquerading as journalism. The front-page Friday article, “Taxpayers, Ratepayers Will Fund California Solar Plants,” commits the journalistic faux pas of not even citing or quoting the “other side” in the debate about the true cost of solar power. More importantly, it gets the facts wrong. Very wrong.

I’ve contacted numerous people at the Times for a correction or a retraction because, frankly, I’m tired of the LA Times getting it so wrong on renewable energy issues. I’m not sure what is the source of such poor reporting, but regardless of the source there appears to be a consistent pattern. I urge readers to contact the Times to share their concern about accuracy and fairness in reporting. (Letters to the editor: letters@latimes.com).

I wrote a response to the LA Times’ last really poor article on renewables in 2010, demonstrating how they mangled the conclusions of a public report about the likely cost of achieving the state’s 33% by 2020 renewable energy mandate. The article argued that it would cost $60 billion to achieve this goal. The actual figure, based on the report’s own analysis: $2 billion, off by a factor of 30.

The LA Times’ Latest Snafu

The latest snafu by the Times is almost as bad. Most egregiously, the article cites a Stanford economist for the conclusion that contracts for new large-scale solar projects are locked in at prices three to four times the market price of power: “But outside experts, including Wolak, the Stanford economist, estimate that Ivanpah power [a large solar project currently under construction] is priced at $90 to $130 per megawatt hour — three to four times the cost of electricity in the state last year.”

This is a highly misleading apples to oranges comparison and Wolak should know better. Spot market power prices are indeed quite low at this point, but that is not the appropriate comparison. Spot market prices are by definition short-term, very different than the long-term market that includes solar power contracts.

Very few energy plants (renewable or conventional) are built to serve the spot market. The point of a long-term contract for power is that it’s secure power and utilities enter into long-term contracts because they can then rely on that power for many years to come, as they are required to do by various state law and policies regarding long-term power procurement (see, for example, the Long-Term Power Procurement proceeding, R.12-03-014, at the CPUC). Long-term contracts are commonly entered into for conventional generation as well as renewable energy.

The bottom line is that the contracts that the LA Times’ article derides as “three to four times” the price of market power are in fact at or below the long-term market price of electricity from status quo natural gas power plants. The state’s Market Price Referent (MPR) structure is the former methodology for determining whether renewable energy contracts are cost-effective or not, and it applies to the BrightSource Ivanpah contract because that contract was entered into under this methodology. The MPR is the calculated cost of power from a new 500-MW natural gas plant. The 2012 MPR for a 25-year contract is 9.274 c/kWh, down about 15% from the last (2009) MPR table due to declining natural gas prices.

The exact pricing for BrightSource and other long-term renewable energy contracts is not public and this figure should be public – that much I agree with in the LA Times article. However, the CPUC, at the behest of the utilities and ratepayer advocacy groups like the Division of Ratepayer Advocates (DRA) and TURN, insist that contract prices be secret for three years in order to avoid having project developers simply bid values around known prices rather than the lowest prices they can bid and still have a viable project. I disagree with this conclusion, but it is the rule at this point.

Even though the exact prices are confidential, the approved contracts include a statement as to whether the contract is above or below the MPR. BrightSource’s contract as approved by the CPUC would not exceed the MPR, and is thus, by definition, cost-effective.

The 2009 CPUC resolution approving the PPA states: “Based on expected online dates of 2012 and 2013 for 25-year contracts, the expected levelized price for the projects do not exceed the 2008 MPR. The MPR is used by the Commission to evaluate the reasonableness of prices of long-term PPAs for RPS-eligible generation.” I explain the term “levelized” below.

The MPR value used to determine cost-effectiveness for the BrightSource contract is higher than today’s MPR values because the price of natural gas has come down so much. However, hindsight is 20/20 and there was no way in 2008 to know that natural gas prices would come down so considerably – as opposed to the vertiginous rise we’d seen up until 2008 (remember that oil hit record highs of $147 a barrel and natural gas over $13 in 2008?). This is the nature of the beast in long-term contracting and critics who complain about how prices are so much lower today than in 2008 are being disingenuous or don’t know the facts about the background of long-term contracting.

So the LA Times’ article’s primary critique of the BrightSource project and solar power more generally is entirely wrong.

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by Daniel J. Weiss and Jackie Weidman

Clean energy is an important part of the economy of Colorado, which is the location of the first presidential debate on October 3rd.

Colorado’s robust wind industry and 70,000 jobs in green goods and services could suffer if the Production Tax Credit for wind isn’t extended by the end of 2012. The presidential candidates differ on this, as well as other energy issues. Hopefully the Denver debate, scheduled to focus on the economy, will also address energy policies so vital to Colorado and the nation.

The United States is in the midst of significant changes in our energy outlook. We are producing and burning more natural gas for electricity, while reducing coal use. Domestic oil production is at a 15-year high while oil imports are at a 15-year low. Renewable electricity doubled over the past four years, while worldwide carbon pollution and the impacts of climate change grow. The next president will face these and other serious challenges posed by a changing energy world.

President Barack Obama’s first term featured the adoption of essential toxic and carbon pollution reduction measures to protect public health. In addition, he modernized fuel-economy standards for the first time in two decades, which also helped the auto industry; invested in energy efficiency and renewable electricity; and created tens of thousands of jobs.

Gov. Mitt Romney’s energy agenda couldn’t be more different. He would undo new safeguards from mercury, carcinogens, soot, and smog from industrial sources. He opposes the improved fuel-economy standards, and would continue and expand tax breaks for big oil companies, while openly disparaging clean energy and investments in wind power.

In short, there are stark differences between the two presidential candidates that must be discussed on October 3 so Americans have a clear view of the energy path each candidate would lead us down.

Below is a more detailed direct comparison of their positions on the most visible energy challenges facing the nation. Following this chart is documentation on the candidates’ positions:

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The U.S. economy grew even more slowly than originally thought in the second quarter of 2012, according to new data from the Commerce Department. One culprit? The severe heat and drought that has dented crop production in the Midwest this summer. [Wonk Blog]

Temperatures high in the Norwegian Arctic are above those in a natural warm period in Viking times, underscoring a thaw opening the region to everything from oil exploration to shipping, scientists said on Thursday. [Reuters]

As has been the case throughout the month of September, the latest weekly drought update shows that drought conditions have tightened their grip on the Plains States and Western U.S., and the overall drought footprint expanded to encompass 65.45 percent of the lower 48 states, up from 64.8 percent on Sept. 18. [Climate Central]

Al Gore will lead Current TV’s coverage of the presidential debates, the network announced Wednesday. [Huffington Post]

Approved unanimously on Saturday before Congress adjourned for a fall campaign hiatus, the Senate bill drew relatively little attention. It was the “European Union Emissions Trading Scheme Prohibition Act of 2011,” the latest attempt to exempt American airlines from paying fees imposed by the European Union to cover the greenhouse gases their planes emit while flying to and from European airports. [New York Times]

Gov. Jerry Brown signed 19 bills Thursday aimed at making it easier to provide renewable energy and conserve power in California. [Los Angeles Times]

Northern parts of the country and the Himalayan region will be the worst hit by climate change in India and warming will be greater over land than sea, according to a latest report. [Times of India]

A Chinese icebreaker docked Thursday at Shanghai after becoming the first vessel from China to cross the Arctic Ocean, a landmark trip that is part of Beijing’s efforts to expand its presence in the Arctic. [Associated Press]

The vast majority of the world’s fisheries are declining but could recover if properly managed, according to a paper published Thursday in the journal Science. [Washington Post]

New Zealand’s energy industry reduced its greenhouse gas emissions for the third straight year in 2011 as polluters decreased their reliance on coal and gas in favor of renewable sources. [Businessweek]

Note: The “additional price increase” percentage is calculated off the original price increase.

As Oxfam explains in its news release:

Food price spikes will get worse as extreme weather caused by climate change devastates food production

New research shows that the full impact of climate change on future food prices is being underestimated, according to international agency Oxfam.

Oxfam’s new report, Extreme Weather, Extreme Prices, highlights for the first time how extreme weather events such as droughts and floods could drive up future food prices. Previous research only tends to consider gradual impacts, such as increasing temperatures and changing rainfall patterns.

Oxfam’s findings should come as no surprise to anyone following recent headlines. Here’s an August 30th story from the World Bank:

Severe Droughts Drive Food Prices Higher, Threatening the Poor

Global food prices soared by 10 percent in July from a month ago, with maize and soybean reaching all-time peaks due to an unprecedented summer of droughts and high temperatures in both the United States and Eastern Europe, according to the World Bank Group’s latest Food Price Watch report.

And here’s one from the UK Guardian from September 2nd:

The era of cheap food may be over

A spike in prices caused by poor harvests and rising demand is an apt moment for the west to reassess the wisdom of biofuels

Duh? See CP’s 2011 posts, “The Corn Ultimatum: How long can Americans keep burning one sixth the world’s corn supply in our cars?” and “Biofuels May Push 120 Million Into Hunger, Qatar’s Shah Says.”

Last December I wrote that the Climate Story of the Year was “Warming-Driven Drought and Extreme Weather Emerge as Key Threat to Global Food Security.” This may well be the climate story of the decade — though the world’s inaction on carbon pollution, the media’s silence on climate change, the GOP’s descent into hard-core denial, and the Arctic Death Spiral will all be battling for that title.

Here’s more from the Oxfam news release on this most important of stories:

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by Brad Johnson

Years ago, both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney spoke forcefully about the need for action on global warming:

“We cannot afford more of the same timid politics when the future of our planet is at stake. Global warming is not a someday problem, it is now.” — Barack Obama in 2007

“I concur that climate change is beginning to effect on our natural resources and that now is the time to take action toward climate protection.” — Mitt Romney in 2003

But during this election, they’ve been silent about the key facts of global warming and how they plan to address it. In the past four years, Americans have been struck by a barrage of billion-dollar climate disasters, driven by increasing greenhouse pollution from fossil fuels. From record heat waves to increasingly powerful storms, crushing droughts to unprecedented flooding, the impacts of climate change are now squarely being felt within our borders. Yet, amazingly, the clear and present danger of carbon-poisoned weather remains largely absent from this year’s presidential election.

ClimateSilence.org chronicles this slow, collective descent toward mute acceptance of global calamity. While many in the media have noted the general trend, this site from Forecast the Facts and Friends of the Earth Action lays out in painstaking detail just how far our national conversation has drifted from where it needs to be.

ClimateSilence.org also provides an opportunity for American voters concerned about the climate crisis to speak out and let the candidates know that they want the silence to end, with a petition that states:

I implore you to explain how you will address the growing climate crisis if elected to the nation’s highest office, not only for the Americans being affected right now, but for the sake of future generations, including your children.

In 2008, both political parties nominated presidential candidates — Barack Obama and John McCain — who promised to address the climate crisis with mandatory caps on carbon pollution. Four years later, the arithmetic of climate change has become even more dire. Yet the rhetoric of the 2012 candidates has moved in the opposite direction. For President Obama, climate change has gone from an “urgent” challenge worthy of major speeches and comprehensive legislation, to an afterthought, fleetingly mentioned at occasional campaign events. Mitt Romney, meanwhile, has backpedaled from weak acknowledgement of the basic science to outright mockery of the carbon crisis. While there is clearly a difference between these two positions, neither come anywhere near the honesty and leadership that the problem demands.

The climate constituency is large and growing. Consulting group Breakthrough Strategies recently commissioned a nationwide poll of likely voters, using the same polling firm that assisted President Obama during his 2008 campaign. The poll found that three out of four Americans have noticed a serious shift in extreme weather patterns, are concerned about the problem, and want to hear about solutions. In August, the Center for Climate Change Communication (4C) conducted a national survey of registered voters, and found a solid majority consider a candidates’ stand on global warming when deciding who to support. As Ed Maibach told National Journal:

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American crude oil production is at its highest level since 1997, according to government figures reported today. The increase is being driven by innovations in hydraulic fracturing, which have allowed producers to access previously inaccessible oil deposits in shale formations.

This development is likely to be trumpeted by fossil fuel proponents as: a) the key to cheap gasoline prices; and b) a shining example of the free market working when government gets out of the way.

Don’t believe the hype.

Firstly, gas prices are still high, even with all this new crude output. Secondly, these hydraulic fracturing techniques driving the production boom didn’t just magically appear out of the free market — they were pioneered through many decades of government tax credits, loans, R&D programs, and mapping tools.

In other words, the two major talking points pushed by the fossil fuel industry (“cheap energy forever! Just let the free market decide!”) are proving to be vastly overblown.

Here’s the news on domestic production increases from Bloomberg:

Crude output rose by 3.7 percent to 6.509 million barrels a day in the week ended Sept. 21, the Energy Department reported today. America met 83 percent of its energy needs in the first six months of the year, department data show. If the trend continues through 2012, it will be the highest level of self- sufficiency since 1991. Imports have declined 3.2 percent from the same period a year earlier.

A combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has helped reduce America’s reliance on foreign oil. The same technology unleashed a boom in natural gas output from shale that pushed inventories to a record last year.

So domestic oil production is higher than when George W. Bush was ever in office. What has that done to gasoline prices? They’re still hovering at historic highs:

As a recent analysis from the Associated Press showed, there’s simply no correlation between increasing domestic oil production and falling gasoline prices. In March, AP took 36 years of Energy Information Administration production data and matched it with gas prices in the U.S. Here’s what they found:

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by Richard Sommerville and Jeff Masters, via Climate Communication

With oppressive heat waves, devastating droughts, ravaging wildfires, and hard-hitting rainstorms, the summer of 2012 has been one for the record books. Thousands of precipitation and temperature records were broken, plaguing almost all of the contiguous United States this season and underscoring the connection between climate change and increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather. With climate change, we’ve set the stage for precisely this kind of extreme weather, and unfortunately, our changing climate threatens to alter summers to come.

It is important to note that as the planet continues to warm, new high temperature records and some other types of extremes will increasingly occur, but where they occur in a given year will not be predictable due to natural modes of climate variability. Extreme weather pummeled the United States this summer, but the next few years might see the most dramatic extremes occurring elsewhere around the world. Regardless, record-breaking high temperatures, droughts, wildfires, and heavy downpours are all signs of new extreme weather patterns that we can expect to see more of in a warming world, both domestically and abroad.

Here’s a roundup of weather events during the record-breaking summer of 2012:

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Arctic methane, and all that frozen soil carbon, could easily play a huge role, not so much in the near-term evolution of Earth’s climate, but in the long tail of the global warming climate event.

Buzz Hoffman, via Flickr

David Archer makes clear in this RealClimate repost that while Arctic methane probably will not be the beginning of the climate catastrophe, it may well be the end – if we don’t control CO2 emissions soon.

Walter Anthony et al (2012) have made a major contribution to the picture of methane emissions from thawing Arctic regions. Not a game-changer exactly, but definitely a graphics upgrade, bringing the game to life in stunningly higher resolution (/joke).

Katey Walter Anthony draws upon her previous field findings that methane emissions from the Arctic landscape tend to be focused at the intersection between frozen and thawed, in particular in rings around a peripheries of lakes. She also knew what a methane seep looks like in that landscape, leaving visible bubbles frozen into the ice or maintaining an unfrozen hole in the ice. Now she takes to the skies to produce an aerial survey of the Alaskan landscape, data that is so much more voluminous than before that it becomes different in kind.

The methane emission fluxes are higher than previous estimates, but that’s not really the most important point, because emissions from the Arctic are small relative to low-latitude wetlands, and doubling or even nearly quadrupling the Arctic fluxes (in one of their analyzed regions), they would still be small in terms of global climate forcing. And the lifetime of methane in the atmosphere is short, about 10 years, so methane doesn’t build up like CO₂, SF₆, and to a lesser extent N₂O do.

The really interesting take-away from the new paper is how it shows that the near-surface geology and freezing state conspire to control the venting of accumulated gas dribbling up from below, and the decompostion of frozen soil carbon. They have so many methane seep observations that they are able to correlate them with (1) currently melting permafrost, which allow fossil soil carbon deposits from the last ice age called Yedoma to decompose (Zimov et al 2006) and (2) melting ice sheets and glaciers “un-crunching” the landscape as they fade away, making cracks that vent methane from deep thermal sources. Glaciers that melted long ago no longer vent methane, showing that the methane is transiently venting from built-up pools of gas.

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In just over one month, wind manufacturers in the U.S. have announced layoffs of more than 1,130 workers around the country. The layoffs come in states such as Colorado, Florida, and Iowa that are considered “battlegrounds” in national elections.

Every company shedding employees has blamed the looming expiration of the production tax credit for wind, which is set to lapse at the end of this year.

The latest announcement comes from LM Wind Power, a manufacturer based in North Dakota. The company said yesterday that it will lay off lay off 345 workers because of lagging demand for product. The company also cited the production tax credit, which Congress has failed to extend past 2012.

“It is important to emphasize that the challenging situation in the U.S. wind market is not specific to LM Wind Power, nor to Grand Forks manufacturing facilities,” said the company in an announcement. “The whole sector is affected.”

So far this year, companies in Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania have all cancelled projects or laid off workers. In the last month alone, more than 1,334 manufacturing workers have lost their jobs. That tally comes from individual announcements made by companies since late August.

The world’s largest wind manufacturer, Vestas Wind, says it may lay off 1,600 American workers in the next year if the production tax credit is not extended. That temporary credit offers owners of wind farms 2.2 cents for every kilowatt-hour of wind generated. The American Wind Energy Association says the credit has helped raise $20 billion in private investment over the last five years, supporting 75,000 jobs.

However, according to analysis from a prominent consulting firm, the wind industry could shed up to 37,000 jobs if the wind tax credit is not extended past 2012.

As the layoffs continue, extension of the credit has become a major issue in the presidential campaign. President Obama wants to extend the credit; Republican challenger Mitt Romney wants to end it. Romney’s stance has raised major concerns from fellow Republicans who live in states where wind has been a major economic driver. According to the American Wind Energy Association, 81 percent of wind projects are installed in Republican districts.

Some voters are also saying that wind will play a role in how they cast their votes in the November elections.

The fight over wind credits has also uncovered major contradictions in national energy policy. While Congress continues to stall on extending the temporary production tax credit, many politicians opposed to federal wind investments continue to support permanent tax credits for the fossil fuel industry.

Earlier this month, 47 House Republicans sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (who’s home state supports more than 5,000 wind jobs) asking him to kill the production tax credit for wind. Out of the 47 Republicans calling for an end the wind investments, 46 voted last year against closing tax loopholes that let oil companies collect $4 billion in annual government support.

by Christy Goldfuss 

The fact that the local jail is one of the only lodging options for visitors to the native Alaskan village of Tuntutuliak is a clear indication of its remote location. But what really stands out about this village isn’t its isolation but instead its incredible story of renewable energy—specifically, the use of wind and smart-grid technology that has the potential to fundamentally change the energy landscape of rural Alaska.

The village of Tuntutuliak, known locally as Tunt, is situated in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region—an area about the size of the state of Oregon in western Alaska. There are approximately 400 people living in Tunt and they are almost entirely Yup’ik Eskimos. English is the second language here, since children speak Yup’ik at home and learn English in school. It is also a hunter-gatherer society, with a diet that includes smoked fish, wild salmonberries, and moose, to name a few local delicacies. There are approximately 56 villages almost identical to Tunt in the region, and they all struggle with extremely high energy costs.

Each of these villages is off the power grid and on their own microgrid, which means they cannot take advantage of the large economies of scale that occur with more centralized energy generation in the lower 48 states. Instead, these villages primarily use diesel-burning generators for electricity. With the price of diesel hovering around $7 per gallon in the region, energy costs consume approximately half of the overall budgets of these villages. As many experts expressed this past May during a Center for American Progress event—“Challenges and Opportunities for Renewable Energy in Alaska”—these costs are crippling native Alaskan communities.

Yet Tunt is attempting to curb these costs with five wind turbines, the first thing one notices coming in for a landing on the village’s gravel runway. The wind turbines have just recently come on-line and are part of a sophisticated energy system devised and managed by the Chaninik Wind Group, a consortium of four villages with a mission of harnessing the extensive wind resources in the region to defray the high costs of using diesel.

As part of the consortium, the local utility in Tunt, TCSA Electrical, has been working closely with an energy consulting company, Intelligent Energy Systems, or IES, to develop a system that will work in all four villages. In Tunt alone it is estimated that the village will lower its diesel gas use by 7,000 gallons to 12,000 gallons a year, which could be an $80,000 annual savings depending on the price of diesel. But getting to this point was no easy journey—in fact it took more than 10 years and a great deal of grit and determination.

One of the first challenges the Chaninik Wind Group faced was simply choosing the right wind turbines for the community. The turbines had to integrate seamlessly with the existing diesel generators and suit the unique conditions of the harsh Alaskan climate. To meet that challenge, the group chose to remanufacture the medium-sized Windmatic 17S wind turbines, which means the controls in Tunt are entirely unique to that system. According to the group, the turbines have a rated capacity of 95 kilowatts at peak production. When the winds are strong and the air is cold in the winter, the turbines can easily produce 20 percent more than that at around 115 kilowatts. The group also reports that the average electric load in Tuntutuliak is around 160 kilowatts during the summer and 200 kilowatts in the winter, so the turbines have the potential to meet more than half the village’s electricity needs, but more realistically will meet 30 percent to 40 percent of the village’s needs due to the variations in wind capacity.

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