Last month, I was on a panel with someone who kept kept saying “current renewables” were inadequate to address the climate problem and what we needed to do is invest in ”future renewables.” By that he meant increased research and development, of course, and not continued aggressive deployment.

I began my comments with this metaphor:

“There’s no useful intellectual distinction between ‘current’ and ‘future’ renewables. It’s like saying my daughter, who’s six, is not the same person once she becomes an adult. The only way she won’t grow is if I don’t feed her.”

The point is that continuing the amazing price drops and learning curves for renewables requires that we keep feeding them and help them keep learning – by expanding production, as the International Energy Agency has explained (see “The breakthrough technology illusion“). Many other studies back this up (see “Study Confirms Optimal Climate Strategy: Deploy, Deploy, Deploy, R&D, Deploy, Deploy, Deploy“).

[In fairness to renewables, solar power is at least a junior in college, and wind power has already graduated. My daughter just happens to be six.]

Here’s a figure that shows what I’m talking about for solar power (learning curve in upper right):

Note that the price drop (and production increase) has continued since 2011 (see “Chinese Companies Projected To Make Solar Panels for 42 Cents Per Watt In 2015“). And we are also dropping the price of financing solar — see “How Crowdfunding Lowers The Cost Of Solar Energy” —  which is just what you would expect as an industry becomes larger and more mature. Indeed, it’s one reason for learning curves — most things are cheaper when you scale up (except, sadly, nukes).

Similarly, a little over a year ago, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) analyzed the cost curve for wind projects since the mind-1980′s and found that the cost of wind-generated electricity has fallen 14% for every doubling of installation capacity.

So while I was glad to see the excellent NY Times climate reporter Justin Gillis launch his monthly print column for Science Times, I was disappointed that he rehashed the tired myth pushed by Bill Gates and a few others in his article, “In Search of Energy Miracles.”

First, though, the good news. Gillis doesn’t fall into the trap of most of the miracle mavens and breakthrough bunch — the trap of advocating an R&D-centered policy:

Two approaches to the issue — spending money on the technologies we have now, or investing in future breakthroughs — are sometimes portrayed as conflicting. In reality, that is a false dichotomy. The smartest experts say we have to pursue both tracks at once, and much more aggressively than we have been doing.

An ambitious national climate policy, anchored by a stiff price on carbon dioxide emissions, would serve both goals at once. In the short run, it would hasten a trend of supplanting coal-burning power plants with natural gas plants, which emit less carbon dioxide. It would drive investment into current low-carbon technologies like wind and solar power that, while not efficient enough, are steadily improving.

And it would also raise the economic rewards for developing new technologies that could disrupt and displace the ones of today. These might be new-age nuclear reactors, vastly improved solar cells, or something entirely unforeseen.

In effect, our national policy now is to sit on our hands hoping for energy miracles, without doing much to call them forth.

Actually, coal is being supplanted by gas and wind (see “Wind Beats Out Natural Gas To Become Top Source Of New Electricity Capacity For 2012“). And efficiency and demand response have slowed electricity demand growth to under 1% a year.

A stiff price for CO2 would tip the balance even more toward sources like wind that are carbon-free and hence don’t destroy a livable climate. After all, BNEF concluded its wind study:

Assuming specific learning rates for these components, we expect wind to become fully competitive with energy produced from combined-cycle gas turbines by 2016 in most regions offering fair wind conditions.… Any increase in the cost of gas, which will consequently raise the cost of energy of gas-fired turbines, would bring forward the timing of grid parity for wind.

And yes, I’ll get to the so-called intermittency problem.

Where Gillis goes astray is when he buys into Bill Gates’ energy miracles nonsense:

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Climate change could cause pollen counts to more than double over the next 30 years, according to an ongoing Rutgers University study.

The research, presented at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology conference in November, tested how allergenic plants respond to conditions that mimic those of a warming world, including changing weather patterns and increases in temperature and carbon dioxide.

Based on these tests, the researchers predict pollen counts could reach 21,735 particles of pollen per cubic meter by 2040 — a drastic spike from 2000’s average of 8,455. An “extremely high” pollen count for trees — which account for most of spring pollen — is 1,500. The research also predicts that, as spring arrives earlier due to climate change, pollen seasons will begin earlier as well. In 2000, pollen production began April 14 and peaked May 1, but by 2040, the researchers predict production will start more than a month earlier, peaking by April 8.

Though the research is not yet published, it lines up with what scientists already know about plants’ reactions to increased carbon dioxide and temperature. A 2002 study in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology found that ragweed, which causes most fall allergies, produces 61 percent more pollen when grown in an atmosphere with double the normal amount of carbon dioxide. A 2006 study on the same plant produced similar results. Pollen produced under high CO₂ conditions may even be more highly allergenic, as Clifford Bassett, an allergist and ACAAI fellow, told CNN:

As you increase CO₂, it tells the allergenic plants to produce more pollen to the tune of three to four times more, and the pollen itself, we think, may actually be more potent.

Pollen records have been off the charts over the last few years, as warm weather arrived early in many states. Last year, pollen season began early due to a mild winter and early onset of warm weather, and pollen counts across the U.S. were extremely high. In Atlanta, the pollen count reached 9,369 particles per cubic meter of air, shattering the city’s 1999 record of 6,013. Vanderbilt University in Nashville recorded a pollen count of 11,000, the highest count recorded since the university began counting 12 years ago. Many places saw similarly high counts and early pollen releases in 2010 and 2011. This year has already seen early spikes and dips in the pollen count, due to temperatures rising and falling — some places, like Gainesville, Fla., logged high pollen counts as early as January.

Higher pollen counts aren’t just uncomfortable for allergy sufferers — since allergies can trigger asthma attacks, higher pollen counts and earlier pollen releases can have serious implications for those suffering from asthma, and could even be connected to the global rise of asthma cases.

As the climate warms and springs and summers become longer, allergy seasons in fall, spring and summer could extend as well, exacerbating allergy symptoms. When allergy sufferers have no respite from symptoms, it makes them more prone to serious allergy attacks than if they had had a break between seasons.

In the last two years, severe extreme weather events — including drought and hurricanes — have cost the American economy $188 billion. Unfortunately, this situation will worsen if we continue to burn fossil fuels that release carbon pollution into the atmosphere. In fact, just yesterday, scientists in Hawaii found that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere jumped dramatically to a new record high in 2013. Clearly, we’re on the wrong path.

The good news, though, is that we can solve this problem and avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change by putting less pollution in the air. That’s why more of our elected officials are getting serious about putting a price on carbon dioxide pollution.

In last month’s State of the Union address, President Obama said

“I urge this Congress to pursue a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change, like the one John McCain and Joe Lieberman worked on together a few years ago. But if Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations, I will.”

Today, legislators from the House and Senate responded to the President’s call. Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) released a discussion draft of a bill that would charge polluters for the carbon pollution they release into the air, reducing the pollution responsible for fight climate change.

In December 2012, CAP established five principles for a progressive carbon fee. This fee should:

• Be sufficiently robust that it leads to meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas pollution, getting us on a path that helps us avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. In addition to being high enough to affect pollution rates, the tax should also increase over time and be applicable to non-carbon-dioxide greenhouse gases such as methane. This would both ensure a continuing reduction in the release of carbon dioxide and also encourage companies to move toward cleaner energies instead of different dirty ones.
• Encourage businesses to make new investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This will stimulate the economy and put people back to work in the burgeoning clean-tech and green-jobs sectors.
• Reduce—not increase—economic vulnerability of low-income households by ensuring that they are fairly compensated for any increase in energy prices.
• Have appropriate mechanisms to protect existing American businesses and prevent so-called pollution leakage to countries without similar systems in place. Leakage occurs if highly polluting industries simply move to other countries that don’t have a comparable limit on pollution; in this way, they can continue business as usual without stricter environmental regulations. Leakage can also happen if domestic industries shut down, causing us to import goods from other countries.
• Reduce the budget deficit to prevent draconian cuts in vital domestic programs by raising revenue from the tax.

The draft bill from Waxman, Whitehouse, Blumenauer, and Schatz meets these principles. It suggests a price of $15-30 per ton of carbon dioxide, which is sufficient to significantly reduce pollution. The bill collects the fee from midstream entities that already report greenhouse gas pollution data to the government, so it creates no large new bureaucracy. The draft also seeks comment on the best ways to spend the revenue, including consumer protection and deficit reduction.

This draft bill is part of an ongoing effort by Waxman and Whitehouse to continue to educate lawmakers and the media about the tremendous health and economic threats posed by climate change, as co-chairs of the Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change. They have solicited policy ideas from large businesses and environmental groups. They also sent a letter to the President recommending executive actions he could take to reduce carbon pollution under existing laws.

The authors of the draft bill are soliciting comments until April 12, and plan to formally introduce a new version of the bill in the coming months. With the leaders of the House majority denying the fundamental science of climate change, its prospects for passage are admittedly dim. This time, however, is Congress’s chance to act. Unless this bill or something very similar gets passed, Congress can look forward to the Environmental Protection Agency using its authority under the Clean Air Act to put limits on greenhouse gas pollution from the largest polluters.

Richard W. Caperton is Director of Clean Energy Investment at the Center for American Progress.

American families have been plagued by higher oil and gasoline prices over the past several years despite a significant increase in domestic oil production and a decline in consumption. But while high gas prices threaten the economy and family budgets, they enrich oil companies with huge profits. Apparently that doesn’t bother House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), since his proposed fiscal year 2014 budget resolution appears to again keep a decade’s worth of oil tax breaks worth $40 billion for the oil-and-gas industry. Even more astounding, the budget would give the five biggest oil companies an additional multibillion-dollar tax cut by slashing the corporate income tax rate.

Rep. Ryan’s latest budget is a retread of the budget, complete with oil giveaways, that he and Republican presidential nominee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney ran on in 2012 — and which was soundly rejected by voters in November. Hasn’t Rep. Ryan learned anything?

Big Oil companies continue to rake in the profits, while gasoline prices have risen by 38 cents since January 1 of this year — an 11 percent increase. What’s more, the Energy Information Administration reported that U.S. households spent an average of $2,912 on gasoline in 2012. This is the highest level in four years, equivalent to nearly 4 percent of the average household income before taxes. Last year the average gasoline price was $3.66 — a dime more than the previous record set in 2011. Time magazine reported in December that “2012 will go down as the most expensive year ever for gas.”

While higher gasoline prices cause families pain at the pump, they are a boon to the world’s largest oil companies. The big five oil companies — BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell — made a combined record profit of $118 billion in 2012 on top of a record profit of $137 billion in 2011. These companies also have a total of nearly $72 billion in cash reserves. Yet under the Ryan budget, it seems that the big five oil companies would continue to benefit from their $2.4 billion share of the $4 billion in annual tax breaks for all large oil and gas companies.

In addition to the apparent retention of these existing special tax breaks, Rep. Ryan’s FY 2014 budget explicitly includes the Romney presidential campaign’s economic plan proposal to cut the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent — nearly a one-third reduction. That could provide an additional combined tax cut of at least $2.3 billion annually to the big five oil companies, according to an analysis of their 2011 public financial statements. That includes $1.5 billion for the three domestic oil companies and $800 million for the two foreign-owned companies. Since it is of course impossible to predict their future profits, this estimate is based on their 2011 financial data, including their U.S. federal income tax expense.

Of course Big Oil and the American Petroleum Institute, their wealthy lobbying organization, trot out a number of specious arguments to keep existing tax breaks in place, such as:

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Sean Lennon, Yoko Ono, and a flotilla of celebrities sing a song titled “Don’t Frack My Mother” that opposes fracking in New York State. The video has some actual information in it, but you’ll get distracted by the sustained barrage of familiar faces. And the fact that they rhyme:

Now we can’t afford for this world to get hotter

with

And we can’t afford polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons in our water

That’s gotta be a first time PAHs have appeared in a pop song.

This morning House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) offered his fiscal year 2014 budget, which the Wall Street Journal called “almost identical” to the Romney-Ryan presidential platform last year.  In addition to cutting taxes for the rich and preserving tax breaks for Big Oil, the budget offers an extreme and flawed view of public lands and energy development.

For example, in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal last night, Ryan offered a confused vision of government programs designed to purchase lands from willing sellers:

America has the world’s largest natural gas, oil and coal reserves—enough natural gas to meet the country’s needs for 90 years. Yet the administration is buying up land to prevent further development. Our budget opens these lands to development, so families will have affordable energy.

In actuality, there are only limited instances in which the federal government buys land, which can occur via two programs.  First, the Land and Water Conservation Fund uses receipts from offshore oil and gas drilling (not taxpayer dollars) to purchase inholdings from willing sellers within national parks, monuments, and other areas.   As an example, a piece of the Flight 93 Memorial was protected through an LWCF land acquisition.

Additionally, there are already statutes and regulations in place that allow the government to sell or dispose of certain public lands (see, for example, Sections 203 and 209 of the Federal Land and Policy Management Act).  Importantly, there must be willing sellers before the government purchases additional land to make it public, and so it is unclear what Ryan means when he says the administration is trying to “prevent further development.”

And, despite the fact that we already have a program in place to sell and dispose of federal lands, the Ryan budget explicitly calls for selling off public lands:

In the last year alone, Republicans put forth proposals to sell unneeded federal property.  Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah has proposed to sell millions of acres of unneeded federal land… Such sales could also potentially be encouraged by reducing appropriations to various agencies.

Selling off public lands to then be used for extractive purposes is not supported by the American public.  Indeed, a recent poll from Colorado College State of the Rockies project determined that only 30 percent of voters in six western states agreed with the statement that “too much public land” is a serious problem.

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

Solar panels at the Vatican (Photo credit: AP)

The world is anxiously waiting for the College of Cardinals to select the next Bishop of Rome, especially the planet’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. The faithful have good reason to be anxious: After all, the new pope will have to address a number of polarizing issues within the Catholic Church.

In addition to the challenges of ecclesiastical governance, however, there also exists an opportunity for the next pope to address an issue affecting the entire world community, both Catholics and non-Catholics alike: the urgent threat of climate change.

The destructive impact of climate change has been felt not only in the United States through droughts and floods and sea level rise, but also in communities around the world. The science suggests that its effects will only worsen, intensifying the hardships experienced by the poor and vulnerable. In the midst of this global crisis, the next pope is poised to become a key voice on the issue of climate change by helping the international community find solutions to the climate crisis.

The compulsion for the pope to act on climate change isn’t just based in science. It’s also rooted in theology: Catholic teaching insists that believers put the poor and vulnerable first, and inaction to save the most susceptible is considered immoral. Indeed, it has been 13 years since Pope John Paul II gave his 1990 World Day of Peace Message, saying:

“[A]n adequate solution cannot be found merely in a better management or a more rational use of the earth’s resources, as important as these may be. Rather, we must go to the source of the problem and face in its entirety that profound moral crisis of which the destruction of the environment is only one troubling aspect…

The ecological crisis reveals the urgent moral need for a new solidarity, especially in relations between the developing nations and those that are highly industrialized… I wish to repeat that the ecological crisis is a moral issue.”

Pope John Paul II’s words were more than just a symbolic prayer: both he and Pope Benedict XVI used their position and the power of the Vatican to elevate the moral case for action on climate change.

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NOAA released data on Monday that the last winter was warmer and wetter than average. [USA Today]

The average temperature for the contiguous U.S. during the winter season was 34.3 degrees, which is 1.9 degrees above the 20th-century average, marking the 20th-warmest winter on record, NOAA reported.

As for precipitation, while the Southeast and upper Midwest were wetter than average, much of the West was quite dry, especially in January and February, contributing to below-average snowpack in the Sierra and Rockies.

“Drought conditions continued to plague much of the Great Plains and West,” according to the NOAA report.

Everything was warmer, dry areas got drier, wet areas got wetter. This helpful infographic helps demonstrate significant winter climate events. Silver lining? U.S. customers used less energy during the mild winter.

Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget will say that building the Keystone XL pipeline will create thousands of jobs (which it won’t) and that “the administration is buying up land to prevent further development” (though it’s not). [Wall Street Journal]

President Obama heads to Capitol Hill this week, and is likely to talk about using royalty revenues from oil and gas production to set up an “Energy Security” trust fund. [The Hill]

Rep. Henry Waxman writes about how the House Energy and Commerce Committee has been MIA on climate change. [The Hill]

Global clean energy markets are on track to double within the decade. [Clean Technica]

Gas prices are rising despite a big increase in petroleum production. [Energy Collective]

South Florida’s coral and algae populations are declining due to climate change, threatening the local tourism and fishing industries. [WLRN]

Thanks to the rise of wind power assisted by government subsidized, nuclear power is being squeezed out of the U.S. market even as reliance on coal goes down. [Bloomberg]

Global warming is allowing evergreen trees and shrubs to move into areas that were perpetual tundra for most of the 20th Century. [Discover]

Photo credit: Conservation Action Trust

A report issued yesterday from Conservation Action Trust and Greenpeace India outlines the health cost of coal. Via ClimateWire:

As many as 115,000 people die in India each year from coal-fired power plant pollution, costing the country about $4.6 billion, according to a groundbreaking new study released today.

This report, by the Mumbai-based Conservation Action Trust, is the first full study of “the link between fine particle pollution and health problems in India, where coal is the fuel of choice and energy demands are skyrocketing.”

The findings are stunning. In addition to more than 100,000 premature deaths, it links millions of cases of asthma and respiratory ailments to coal exposure. It counts 10,000 children under the age of 5 as fatal victims last year alone.

“I didn’t expect the mortality figures per year to be so high,” said Debi Goenka, executive trustee of the Conservation Action Trust.

115,000 people die earlier than they should because of coal pollution — 10,000 children.

Millions of cases of breathing problems from fossil fuel addiction.

$4.6 billion is about 250 billion rupees (coincidentally the amount that India gave its oil refineries last month to compensate them for selling fuel below cost to help curb inflation).

Yes, “stunning” would be the word. You can watch the emissions rampage across the subcontinent by looking at the report (note, the page may take some time to load due to a multitude of animated graphs). The authors had to model their own data because India does not provide good open-source monitoring information at the plant level.

The report does not focus specifically on climate impacts (it does estimate 665.4 million tons of CO₂ emissions in 2011 and 2012), but it does outline the critical importance of navigating India away from reliance on dirty fossil fuels and investing in clean renewable energy. Climate impacts health, and so does the dirty fossil fuel that causes climate change.

As the report concludes:

India’s emission standards for power plants lag far behind those of China, Australia, the EU and the USA. … Hundreds of thousands of lives could be saved, and millions of asthma attacks, heart attacks, hospitalizations, lost workdays and associated costs to society could be avoided, with the use of cleaner fuels, stricter emission standards and the installation and use of the technologies required to achieve substantial reductions in these pollutants. These technologies are both widely available and very effective.