CleanTechnica

Looks like switching to a clean energy economy might just save the US economy too. The CBO scoring of the financial impact of the the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act has just been completed. As Senator Boxer put it in a statement on her website tonight “The CBO score shows that there is a way to design a clean energy and climate bill that is fiscally responsible and gets the job done – while protecting the health of our families and the planet.”

Indeed. The House version would drop the deficit $9 billion while reducing greenhouse gases 17% by 2020. The Senate bill goes one better. CEJAPA reduces the deficit $21 Billion while reducing GHGs 20% by 2020.

Auction revenues from cap and trade would be deposited into 10 new funds established by the legislation. Spending from those funds would not require any further appropriation action (read: filibuster!) CBO’s estimate of direct spending by these ten funds during the first ten years includes:
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The newest iteration of the climate bill in congress has just been scored by the non partisan congressional budget office and, as with the previous climate bill (Waxman-Markey in the House) the Senate bill would save money. (It would cut carbon emissions too, potentially saving trillions in items like flood relief not paid out too, etc, but that is not a knowable sum, so the money saved by not destroying our climate doesn’t come into the CBO scoring.)

In scoring the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, the CBO included the effects of the many counteractions that would result throughout the economy in response to pollution costs entering the equation for the first time.

One example is how much revenue might be lost to the Federal Government because more companies would be likely to replace fossil energy with renewable energy, and thus be eligible to take advantage of the 30% tax credits, reducing taxable income.

Also, a cap and trade market that would be worth about $80 billion by 2012 would allow people as well as companies to trade allowances. Homeowners who could reduce their fossil fuel use would be able to earn money, just like businesses who did the same. Read the rest of this entry »

After a good 20,000 years out of caves, we are heading back to them – and just like your worst fears, it’s the damn global warmers and Al Gore-ists leading the way, because it saves so much energy.

It turns out that limestone caverns might be the cheapest and best option for carbon neutral data-center cooling, because by nature limestone can absorb 1.5 BTUs per square foot for free. And data centers need lots of energy for cooling.

So this time we’re taking computers back in there with us. Or rather we’re leaving them down there. At least the data centers, that is. Read the rest of this entry »

Could President Obama do an end run round the very high bar of persuading 67 Senators (only 60 of whom are Democrats) to ratify a Copenhagen agreement? The Constitutional requirement to “make Treaties” only with the “Advice and Consent” only when “two thirds of the Senators present concur, ” is a higher bar than almost any other nation has saddled itself with. Is there any alternative?

An interesting idea proposed by the Center for Biological Diversity and Yale 360 suggests that President Obama might be able to avoid the 67 vote problem and thus get real reductions at Copenhagen, by using a “legislative-executive” agreement; like that used to sign NAFTA and the WTO.

Of course this would be political suicide. (Although that might be a secondary consideration for this President; given the ginning-up of murderous threats upon his life by a homicidal opposition). Such an agreement would need only a 51 vote majority in both houses of Congress, instead of 67 Senate votes.

President Obama’s recent use of the Executive Order to compel Federal Agencies to get a 30% reduction by 2020 shows that he is not afraid of this kind of end-run around congress.
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Their global disinformation campaigns designed to keep world populations ignorant about the danger of climate change have not endeared the fossil industry to the rest of us. The refusal to deal with the facts about the danger to humanity that global warming poses makes it easy to also dismiss their lies about “clean coal”.

Nevertheless, there is increasing evidence that recent serious attempts at research and development into trying to make coal clean should be taken seriously, and not disregarded as simply more lies to be automatically dismissed.

If energy could be extracted from coal without mining it while reducing its carbon dioxide emissions 75%, then that is R&D worth following, along with all the new developments in clean renewable energy.

Research from a new study from the Clean Air Task Force has led to a project just begun this summer in the Alberta oil sands by Swan Hills Synfuels to try just that. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the contentious issues at Copenhagen is how much money to give to the developing world to help avert the sharp rise in carbon emissions expected in the about-to-industrialize countries. The funds are to come from the developed world, and this fund is generally framed in the US media (and not just by Glen Beck), as a giveaway. The New York Times puts it like this: Climate Deal Likely to Bear Big Price Tag.

“The money would be used to help developing nations reduce emissions by switching to renewable energy sources like wind and solar and by compensating landowners for not cutting down or burning forests, a major source of carbon dioxide emissions.

Other funds might be used to adjust to effects of a changing climate, like rising sea levels, by building flood walls or relocating settlements to higher ground.”

Is this a “big cost”? Actually, no. This is an investment in solar, and wind, and even flood wall businesses. The real beneficiaries are the countries whose renewable energy businesses will grow from this investment. A more appropriate headline might be: Climate Deal Likely to Bring Big Boom to Renewable Sector.
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Greenhouse gas-sucking rubber ducks could be in the future.  Myriant Technologies LLC has just won U.S. Department of Energy funding of up to $50 million to construct a new plant that will produce Succinic Acid from sorghum, using a biobased process that is more energy efficient than conventional methods, and also absorbs more carbon dioxide than it produces.

Until now, petroleum has been the feedstock of choice to manufacture Succinic Acid.  If commercially successful, a more sustainable biobased process like Myriant’s could have a significant impact on global greenhouse gas emissions, because Succinic Acid is used in a fantastic variety of materials from non-toxic diesel fuel additives, pharmaceuticals and food to plastic car parts, computer casings, and shoe soles.

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One of the hardest parts of checking foreign news sources – to find out what others think of the emissions reductions targets their countries are bringing to Copenhagen – is deciphering the meaning of all those political parties’ names. Who knows which side each of these is on, when it comes to climate change.

The names are bafflingly similar to each other. Who could guess which foreign political party wants a higher target and which one wants a lower; between the Democratic-Republican-National Party and the the Social-National Party or the Christian-Socia… lets just say; it’s confusing!

Lets just call the two parties in every country what they really are. In every country there’s a Fossil Party and a Future Party. One party represents hope for a future for humanity, and one represents the continued use of fossil-fueled energy that will pretty much wipe out the human race over the next few centuries. Read the rest of this entry »

In a bold move; well timed to coincide with the US Climate Summit decision at Copenhagen, this week the EPA will declare carbon dioxide a “Public Danger” – - triggering the certainty of regulation for big greenhouse gas emitters such as power stations, cement kilns, crude-oil refineries and chemical plants, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The move essentially guarantees that fossil industries feel either the very sharp stick of this EPA ruling…or they allow some of the Senators they control to cross the aisle for the first time on energy legislation and ratify what President Obama has said he is taking to Copenhagen as the US offer: a carbon cut of 17% below 2005 by 2020.

Senator Inhofe, the recipient of $2,182,631 from the fossil industry, has announced he is heading the delayer contingent in Copenhagen. But he might be better off staying home and ending his boycott of working on the legislation that the Republicans have filibustered for years, that by comparison with the EPA stick; is quite a juicy carrot.
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International politics and diplomacy has brought to where we are today. The United States is ready with a provisional emissions reduction target and so are the developing countries ready with their voluntary carbon intensity reduction targets. But as leaders from more than 190 countries prepare to meet at Copenhagen’s Bella Center to discuss the framework of the next climate treaty one wonders if the politics should give way to the climate science.

Never before have the United States and the developing countries proposed to reduce their carbon outputs. This has been a result of the concentrated diplomatic effort of the Obama administration which single handedly convinced the Chinese to volunteer for emission intensity reduction. China’s announcement was followed by similar announcements by other developing countries like India, South Africa and Brazil.

But the targets announced by almost all countries are not in sync with the IPCC recommendations. The IPCC report recommended that the global carbon emissions need to come down by 25-40 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels. Most of the developed countries are proposing emission cuts of less that 25 percent and some have changed the base year from 1990 to a value which suits their national interets. Read the rest of this entry »