Courtesy of William Lark Jr. and MIT

by Max Frankel

Next month, Senator Jeff Merkely (D-Oregon) will drive an all electric vehicle from Portland to Ashland — a distance of about 285 miles — to show off the viability EVs and Oregon’s new electric highway program.

While Senator Merkley’s trek is great PR for EVs and his support in congress is vital to the continued development of the next generation of vehicles, the future of the electric car isn’t just on the nation’s highways, but in the cities.

For the last few years, scientists and researchers at MIT have been working on a project called the CityCar. The CityCar represents a radical rethinking of the urban mobility paradigm — a shift from conventional vehicles operating in a cramped, polluted, dangerous environment to vehicles specifically optimized for urban centers.

What is the City Car?

As MIT describes, the CityCar is unlike any vehicle in production today. “It does not have a central engine and traditional power train, but is powered by four in-wheel electric motors. Each wheel unit contains drive motor (which also enables regenerative braking), steering, and suspension, and is independently digitally controlled.”

The decision to eschew a traditional motor and drive train allows the CityCar to do quite a few things that other cars can’t, like O-turns for instance. Since the wheels move independently, the car can also move sideways into parallel parking spaces. It also allows the body of the vehicle to be lightweight, safe, and spacious since it requires no large, clunky battery back.

Courtesy of Franco Vairani and Technology Review

Without a rigid drive shaft, MIT’s engineers had the freedom to allow the CityCar to fold in half — a revolutionary concept. When a CityCar arrives at its destination, it folds up, compacting itself into an area 1/2 its normal size, and stacks with other CityCars much the same way that grocery carts do. The driver then simply walks straight ahead and out of the vehicle. using this technique, between three and eight CityCars can fit into one conventional parking space.

The CityCar can then charge while in its compact, stacked form.

The front of the vehicle is the passenger compartment, which houses the joystick used to control the car. The joystick represents another innovation, a shift from mechanical control, like the steering wheel, to electric, “fly by wire” technology. “The rear compartment provides generous storage for baggage, groceries, and so on. When a CityCar folds, the baggage compartment remains level and low for easy access.” According to MIT:

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With spending from interest groups up 1,100 percent since the last presidential campaign, the emerging fact checking industry has been busy.

Fact checkers have gotten so exasperated by all the ads, Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post recently lamented that “watching these ads is a depressing duty for The Fact Checker…. The erroneous assertions emerge … without any shame, labeled as ‘the truth’ or ‘fact.’”

And there’s a reason for all that exasperation. According to a new analysis from the Annenberg Public Policy Center, 85 percent of spending on presidential ads by the top spending conservative 501(c)(4) organizations went toward spots labeled “deceptive” by fact checkers. Third-party 501(c)(4) groups, commonly referred to as political action committees, do not have to disclose their donors.

As of June 1st, no Democratic 501(c)(4) organizations had spent any money on the presidential race.

The Annenberg analysis outlines the top four conservative interest groups funneling money into deceptive ads:

• American Energy Alliance, which champions free market energy policies and spent an estimated $3.3 million ($3,269,000) on deceptive presidential ads.

• Americans for Prosperity, founded by billionaire businessman and conservative activist David Koch to support lower taxes and limited government spending, spent an estimated $5 million ($5,018,000) on presidential ads containing deceptions.

• American Future Fund, a Republican-leaning group founded by longtime Iowa political operative Nick Ryan and headed by state Senator Sandra Greiner, spent an estimated $6.4 million ($6,365,930) on deceptive presidential ads.

• Crossroads GPS, a conservative public policy advocacy group advised by former Bush lieutenant Karl Rove and former RNC director Ed Gillespie, spent an estimated $10.3 million ($10,263,760) on deceptive presidential ads. The group is a companion organization to the super PAC American Crossroads.

A large share of those ads have been focused on energy — particularly on the solar company Solyndra. A Bloomberg analysis found that 81 percent attack ads against President Obama were related to energy in the first quarter of this year. Overall, negative ads are up 70 percent since the 2008 presidential election.

Behold the legacy of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision: A whole lot of lies and very little accountability.

Below is a video put together by FlackCheck.org documenting the extraordinary increase in deceptive ads:

Waldo Canyon Fire via twitpic

If a tree burns down in a globally-warmed forest but the media doesn’t report why, does it make a sound?

Record-setting heat waves, wildfires, and deluges  – at the same time —  just what climate scientists have been forecasting for decades. That’s why I titled my 2006 book Hell and High Water.

The scientific literature increasingly says it’s happening now goosed on by human emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases (see “Must-Read Trenberth: How To Relate Climate Extremes to Climate Change“). See also study (4/12) finds Arctic warming favors extreme, prolonged weather events “such as drought, flooding, cold spells and heat waves.” And see study (9/10) finds global warming is driving increased frequency of extreme wet or dry summer weather in southeast, so droughts and deluges are likely to get worse.

Dr. Kevin Trenberth, former head of the Climate Analysis Section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research told the NY Times, “It’s not the right question to ask if this storm or that storm is due to global warming, or is it natural variability. Nowadays, there’s always an element of both.” At the same time, the wildfires in the west, which include the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history, are being fueled by climate change.

UPDATE: After flying over the Waldo Canyon blaze, Governor John Hickenlooper said:

“It was like looking at the worst movie set you could imagine. It’s almost surreal. You look at that, and it’s like nothing I’ve seen before.“

But here’s the PBS story, “Tropical Storm Debby Saturates Florida, Extreme Heat Fans Fires in Colorado,” with nary a mention of global warming. Same for the ABC Evening News story last night on the Colorado fires and Midwest heatwave (“we’re rivaling some of the warmest temperatures on the planet right now”) and their morning story (“temperatures never seen before in that region”). Same for the ABC Evening News story last night on the Florida floods (over two feet of rain in places — “disaster by a million raindrops” and don’t miss the part about the snakes and balls of fire ants in the water!).

ABC now even has an “extreme weather team.” It would be great if they included some experts discussing how global warming has “juiced” the climate, as if it were on steroids, as, for instance, ClimateWire (subs. req’d) did in its story, “Minn. floods, early tropical storms fuel questions about changing climate”:

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by Adam James and Bracken Hendricks

Yesterday, the Obama Administration’s Better Buildings Challenge announced almost 300 million square feet in new building energy upgrades, along with new public tax guidance streamlining the use of Qualified Energy Conservation Bonds.

A bit of background. The Better Buildings Initiative was launched by President Obama on February 3, 2011 with the aim of making commercial buildings 20 percent more efficient by 2020.  This would reduce energy bills for these businesses by $40 billion per year and create 114,000 new jobs — particularly in the construction and manufacturing sector. The unique program builds public-private partnerships by challenging the private sector to act, and supporting them with tax and other incentives.

The Center for America Progress worked closely with President Obama and President Clinton in crafting this challenge for public and private partnerships, in developing the initial rounds of commitments, and in helping to launch the program. We’re gratified to see this innovative effort take hold and continue to scale as an enduring legacy of the Obama administration, as it undertakes the work of market transformation in earnest.

Last year at the Clinton Global Initiative, commercial partners announced commitments from 60 major private sector partners, totaling about 1.6 billion square feet of commercial and industrial space. It also included 300 manufacturing plants.

Additionally, nearly $2 billion in financial commitments were put forward to help structure innovative financial products to meet real estate retrofit needs. This included an unlikely coalition between the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  In total, these commitments would generate $1.4 billion in savings and energy costs. To top it off, the President mandated $2 billion in federal building energy upgrades utilizing Energy Savings Performance Contracts to retrofit public buildings — promising improvements to tax incentives to streamline investment.

Yesterday, the Obama Administration delivered. The 300 million square feet in building upgrades will amount to about $300 million in estimated investments, and bring the number of public and private sector partners to more than 100. The Administration also kept their promise on tax incentives, with their guidance on Qualified Energy Conservation Bonds.

A Qualified Energy Conservation Bond is issued by a state or local government when 100 percent of the project proceeds are used for “qualified conservation purposes.” Qualified conservation includes capital expenditures that reduce energy consumption by 20 percent or that help green community programs. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act raised the national bond volume cap from $800 million to $3.2 billion. These funds were then allocated based on population.

The guidance issued by the Treasury department yesterday makes a few important clarifications.

The first clarification was on what qualifies as a “capital expenditure for energy conservation purposes,” giving property managers more clarity on what kind of expenditures are tax-exempt. The second clarification was on how to measure the 20 percent reduction in energy consumption. The third was on what qualifies as a Green Community Program

This guidance creates certainty for investors and policymakers and sets the stage for a wave of new investments in commercial efficiency.

These clarifications are important because unclear guidelines left these bonds drastically under-utilized. As of May, only 20 percent of the bonds had been issued, with 33 states not touching their allocations. That leaves about $2.5 billion to be spent. While the $300 million in private sector commitments in building upgrades is a massive sum, the Treasury Department’s guidance may open the floodgates for that $2.5 billion in capital for local governments — thus reducing energy consumption, and creating jobs.

Adam James is a Special Assistant at the Center for American Progress; Bracken Hendricks is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress

With virtually no infrastructure available to clean up an oil spill in the sensitive Arctic, the Obama Administration is still pushing to get offshore drilling projects developed in the region.

What’s the messaging strategy from the Administration? Trust Shell.

Talking to reporters about exploration permits for Arctic waters yesterday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar summed up the Administration’s approach: “I believe there’s not going to be an oil spill.”

Really?

Shell has faced more legal prosecutions for safety and environmental transgressions than any other major oil company drilling offshore in the North Sea.

And let’s remember, the Arctic is a place where the Coast Guard has warned “if [a spill] were to happen … we’d have nothing. We’re starting from ground zero today.”

Heck, even one of the world’s largest insurance pools refuses to back offshore drilling operations in the Arctic, saying the environment is “highly sensitive to damage” and that the risk is “hard to manage.”

Discussing the technique of foreshadowing, Russian playwright Anton Chekhov once wrote: “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired.”

As we see in the graphic below, Obama already proved himself a master of foreshadowing in the lead up to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Let’s hope Salazar doesn’t do the same. (Hat tip to Greenpeace’s Joe Smyth for the image).

Golson, via Flickr

by KC Golden, via the GRIP blog

When the political class focuses on the perils of fossil fuel dependence, they almost always use the word “foreign” before “oil”.  This is redundant.  Oil is inherently foreign.  All of it.

Oil is foreign to democracy. In an election cycle flooded by unrestricted political money, oil money stands out as the biggest gusher.  The Supreme Court struck down Montana’s law limiting corporate spending on campaigns yesterday, so the blowout of oil’s influence will remain uncapped for the foreseeable future.   In America and around the world, oil and freedom do not mix.  Because it concentrates wealth, facilitates abuse of power, breeds dependence, and crushes democracy, oil is fundamentally foreign to the American creed.

Oil is foreign to the atmosphere, air, and water. Burning oil releases about 85 billion pounds of CO2 to the atmosphere per day, all of which has been foreign to our climate for many millions of years.  The planet that existed when that carbon was aloft was a very different place, as foreign as, oh, Jurassic Park.  And some oil doesn’t get burned because it leaks out along the way, causing the waterways of home to turn toxic, hostile, and foreign (see Inside Climate’s blockbuster story on the underreported ”Dilbit Disaster” in Michigan.)

Oil is foreign to economic security. The U.S. has less than 5% of the world’s population, about 2% of proven conventional oil reserves, and consumes about 20% of the oil produced.  Prices are set on world markets and heavily influenced by oilogopolistic producers, regardless of where the oil comes from.  Those producers have us over a barrel as long as we need the stuff.

Oil is foreign to local economic vitality. The overwhelming majority of Americans live in communities that are hemorrhaging economic resources in order to pay for oil.  Here in King County Washington, for example, our economy will lose north of $5 billion this year to fetch oil – roughly the size of the entire County budget.  A tiny handful of Americans live in communities where oil brings in more money than it sucks out.

Oil is foreign to the intergenerational contract. Any economic value derived from expanded oil trafficking is confiscated from the many generations who will have to pay the exorbitant costs of living in an unstable climate.  They will not be amused.  Estimates of the economic value of unchecked climate change are enormous but fuzzy; there is no satisfying way to monetize the intergenerational abuse.

Regardless of where they poke the holes, oil is not yours.  It’s not mine.  It’s ExxonMobil’s and OPEC’s and the Koch’s.  Wherever the next fix happens to come from, they will use it to extract record profits, destroy the climate, and maul our democracy.

Drill here, drill there, it doesn’t matter. The whole damned business is foreign to our national interests, to our values, to our future.

KC Golden writes for the GRIP blog. This piece was originally published at the GRIP blog and was reprinted with permission.

A round-up of the top climate and energy news.

The Obama administration, moving swiftly on the president’s promise to expedite the southernmost portion of the disputed Keystone XL pipeline, has granted construction permits for part of the route passing through Texas, officials said on Tuesday. [New York Times]

The key question is whether this progress will continue. Will U.S. carbon emissions keep falling? Or were the past five years just a weird blip? [Wonk Blog]

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday that it was “highly likely” that the agency would grant Shell permits to begin drilling exploratory wells off the North Slope of Alaska as early as next month. [New York Times]

Firefighters again will battle inferno-like conditions on Wednesday as they try to tame an explosive wildfire that has already chased some 32,000 residents from their homes near Colorado Springs, Colorado. [CNN]

Vacation homes and commercial properties in flood-prone areas could see their flood-insurance premiums more than double over a four-year period under a bill poised to clear the Senate this week. [Wall Street Journal]

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, whose administration has called solar power an economic “albatross,” is expected to sign legislation that would increase the amount of solar energy state utilities must buy. [Bloomberg]

Solar panel manufacturers face three more years of tough conditions until the market shuts down excess production capacity, according to a new report issued on Tuesday by renewable power consultancy GTM Research. [Reuters]

Controversial plans to build a major coal-fired power station in Ayrshire using unproven “clean coal” technology have been abandoned, to the delight of environmental campaigners. [Guardian]

The bad news is that even modest global warming likely leads to dangerous sea level rise. The worse news is that continuing to do nothing about greenhouse gas emissions leads to levels of warming and sea rise that are unimaginably catastrophic.

Stabilizing at 2C (3.6F) warming leads to 2.5 feet of sea level rise by 2100 and a devastating 8 feet by 2300, a new analysis finds. The figure at the right is long-term sea level rise under scenarios of very aggressive CO2 mitigation (via one of the new studies, Schaeffer et al. in Nature Climate Change).

Stabilizing at 3C (the RCP4.5 scenario, close to 550 ppm CO2 levels) leads to about 3 feet of SLR by 2100 and over 11 feet of SLR by 2300. That would still require a huge amount of clean energy deployment in the coming decades (see here).

Staying near our current greenhouse emissions emissions path — the “reference” case below, which is not the worst-case scenario — still leads to over 40 inches of SLR by 2100 and then seas continue to rise 7 inches or more a decade!

Rate of sea level rise (in mm/year) under various emissions scenarios.

How future generations would adapt to endlessly rising seas at that rate (or higher) is hard to imagine — even if it were not accompanied by many other simultaneous catastrophes, including Dust-Bowlification, ocean acidification, and ever-worsening extreme weather. The time to act is now.

The SLR analysis above is based on a “a semi-empirical approach” using historical data (see RealClimate). It does not factor in the possibility of nonlinear disintegration of the Greenland or West Antarctic ice sheets, which is already occurring.

Below the jump is a Climate Central excerpt on this study and two others that just came out, which suggest sea level rise could be even greater in key parts of coastal America — JR.

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New fuel economy standards proposed in 2011 by the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation could create 570,000 jobs between 2017 and 2030, according to a report released today by the BlueGreen Alliance.

The report was produced in association with the Sierra Club, the United Auto Workers, the National Resources Defense Council, and the American Council for an Energy- Efficient Economy, and can be found here.

The new standards have a number of benefits. First, the innovation necessary to meet the mandated 54.5 mph average by 2025 will create 50,000 jobs in design, manufacturing and development. The roughly $68 billion saved by consumers at the pump due to the standards could help create another 500,000 or so jobs. ACEEE Executive Director Steve Nadel described it this way in a call announcing the report:

“First, jobs are created to design and produce more efficient cars, and the parts used in those cars. Second, consumers save money on their fuel bills, and respond those fuel savings in ways that help the economy to grow.”

And that’s why the unions have supported new fuel standards.

“Production of fuel efficient vehicles is good for jobs in the U.S…Jobs are being created by bringing new technology into production,” said UAW International Representative Brad Markell today.

These smart regulations create a pathway for more private investment, will decrease harmful greenhouse gas emissions, increase national security by reducing dependence on foreign oil (by an amount equal to today’s combined imports from Saudi Arabia and Iraq), and serve as a model of job creation and environmental awareness for other industries.

According to the Sierra Club’s Executive Director  Michael Brune, the new standards are the “single biggest step that any president has ever taken to slash our oil dependence.” Brune believes that Obama’s bet on the auto industry is “already paying off” and that the U.S. will produce the most efficient cars and trucks in the world. According to Peter Lehner, the Executive Director of the NRDC, the standards will make the U.S. the “global leader  in the auto industry.”

ACEEE’s Nadel said the new fuel standards will increase American GDP by $75 billion annually, without even counting the benefits of pollution reduction, decreases in dependence on foreign oil, and increased export potential. Though he admitted that some jobs in the energy sector could be lost due to decreased fuel demands, a net increase in jobs in other sectors would make up for the shift.

In fact, even though new, more efficient vehicles will be more expensive than those currently marketed, savings from fuel efficiency will outweigh that cost by a factor of two.

Max Frankel is a senior at Vassar College and an intern at the Center For American Progress

Moving into the election season, Michigan has become ground zero for the disinformation campaign against renewable energy.

In an effort to expand the state’s renewable energy targets, a coalition of environmental groups and local businesses is gathering signatures for a November ballot initiative that would increase Michigan’s renewable electricity standard to 25 percent by 2025.

But that’s not sitting well with large power companies and the Chamber of Commerce.

Yesterday, a group backed by the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and two of the state’s largest utilities rolled out a campaign to stop the ballot initiative before it truly begins.

The group’s messaging, which contradicts real-world experience with renewable energy deployment in Michigan and surrounding states, is typical for the heel-dragging, climate change-denying Chamber of Commerce. Even with the overwhelming positive economic evidence and the diverse range of businesses supporting an increase in renewable energy in the state, the Chamber and its utility allies say they’re ready to put up a big fight.

They’re not fighting with much evidence on their side.

Last week, 120 companies operating in Michigan signed a letter supporting the ballot initiative increasing the state’s renewable electricity standard. Proponents of the initiative say the increase in renewable energy would spur billions in economic activity and potentially create tens of thousands of jobs.

In February, Michigan’s Public Service Commission issued a report showing that the state’s current renewable electricity standard requiring 10% penetration by 2015 had spurred already $100 million in economic activity. The report also showed a remarkable trend seen throughout the rest of the country: the cost of wind, solar, and hydro “is cheaper than a new coal-fired generation” in the state.

That changing equation is making renewable energy far more cost-effective for ratepayers. In nearby Iowa and Minnesota — states with the second and fourth most wind energy respectively — a dramatic increase in wind installations has had a minimal impact on rates. In fact, a recent study in Iowa showed that the state’s 20% wind penetration was keeping rates below the national average — while also supporting more than 3,000 manufacturing jobs in the state.

Even with all this real-world experience, CARE for Michigan, which is tied to the state’s utilities, has undertaken a slick new campaign to stop the ballot initiative.

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by Daniel Weiss and Jorge Madrid

Yesterday the public comment period ended for the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed carbon pollution standard for new, unbuilt power plants. This is the first limit on carbon pollution ever proposed for a stationary, industrial source. This process began on April 2, 2007, when the Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts v. EPA that “greenhouse gases fit well within the Clean Air Act’s capacious definition of ‘air pollutant.’” Based on this decision, the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority and responsibility to set limits on carbon pollution from mobile and stationary sources.

After the Supreme Court ruling, the first step in the process required the EPA to determine whether carbon pollution “endangers the public health and welfare.” In 2008 then-EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson made such a determination. He wrote President George W. Bush that an endangerment finding was warranted under the science and the law:

Your Administration is compelled to act on this issue under existing law.

That case [Massachusetts v. EPA] combined with the latest science of climate change requires the Agency to propose a positive endangerment finding … the state of the latest climate change science does not permit a negative finding, nor does ‘it permit a credible finding that we need to wait for more research.

Then-Administrator Johnson also told the president that the EPA must regulate carbon pollution from power plants and other sources. President Bush declined to act but that did not alter the legal or scientific reasons compelling action.

After President Bush’s inaction, it fell to the Obama administration to review the science and make the endangerment finding. After nearly a year of review, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson followed science and the law by issuing an endangerment finding for carbon and other pollutants. It observed that air pollution “endanger[ed] both the public health and the public welfare of current and future generations.”

On April 13, 2012, the EPA culminated years of work by proposing to limit carbon pollution from new coal-fired power plants. New plants that generate electricity from natural gas would likely meet the new standard without additional controls. New coal-fired power plants, however, would have to reduce their carbon pollution by 40 percent to 60 percent, which may make building these proposed coal plants uneconomical.

Coal companies and many large utility companies are challenging the carbon pollution standard for new power plants. To build support for the EPA’s proposal, the Center for American Progress Action Fund—CAP’s sister organization—joined a campaign urging Americans to submit their public comments to the EPA. These comments urged the EPA to finalize the proposed carbon pollution standard and establish a pollution reduction standard for existing power plants and other large industrial sources.

All told, there were more than 2 million comments submitted to the EPA that urged these actions. This is a record for any previous EPA regulatory proposal. Now it’s up to the EPA to finalize the proposed carbon pollution standard for new power plants, and then commence work on reductions for existing plants. Read more

by Daniel J. Weiss and Jackie Weidman

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit today unanimously ruled in favor of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) legal authority to limit industrial carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act to protect Americans’ health.

Carol M. Browner, former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress said:

“The Court’s decision should put an end, once and for all, to any questions about the EPA’s legal authority to protect us from industrial carbon pollution through the Clean Air Act. This decision is a devastating blow to those who challenge the overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change and deny its impact on public health and welfare.”

These rules were challenged in Coalition for Responsible Regulation v. EPA. Plaintiffs included the American Petroleum Institute and other major sources of industrial carbon pollution.

The Court affirmed the following EPA policies:

• The Climate Pollution Endangerment Finding, which determined that the latest science demonstrates that climate pollution endangers human health.   This finding was first made by then EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson in 2008, following the 2007 Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA. President Bush refused to make this finding, but the Obama administration complied with the law by making it in 2009.

• The Clean Cars Standards that limit carbon pollution from motor vehicles, primarily by modernizing fuel-efficiency standards for passenger cars and light trucks.  In addition to reducing carbon pollution from vehicles by 6 billion tons, these standards will help families save thousands of dollars on gasoline and decrease our dependence on oil.  The standards are supported by U.S. auto makers and the United Auto Workers union, among others.
• The Timing and Tailoring Rules for carbon pollution standards for new power plants and industrial sources allow EPA to phase-in requirements for cost-effective pollution reduction standards for large industrial emitters first, which covers 70 percent of U.S. carbon pollution.   EPA would not establish reduction standards for bakeries, farms, doughnut shops, and other small pollution sources.

The court dismissed the petitions by industries that would have undercut these rules, including petitions filed in May 2011 by the American Farm Bureau (AFB), and the American Petroleum Institute, asking the court to overturn the timing and tailoring rule. Just last week during a House Subcommittee on Energy and Power hearing about EPA’s proposed carbon pollution standard for new power plants, Pennsylvania Farm Bureau President Carl Shaffer complained about the uncertainty of EPA’s carbon pollution standard. He said that “court challenges to the tailoring rule could make permitting requirements immediately applicable to farmers and ranchers, if the rule is overturned.” Although AFB was a plaintiff to this law suit seeking to overturn the tailoring rule, the Court of Appeal decisively rejected its petition.

As the court’s opinion stated, “This is how science works. EPA is not required to re-prove the existence of the atom every time it approaches a scientific question.”

Daniel J. Weiss is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress; Jackie Weidman is a Special Assistant for Energy Policy at the Center for American Progress.

by Jürgen Trittin, Chairman of Parliamentary Group of Germany’s Alliance ’90/The Greens

This text was first published in Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on June 7, 2012. Translation by Craig Morris, Petite Planète.

We are witnessing a campaign. Germany’s four biggest power corporations, which still control 80 percent of power generation, are discovering their bleeding heart. They are suddenly concerned about the 200,000 welfare recipients who could not pay their power bills – the very people whose power they then cut off.

Rainer Brüderle is the leader of the Libertarian Liberal Democrats (FDP), who recently tried to make people believe that those who are now too poor to pay for energy are living high off the hog from welfare. Recently, Brüderle has supported the Big Four energy companies and called for an end to Germany’s Renewable Energy Act (EEG), which created the country’s feed-in tariffs. And this propaganda even seems to make sense to otherwise critical consumer advocates and charitable organizations. Astonishingly, none of them are asking why the price of electricity on the power exchange is dropping even as the retail rate reaches new heights – why renewables continue to get cheaper, but customers continue to have to pay more.

Fast growth at low prices

Obviously, the reason is not German feed-in tariffs, which have served as a role model for similar policies in more than 50 countries across the planet. After all, no system provides for such fast growth at such low prices. German President Joachim Gauck recently said that feed-in tariffs remind him of a “planned economy,” but his description fits the kind of quotas used in the UK better – and yet, that’s exactly what libertarian Brüderle wants. If we compare prices, we see that a kilowatt-hour of renewable power is more expensive in the UK than it is in Germany. That explains why RWE and Eon prefer to invest there; with German feed-in tariffs, you simply cannot get a 15 percent return.

That also explains why the renewables sector in Germany largely consists of midsize firms. And that’s exactly what bothers Brüderle. By attacking the EEG, he is trying to protect market shares for the oligopoly of the Big Four. The EEG made Germany a market leader. It led to the creation of more than 340,000 jobs, and it did so with less financial support than has been paid for either coal power or nuclear power. Since the EEG was adopted, feed-in tariffs have continually dropped. For wind, they are now below the cost of new coal plants; for solar, below the retail rate. Clever legislation made these tremendous cost reductions possible. It wasn’t just well intended – above all, it was well done.

Poorly done

The EEG became expensive when Economic Ministers Rainer Brüderle and Phillip Rösler passed new regulations that were neither well intended nor well done. A bonus was paid for a type of biomass – liquid manure – that mainly helps factory farms. A special “market bonus” was also introduced. It costs a lot of money – half a billion euros per year for consumers – and does no good. And the expected increase in the surcharge to cover the cost of renewables is also the result of exceptions that Brüderle’s party, the FDP, came up with – and which Justus Haucap, the chairman of Germany’s Antitrust Commission, says would lead to “tremendous windfall profits.” It’s almost as though they’re trying to break the law on purpose.

Yet, the industry and Germany are doing well. We have great supply security. Renewable energy has brought down prices on the power exchange considerably. In particular, energy-intensive industry benefits because it does not have to pay the surcharge for renewable power. But things are different in France, a bastion of nuclear power. Although the country imports power from Germany, the government had to call on the French to conserve electricity last winter. The price of power on the power market rose to more than a euro per kilowatt-hour; at the same time, it was below 10 cents in Germany. Photovoltaics in particular is putting a damper on Eon and Co.’s profits from their old coal plants. They used to be able to sell coal power at a hefty markup during times of peak demand. Unfortunately for them, the sun shines on numerous solar roofs now at midday, so a lot of solar power is generated then.

Well done

As we move our power supply towards renewable sources, we have to bid farewell to the idea of baseload power provided by inflexible central power plants. If we want to have safe, reliable electricity – especially for industry – we are going to need smart grids, more storage, and flexible capacity. Baseload power plants are anything but smart, so they are a bad investment now. Too bad the Big Four’s fleet of power plants consists almost entirely of that. In other words, renewables are a challenge to business models at RWE, Eon and Co. That’s what worries Brüderle, but it should make consumer advocates and charitable organizations happy. After all, it is the markets domination of the Big Four that drives up our bills while exchange prices drop. By weakening their stranglehold, we strengthen consumers.

Yes, the energy transition has a price tag. German firms are currently investing 20 billion euros in the energy transition each year. On the other hand, the price of a barrel of oil rose from 100 to 120 euros in 2011, which also cost Germany 20 billion euros. I would rather invest that 20 billion in affordable electricity than give it to multinational companies. If we not only have the best of intentions with our laws, but also get them right, everyone benefits.

This text was first published in Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on June 7, 2012. Translation by Craig Morris, Petite Planète.

A round-up of the top climate and energy news.

According to Craig Allen, a research ecologist with the United States Geological Survey in Los Alamos, New Mexico, forests in the region have not been regenerating after the vast wildfires that have been raging for the last decade and a half. [NY Times Green]

Dr. Allen, who runs the Jemez Mountains Field Station at Bandelier National Monument, says those forests are burning into oblivion and grasslands and shrublands are taking their place. “Rising temperature is going to drive our forests off the mountains,” he said.

Already choking through one of the worst wildfire seasons in recent memory, Colorado found itself dealing with a new series of blazes this week, driven by a relentless heat wave that has threatened to further fan the flames. [New York Times]

The Koch brothers’ attempted takeover of the libertarian Cato Institute has come to an end, at least for now. [Los Angeles Times]

If you think there are flooding problems in the North Shore now, just wait — it’s going to get a whole lot worse, according to a study released Sunday by the U.S. Geological Survey. [Salem News]

The cold financial climate of the last three years has made little impact on public attitudes towards global warming, according to a new Guardian/ICM poll. [Guardian]

With the cost of solar photovoltaic cells falling — prices dropped by 50% last year and are now a quarter of what they were in 2008 — renewable-energy advocates say India is ripe for a solar-power revolution. And it could use it. [Time]

As the climate changes, scientists are documenting measurable shifts in the natural world — from a tremendous loss in Arctic sea ice and an increase in extreme weather like drought, floods and heatwaves, to the migration of plants and animals to new latitudes. [National Public Radio]

The billions of pounds the Bank of England is pouring into banks in a bid to get lending flowing should have strings attached to ensure that much of the liquidity is directed towards greening the economy, the UK’s former chief scientific adviser has urged. [Guardian]

Most Americans don’t realize just how much coal they own.

Consider this: coal accounts for two thirds of resources extracted from public lands for electricity generation. And Americans also own most of the Powder River Basin, a region stretching across Wyoming and Montana that accounts for roughly 43 percent of America’s coal.

With all that coal being the property of U.S. citizens, you’d think the taxpayers were getting a lot of revenue from selling the resource to the coal companies. Not so much.

A new report concludes that uncompetitive leasing and poor oversight has denied American taxpayers up to $28.9 billion since 1982.

According to an analysis from Tom Sanzillo, director of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, the government allows coal companies operating on public lands to purchase the resource at a price far below market value by supporting “auctions” with only one bidder.

This is a problem that environmental groups have raised for some time. But the new analysis shows just how much it’s costing American taxpayers:

As a result of policy choices and an inherently subjective and flawed fair market value appraisal process—the problems of which are exacerbated by the agency’s failure to consider changing market dynamics—the U.S. Treasury has lost approximately $28.9 billion in revenue throughout the last 30 years. Despite past political scandals and promises of programmatic reform, neither the DOI nor the BLM coal leasing activities have been audited or the subject of any major publicly available, external review regarding the sale of PRB coal for almost thirty years. As applied by the federal government in the case of federal coal leasing, the term “fair market value” rings hollow.

Since 1991, the Bureau of Land Management has issued 26 leases to coal companies. According to Sanzillo, only four of these leases have ever featured more than one bidder. And in the cases where there was actual “competition,” the auction featured two bidders.

Today, as coal consumption drops in the U.S., companies are now purchasing coal from taxpayers at ridiculous discount rates and selling the dirty resource to the highest bidder on the international market — thus subsidizing the boom in global warming pollution in Asia. (See: The BLM’s Corrupt Coal Leasing Program: Billions In Subsidies To Peabody, Gigatons Of Carbon Pollution For The Rest Of Us.)

After a recent auction of Powder River Basin coal in which Peabody Energy was the only bidder, Grist’s David Roberts did some simple and shocking math:

The winning price in Thursday’s sale? $1.11 per ton.

Again: $1.11 per ton.

The price of a ton of Powder River Basin coal on U.S. spot markets? $9.15 per ton, as of May 11.

The price of a ton of coal exported to China? It averaged $97.28 per ton [PDF] in 2011. It’s now up to $123 per ton.

So, to summarize: You, the U.S. taxpayer, just leased another huge chunk of your land to Peabody Coal at $1.11 per ton of coal. Peabody will strip-mine that land and take the coal to China, where it will sell it for over $100 per ton. Peabody pockets enormous profits*, the U.S. taxpayer gets devastated land, and China accelerates global warming.

And it’s all being pushed through by the Obama administration.

Until now, the government has done nothing about the lack of competition in these auctions. But now that analysts, environmentalists, and lawmakers are finally elevating the issue, the Government Accountability Office is now set to do an audit of the leasing program.

Meanwhile, the BLM is set to “auction” another 721 million tons of taxpayer-owned coal from the Powder River Basin next week.

So here is what the European Commission thinks is the way to get girls more interested in science:

Apparently, the Commission thinks the defining aspect of girls who are interested in science is that they wear lipstick and high heels — and love sexy dance music. I guess they never saw Dr. Frank N. Furter in Rocky Horror Picture Show. Rimshot! [OK, that's technically a "sting."]

Seriously, though, the Commission does seem to have a thing for lipstick, as their “Science: It’s A Girl Thing!” website makes painfully clear:

As you can imagine, the video didn’t go over well with actual scientists of both sexes. The L.A. Times reports:

Appalled scientists said the video was a sexist bit of advertising based on the idea that only fashion could get girls interested in test tubes.

“It’s as if Disney channel male execs do ‘science Barbie,’” geologist and blogger Sharon Hill tweeted in disgust. “Terrible.”

Ben Goldacre, author of the Guardian‘s “Bad Science” column, joked, “The EU have funded a campaign to make women in science wear shorter skirts.”

Could the ad be “a fiendish ploy to highlight the stereotyping of women and scientists?” University of Bristol climate scientist Tamsin Edwards quizzed the campaign through Twitter.

Though apparently embarrassed enough to [try to] take the video down, the Commission seems to be of the there’s-no-such-thing-as-bad-press school:

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Experts predict average gas prices may fall below $3 this fall after dropping 14 cents in two weeks. When prices hit a record high, Republicans attributed sole responsibility to President Obama, even though there is no evidence that factors like drilling impact what consumers pay.

Just two months ago, Republicans said Obama shouldered the blame for rising gas costs, and that only he had the “key” to lower gas prices:

Mitt Romney, March 18, 2012: “He gets full credit or blame for what’s happened in this economy, and what’s happened to gasoline prices under his watch, and what’s happened to our schools, and what’s happened to our military forces. All these things are his responsibility while he’s president.”

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), April 6, 2012: “The president holds the key to addressing the pain Ohioans are feeling at the gas pump and moving our nation away from its reliance on foreign energy. My question for the president is: what are you waiting for?”

Boehner, April 6, 2012: “The president’s own policies to date have made matters worse and driven up gas prices.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Feb. 28 2012: “This President will go to any length to drive up gas prices and pave the way for his ideological agenda.”

Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), March 13, 2012: Obama is “fully responsible for what the American public is paying for gasoline.”

Are Republicans now reversing their rhetoric and giving Obama credit for falling gas prices? Of course not.

Former Virginia Sen. George Allen, who is running to reclaim his old seat, is another lawmaker who has misled on the gas prices. Last month, ThinkProgress reported that Allen is pushing a graphic that not only compares gas prices to an artificially low amount, but lists a “current” price from April, even though Virginia gas prices are now more than 40 cents lower per gallon.

Obama’s policies haven’t changed since April: the Keystone XL pipeline has not been built, drilling hasn’t drastically changed, and the same regulations are in place. Yet gas prices have fallen. Economics says he isn’t responsible, either way.

Will countries heed Clinton's call for more action on SLCPs? AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano

by Rebecca Lefton

Despite the flop in the official negotiations, Rio+20 stimulated many new commitments and reinvigorated international conversations about how to redirect growth in a more sustainable manner.

Governments, business leaders, and civil society demonstrated new models for innovative partnerships for addressing sustainable development and emphasized alternative approaches to solving global threat of climate change.  The Climate and Clean Air Coalition is an excellent example of such an approach.

The Climate and Clean Air Coalition brings together partners to apply already-existing solutions to cut short-lived climate pollutants that will cut in half the rate of global warming in the near-term. Short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) — such as black carbon, soot, methane, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and tropospheric ozone — are shorter lived than carbon dioxide, but much more potent and account for around one-third of global warming. Some of these potent greenhouse gases are deadly: Each year millions of people die prematurely and more are diagnosed from a high incidence of dangerous respiratory disease.  They also accelerate melting of the Arctic and are responsible for extensive crop losses each year.

US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson provided an update on the CCAC during the Rio conference as an example of a multilateral effort toward sustainability.

“The Climate and Clean Air Coalition is driven by the potential to do great things for our environment, our health and economy and make sure we are taking advantage in cost-effective solutions … especially in disproportionately impacted areas where solutions are needed,” said Jackson.

The coalition has nearly tripled in size from an initial 6 countries to 16 members since the launch in Washington four months ago — including all G8 members, plus the European Commission, United Nations Environment Program, and the World Bank.

“This is not a talk shop, not a treaty organization, not a place where we are tying to negotiate a treaty. This is a place where we are doing things,” said Todd Stern, US Special Envoy for Climate Change, speaking at Rio+20.

The CCAC is already advancing concrete results and initiatives.  Last week in Rio the CCAC supported the launch of a learning network to help local governments reduce methane from solid waste management in partnership with the C40 and The World Bank.  Waste is one of the largest sources of methane emissions in the world.

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A mild snow-less winter, an unusually dry spring, and debilitating heat in May and June have created serious drought conditions in parts of Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, among other states.

Despite recent severe storms that dumped more than 7 inches of rain on Duluth, Minnesota, last week, (causing chaos, especially in the city zoo), much of the Midwest is experiencing severe water shortages exacerbated by record high temperatures. According to the National Weather Service, there is no end in sight.

Global warming directly worsens droughts because hotter temperatures dry out soils and lead to earlier snowmelt, which reduces vital streamflow during the dry season (see here). As Texas state climatologist, John Nielsen-Gammon, explained last year:

“There is evidence that global warming has had an effect on the drought, primarily by increasing the surface temperature, which increases the drought severity by increasing evaporation and water stress, and by decreasing stream flow and water supply

Global warming also shifts the precipitation zones, expanding the semi-arid subtropics. And there is emerging evidence that warming in the Arctic drives more extreme, prolonged weather events in the northern hemisphere “such as drought, flooding, cold spells and heat waves.”

Heading into the typically dry summer months, the average rainfall over many Midwestern states has been down dramatically. Rainfall in Carbondale, Illinois is less than 50 percent of normal levels at this time of year; in  Akron, Ohio rainfall is five inches below average, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal:

“Going into that dry period already dry is not looking good,” said Jim Keeney, weather program manager for the National Weather Service in Kansas City.Swaths of Texas and the western U.S. have faced drought conditions for much of the year, including parts of Colorado where wildfires continue to burn. But drought conditions only recently have built in the Midwest—a sharp change from a year ago when heavy rains and swollen rivers led to historic flooding.

Jeff Scates, a farmer in Southern Illinois, said about 75% of his family’s farm was underwater last spring, and he didn’t finish planting his corn crop until early June. This year, he got his crop into the ground by late April, but dry conditions are now causing damage and reducing the number bushels his fields will produce.“I don’t remember anytime when it was this dry, this early,” the 42-year-old farmer said.

According to US Drought Monitor, streams are low, ponds are shrinking, and crops are stressed throughout the region. The Drought Monitor [below] shows that an extreme drought has now developed in parts of Missouri, Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky. A severe drought is already underway in “most of Arkansas and … in southern Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, [as well as] western Kentucky and Tennessee.  Islands of D2 (severe drought) appeared in northern Missouri and Indiana as well as central Illinois”:

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