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.

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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]