Force Change

California to sue EPA over ship, jet and farm equipment emissions

California announced yesterday that it intends to lead a number of states in filing a lawsuit against the EPA for its failure to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from ships, planes and farm equipment.  The announcement, made by Attorney General Jerry Brown, comes on the heels of a series of environmental disputes between California and the federal government.  This is also not the first dispute between the parties dealing with the EPA’s stance towards greenhouse gas emissions.

An EPA spokesman responded to Jerry Brown’s announcement by stating, this “is certainly typical of the attorney general of California.  If they don’t like how we make a decision on something, they sue and hope the courts will mandate toward their position. It works sometimes, and sometimes it doesn’t work.”

Apparently, greenhouse gas emissions from the sources in dispute here (ships, off-road engines and jets), are greater than those released by every registered vehicle in the United States.  This is clearly an important issue for state governments, and could just be the beginning of these state vs. federal government disputes, depending on the results of the presidential election.

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Posted in Governmental Regulations, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Industrial Development, Los Angeles, New York, Politics, San Francisco, Transportation | 1 Comment »

Gore addresses criticisms of his personal lifestyle

Following up on our post from yesterday about Al Gore’s appearance on Meet the Press, we wanted to look at one other issue that Tom Brokaw questioned Gore about, and that is the criticisms that have been levied at him about his own personal energy use.  Since we’ve looked at this issue previously (and argued that while it may not be fair, his personal lifestyle is inevitably held to a higher standard because of his role as the leading environmental activist), we wanted to highlight Gore’s response to these criticisms.

In response to a question from Brokaw about the size of the Gore family residence in Tennessee, Gore asserted:

Well, there–I don’t claim to be perfect, and all of us who care about this issue are, are trying to do our part, but I, I will say this. We buy green energy.  The issue is carbon.  The issue is carbon, and we have, essentially, a carbon-free home.  We buy from wind energy and solar energy. Our roof is covered with solar electric panels, a geothermal system with all these deep wells, and we cut our natural gas bill by 90 percent, and I’m, I’m–we’re, we’re walking the walk and not just talking the talk.  There are always people who are going to try to aim at the messenger if they don’t like the message, and I don’t claim to be perfect, but we are walking the walk.

And regarding the question as to whether he uses private jets, Gore stated:

I’ve–much more frequently on public transportation.  I’m flying on Southwest Airlines again today.  But sometimes the schedule requires that, and sometimes I do that.

Gore also indicated that it would be a good idea to impose a surcharge on jet fuel for private aviation, since it has a disproportionably large carbon footprint.

Posted in Energy, General, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Lifestyle, Politics, Transportation | No Comments »

Al Gore on Meet the Press

Appearing on Meet the Press on Sunday, Al Gore discussed dozens of wide-ranging topics including his recent energy proposal, T. Boone Pickens, the proposed gas tax holiday and Bush’s recent proposal to end the ban on offshore drilling.

Not surprisingly, Gore is opposed to the gas tax holiday, as being misguided, and he opposes the lifting of the ban on offshore drilling, as being merely a “drop in the bucket.”  We were also interested to hear Gore speak positively about the Pickens Plan, but he felt that instead of shifting our vehicles to natural gas, as Pickens proposes, that we should instead focus on moving towards all electric cars. 

Regarding his own proposal, Gore indicated that his intention and hope is that “when we have the political will to act, there’s a concrete plan in place to really shift over to renewable energy.”  He said recent technological developments in renewable energy generation and transmission, as well as the steep prices resulting from increasing world demand for coal and oil, have finally created a situation where widespread renewable energy generation is not only possible, but economically competitive.

One of the main themes of this blog is the idea that our country is desperately in need of public and private leadership that is committed to forcing change in the unsustainable status quo.  Gore, through his efforts to educate the public about climate change and to motivate positive change through his leadership, clearly meets these criteria. 

Posted in Energy, General, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Politics, Science and Innovation, Transportation | 1 Comment »

A closer look at the Pickens Plan

We have spent a lot of time lionizing T. Boone Pickens over the past week for his proposed Pickens Plan.  Now we want to dig a little deeper into this plan to see what types of problems it might contain.  The most common critique we’ve seen is related to the part of the proposal that would shift natural gas use from electricity generation to powering automobiles.  Although Pickens recognizes that the shift to natural gas in automobiles is not going to be a permanent solution, there do seem to be some other legitimate criticisms.  Mainly, these criticisms have to do with the problem of greenhouse gas emissions rather than dependency on foreign oil. 

Specifically, while natural gas vehicles have fewer emissions than those that burn petroleum, this savings may be overshadowed by the fact that natural gas is a relatively clean and efficient means of generating electricity.  Additionally, natural gas is a very reliable source of energy, while winds can be fleeting.  By removing natural gas from the grid, some of these valuable benefits will be lost.  As a result, some have argued that instead of using wind power to replace natural gas on the grid, maybe it would make more sense to only implement the part of the Pickens Plan that calls for massive wind power development and disregard the proposed shift to natural gas vehicles.  This would allow us to use the new wind energy to replace dirty coal instead of relatively clean natural gas.

Of course, this would leave unsolved the question of what to do about our vehicles.  However, as some companies are trying to demonstrate, if cars can instead be shifted to electric power, focusing on how we generate power for the grid may be the right path.  Since electric cars are fueled by plugging into the grid, where that electricity comes from and how it was generated is a major component of what determines that car’s emissions efficiency.  By focusing on how to make our grid power as clean and efficient as possible (i.e., through a massive wind energy development), we could be indirectly creating the conditions necessary to shift our cars off of petroleum and on to a cleaner source.

Regardless, whether the Pickens Plan should be implemented in full, or just in parts, it is clear that there is enormous value in him merely providing a concrete proposal.  By articulating a specific plan, Pickens has given policy makers and the public something concrete to debate and analyze.  Just framing the proposed strategy in specific terms now allows us to better discuss the proposed path and consequently, move us much closer to actual action.

Posted in Energy, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Investments, Politics, Science and Innovation, Transportation | 1 Comment »

Al Gore calls for abandonment of fossil fuels in 10 years

Speaking at an energy conference in Washington today, Al Gore declared that the U.S. should abandon the use of fossil fuels for the generation of electricity within the next 10 years.  Gore argued that the confluence of climate change and geo-political dangers stemming from our excessive consumption and reliance on fossil fuels has created an unsustainable situation that must be addressed immediately.  Gore’s main policy proposal is centered around the imposition of a broad carbon tax on emissions.  Gore also criticized the current political leadership by calling them “defenders of the status quo.”

More information about his specific proposals can be found at WeCanSolveIt.org, a website run by The Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan environmental action group led by Gore.  According to the Alliance, the costs of moving from fossil fuels to clean energy generation would be between $1.5 trillion to $3 trillion over 30 years.  (It is unclear what the costs would be under his 10 year proposal.) 

Our only criticism would be: we need more specifics! Unlike the Pickens Plan, which is very clear in its proposed course of action (shift current natural gas use in electricity generation to transportation and replace it with wind power), Gore’s proposals are more broad based and are not as much of a specific call to action. Maybe this is due to the fact that Gore is a politician and Pickens is a businessman? 

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Posted in Energy, General, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Politics, Science and Innovation | No Comments »

Process allows landfills to produce energy and reduce greenhouse effects

Unbeknownst to many people (ourselves included), garbage dumps can be a meaningful source of alternative energy production. As the waste that is piled up in a landfill breaks down, it releases copious amounts of methane gas (whose greenhouse effect is 20 times worse than CO2). Consequently, landfill operators have begun to install pipe systems that capture these gasses in order to use them in energy production. Once captured, the methane (aka “biogas”) is burned in a traditional power generation process. Although the burning of methane releases CO2, this is substantially less harmful to the environment than the methane in its original state.

The recent surge in waste-to-energy projects stems from federal tax incentives and state laws requiring the use of certain percentages of clean energy. However, opponents complain that biogas is not actually a renewable energy source since it is derived from human excess (trash). While these critics are literally correct since human waste is not created by Mother Earth, it seems silly to denigrate attempts to turn a negative (human garbage and excess) into a positive (an energy source that reduces the greenhouse effect).

As with most forms of alternative energy production, we were not surprised to learn that this waste-to-energy process is most developed in Europe. We can only hope that the next administration and Congress will implement policies that will encourage alternative energy development. Maybe then, hearing about innovative processes like turning waste-to-energy will no longer be such a surprise to us and our readers.

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Posted in Energy, General, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Science and Innovation | No Comments »