August 2011 Climate Change Summary Report

 “Debt Deal Means Belt-Tightening for Energy, Enviro Agencies”

August 1, 2011: E&E Daily reports: “President Obama and congressional leaders of both parties last night agreed on a broad deal to raise the federal debt limit while imposing 10-year domestic spending caps that would dramatically reshape the fiscal future of energy and environmental agencies. … Far murkier is how hard the agreement’s $917 billion in discretionary spending cuts — let alone its promise of across-the-board funding sequestrations if more slashes are not made next year — would wallop U.S. EPA, the Energy and Interior departments and other environmental programs. … But Democrats’ push for new revenue as part of the debt deal, led by a high-profile bid to roll back tax benefits for major oil companies and a separate campaign to revamp ethanol subsidies, failed in the end. Oil-industry breaks that Obama and green groups blasted as ‘loopholes’ for months are left untouched in yesterday’s deal. While a 12-member joint committee tapped to find $1.5 trillion in extra cuts before 2012 is empowered to suggest tax overhauls that could hit major energy companies, Republicans’ successful defeat of new revenue proposals this summer leaves them with little incentive to agree to any change that would upset their conservative base. … Indeed, the immediate $900 billion debt-limit hike in yesterday’s deal would be matched by $917 billion in 10-year cuts achieved through discretionary spending caps that are highly likely to push EPA, DOE, Interior and other agency budgets below the austere levels set for 2011 by the April deal that averted a government shutdown. … Yet the sequestration is unlikely to please boosters of extra federal energy and environmental spending to shore up the flagging economy, since its new cuts would be designed to hit conservative and liberal priorities equally.”

“Some Good News for the Planet”

August 1, 2011: From a New York Times editorial: “There is at least some positive news from Washington: a major agreement to bring American consumers cleaner cars — dramatically cutting greenhouse gas pollution, raising fuel economy standards and increasing Detroit’s ability to compete in world markets. President Obama made the announcement on Friday, surrounded by automobile executives (who seemed, for once, genuinely enthusiastic) and by gleaming models of some of the fuel-efficient vehicles the industry is beginning to turn out. The government will issue a more detailed proposal in October. If the agreement holds, as it should, American vehicle fleets will average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, double today’s average of about 27 m.p.g.  nThough that falls short of the 62 m.p.g. that some environmental groups had lobbied for, it is still a big jump. It will result in cuts in fuel consumption of between 40 percent and 50 percent from today’s levels and roughly equivalent cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Cars and light trucks like sport-utility vehicles account for just over one-fifth of this country’s carbon-dioxide emissions. … These agreements represent Mr. Obama’s biggest success in addressing climate change. The standards will also reduce oil imports and save money for consumers. … Beyond that, the big American automakers have discovered that they are perfectly capable of building more efficient cars to compete with foreign models — and that consumers burdened with $4-a-gallon gas are eager to buy them. As we said, rare good news, all around.”

 

UN: Durban Talks Unlikely to Strike Climate Deal

August 2, 2011: Reuters reports: “Major climate talks in South Africa at year-end will be unlikely to strike agreement on a new pact, but will be important in determining the shape of long-term efforts to tackle climate change, a senior U.N. climate official said on Tuesday. The future of the Kyoto Protocol, the existing U.N. plan which obliges about 40 industrialised nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions until 2012, is widely seen as under threat. Japan, Canada and Russia have said they will not extend it, while the United States never signed up to it. ‘It’s too early to call the Durban result, expectations are not high at the moment,’ said Adrian Macey, chair of U.N. Kyoto Protocol negotiations, referring to the Nov 28 to Dec 9 talks in South Africa. ‘But my own view is that whatever happens, I don’t see all 191 parties under the U.N. abandoning efforts to develop a comprehensive effort in the longer term for climate change action,’ Macey told a climate conference in Wellington, New Zealand. There would be a gap after the first Kyoto Protocol commitment period expires at the end of 2012, Macey said, with a number of issues remaining outstanding. … Last week, New Zealand’s Climate Change Negotiations Minister Tim Groser told Reuters the global community was accepting the reality that there would be no deal in Durban but progress was being made. … Intractable issues in international negotiations ahead of Durban include aviation emissions, maritime emissions and how to manage carbon markets in developing countries, Macey said.”

Terrabon’s technology can handle “wet, nasty food stuff,” exec says
August 3, 2011: Terrabon’s waste-to-biofuel technology allows it to process “the wet, nasty food stuff” that is unsuitable for gasification and pyrolysis, according to Simon Upfill-Brown, the company’s chief operating officer. “For that material, the only other option is composting or anaerobic digestion. That works in parts of the country, but with natural gas prices, composting is tough. … We are the large-scale option to handle that,” said Upfill-Brown, adding that Terrabon is on track to complete a 5-million-gallon-capacity biorefinery by 2013. BiofuelsDigest.com (8/2)

“Mr. Obama’s Second-Best Option on Fuel Economy”

August 5, 2011: From a Washington Post editorial: “America doesn’t have to use so much gasoline. Cars can get lighter. … If Congress placed a higher tax on gasoline — making up for some of the hidden environmental and geopolitical costs of using the stuff — market demand would drive the deployment of more advanced cars according to Americans’ preferences, rather than those of Congress or a government agency, and car owners would also choose to drive less. But the gas tax is politically toxic, particularly in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives, which is why it hasn’t been raised since 1993, declining in real value every year. There is, however, a second-best option. In a grand deal between industry and government regulators, President Obama last week announced new fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks. Vehicles sold in America in 2025 will have to achieve an average of 54.5 miles per gallon — which should work out to 62 mpg for cars and 45 mpg for light trucks, according to an administration official. These drastically more efficient vehicles will cost more, of course. But the Obama administration estimates that, compared with today’s cars, they will ultimately save consumers an average of $8,200 each by 2025, since motorists won’t have to buy as much gasoline. They will also reduce U.S. oil consumption by 2.2 million barrels per day by 2025. That doesn’t even count the money saved because of reduced air pollution.  This is arguably the president’s most significant achievement on energy policy. … The plan isn’t perfect. … The ingenuity of private actors in competition will achieve the government’s aims most efficiently. So the Obama administration should reconsider special credits for electric cars and other technologies it wants to push into the market. If the most cost-effective policy — the gas tax — is off the table, the Obama administration can at least make its fuel standards as simple as possible.”

“U.S. Dependence on Petroleum Imports Is Falling”

August 5, 2011: The Kansas City Star reports: “The United States was so dependent on foreign oil that by 2008 it imported two-thirds of what the country’s refineries needed to produce enough gasoline, diesel and the other petroleum products to meet the country’s needs. But recently the federal Energy Information Administration reported that in 2010 imports had fallen far more than many realized — to 49 percent of the country’s needs. What happened? Part of the big drop resulted from the federal agency’s using a different measurement — net petroleum imports — widely viewed as a more accurate way to judge overall dependence on foreign petroleum. … The country recently stopped being a net importer of petroleum products for the first time since at least 1973, as the country’s refiners sold more gasoline and other end products to other countries. A second factor is simply lower demand for petroleum products, in large part a result of the sour economy, but also helped by more efficient cars. And on the supply side, U.S. oil production, after languishing for years, is on the upswing. One example is North Dakota. Perhaps within a year the state is expected to supply more oil for domestic use than the 1.1 million barrels a day that Saudi Arabia now exports to the United States. In addition, biofuels, mainly ethanol, are meeting more fuel needs. And natural gas liquids, a byproduct of natural gas that can be used to replace some petroleum products, are surging. Put them all together, and the United States has cut its dependence on imports substantially — with further declines possible if the trends continue. … The size of the shift has been somewhat hidden by the different numbers that have been used to describe the country’s dependence on foreign oil.”

“Fuel-Efficiency Rules Set for Heavy-Duty Trucks and Buses”

August 10, 2011: The Washington Post reports: “The Obama administration set the first-ever fuel-efficiency rules for heavy-duty trucks and buses Tuesday, a move that will cut greenhouse gas emissions and fuel use by everything from long-haul tractor-trailers to school buses over the next several years. The regulations require fuel-efficiency improvements of as much as 23 percent by model year 2018, compared with the industry’s 2010 baseline. The administration estimates that the rules will save a total of $50 billion in fuel costs and 530 million barrels of oil during that period. … Federal officials said the stricter limits will increase the cost of a tractor-trailer by $6,220 while saving $73,000 in fuel costs over the operating life. The regulations were welcomed by trucking industry officials, a response unlike that received by recently announced fuel-efficiency standards for passenger cars and light trucks, which prompted a contentious behind-the-scenes battle in Washington. … Industry officials predicted that they will meet the new standards without a problem. … Environmentalists also hailed the new rules — issued jointly by the Transportation Department and the Environmental Protection Agency — as a step forward in reducing the nation’s carbon output. … Setting the next round of standards, which would probably cover the trailing equipment pulled behind the trucks, could prove more difficult. Graves said that truckers expect fuel savings from the new rules will make up for the higher cost of equipment within two to three years but that it will be harder when trailers are ‘added to the mix.’”

Study: Algae-based fuel production can also harm environment
Algae-derived biofuel is expected to have a higher energy output and lower impact on land use than other biomass-based fuels, but its production requires more energy and water and emits more greenhouse gases, according to a report in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. “Ultimately there is no silver bullet for replacing petroleum as a transportation energy source. We’ve seen that alternatives typically come with unforeseen burdens,” said one of the researchers. ScienceDaily (8/10)

Reid: Dems to Make Energy A Signature Issue After Recess

August 11, 2011: The Hill reports: “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Wednesday that Democrats hope to make energy one of their ‘signature issues’when Congress returns from its summer recess next month. ‘One of the things at the top of the list is energy jobs, and we’re going to see if we can get some cooperation from Republicans so we can make that one of our signature issues over the next couple of months,’ Reid told reporters Wednesday on a conference call. He said energy will be a major part of the jobs agenda outlined by top Senate Democrats shortly before they left for August recess. But the majority leader offered few details about what energy legislation might look like. Asked if the legislation might be based on bills considered by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Reid demurred. He touted what he called bipartisan cooperation on the panel, but did not say whether he would bring energy legislation considered by the committee to the floor. … Reid instead spoke in broad terms about some of his energy priorities, including building and lighting efficiency. Congress needs to act quickly to address those issues, he said. … But he acknowledged that many of the Democrats’ energy priorities face strong Republican opposition.”

“Pork Barrel Ethanol Subsidies Have Doubled Corn Prices”

August 11, 2011: From a Washington Examiner op-ed by Robert Bryce, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute: “Last month, with Washington mired in the debt ceiling battle and facing a potential default, public disapproval of Congress reached a record 82 percent. That figure might have been a little lower had Congress succeeded in solving another long-festering issue: putting an end to the massive subsidies being given to the corn ethanol scam. … But that deal never passed both houses of Congress. The result: $6 billion in annual subsidies are still being given to an industry that is helping drive up food prices during the worst recession in modern history. So the ethanol industry will continue getting subsidies while gobbling up gargantuan quantities of corn, which, in turn, is increasing the cost of food at the grocery store at the very same time that huge numbers of Americans are unemployed and/or collecting food stamps. …And yet — and yet — Congress just couldn’t find time to cut ethanol subsidies, even though at least 17 studies, including those by Purdue University, the World Bank, and the Congressional Research Service, have exposed the link between increasing ethanol production and higher food prices.… Today, about 40 percent of all U.S. corn — that’s 15 percent of global corn production or 5 percent of all global grain — is diverted into the corn ethanol scam in order to produce the energy equivalent of about 0.6 percent of global oil needs. Corn prices, now close to $7 per bushel, have more than doubled over the past two years. … In January, Peter Brabeck, chairman of the world’s biggest food company, Nestle, declared that using food to make biofuels is ‘absolute madness.’ Congress, are you listening?”

“A Watershed Moment for Obama on Climate Change”

August 18, 2011: From a Washington Post op-ed by Bill McKibben, distinguished scholar at Middlebury College and organizer of Tarsandsaction.org: “…Already, more than a thousand people have signed up to be arrested over two weeks beginning Aug. 20 — the biggest display of civil disobedience in the environmental movement in decades and one of the largest nonviolent direct actions since the World Trade Organization demonstrations in Seattle back before Sept. 11. … The issue is simple: We want the president to block construction of Keystone XL, a pipeline that would carry oil from the tar sands of northern Alberta down to the Gulf of Mexico. We have, not surprisingly, concerns about potential spills and environmental degradation from construction of the pipeline. But those tar sands are also the second-largest pool of carbon in the atmosphere, behind only the oil fields of Saudi Arabia. If we tap into them in a big way, NASA climatologist James Hansen explained in a paper issued this summer, the emissions would mean it’s ‘essentially game over’ for the climate. That’s why the executive directors of many environmental groups and 20 of the country’s leading climate scientists wrote letters asking people to head to Washington for the demonstrations. … That’s because, for once, the president will get to make an important call all by himself. He has to sign a certificate of national interest before the border-crossing pipeline can be built. Under the relevant statutes, Congress is not involved, so he doesn’t need to stand up to the global-warming deniers calling the shots in the House. But the president does need to stand up to the fossil fuel industry, which has done its best to influence the decision. … Obama can’t escape it simply by saying that someone else will burn the oil if we don’t. Alberta is remote, and its only other possible pipeline route — to the Pacific and hence Asia — is tangled in litigation.”

“A Quest to Clean Up Canada’s Oil Sands Carbon”

August 19, 2011: National Geographic reports: “The first large-scale effort to capture carbon dioxide emissions in the Canadian oil sands surmounted a crucial hurdle this summer with the signing of government agreements to underwrite nearly two-thirds of the $1.35 billion project’s cost. The Quest Carbon Capture and Storage project still must pass regulatory hurdles before a consortium led by Shell makes a final decision to go forward with its share of the investment. Although Quest would rank among the half-dozen largest carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in the world, sequestering 1.2 million metric tons of CO2 per year in the deepest saline aquifer of Alberta, environmentalists point out the amount is just a small fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions from the province’s oil sands operations. Proponents say the large investment in a pilot effort is important, to prove that Alberta has both the technology and geology to address the CO2 emissions that have marred the exploitation of its vast oil wealth. … Although there are a handful of similar scale projects around the world, most notably two offshore Norway and one in Algeria, this would be the first that tackles emissions from unconventional oil or gas operations. An important aim of the project is to show that in addition to having geology rich in oil resources, Alberta may also have the right underground formations for storing carbon.”

“Dissecting the Carbon Tax”

August 22, 2011: From a RenewablesBiz.com op-ed by Ken Green, scholar for the American Enterprise Institute: “Back in 2007, along with my colleagues Steve Hayward and Kevin Hassett, I co-authored a policy study examining the possibilities of a carbon tax or carbon cap-and-trade. The findings of that study were that a revenue-neutral carbon tax was better than cap-and-trade, which would be better than regulation. … However, watching states loot ‘dedicated’ eco-taxes for general revenue; seeing the emergence of more proposals for revenue-raising carbon taxes to finance continued deficit spending; and generally bearing witness to endless insincerity on the part of greens and their allies, I have to admit that my friends in the ‘free-market’ movement were right:  A carbon tax would simply become another general revenue raiser, and a step in carbon-seduction. …  No gain – There would be virtually no environmental benefits to unilateral greenhouse gas emission reductions by developed countries (whose GHG levels are already flat and slowly declining), while developing countries are pouring out virtually every kind of pollutant with joyous abandon. Some argue that we’ll get ‘co-benefits’ from reducing other pollutants, such as particulates. Well, we already have highly effective (if economically damaging) regulations for conventional pollutants. … Plenty of Pain – Studies continue to show that carbon taxation, through its influence on energy prices would cause considerable harm. They’re recessionary – high energy costs reduce economic productivity, and are passed along to consumers in everything they buy, from medical treatments to food and clothing.  … Even in flush economic times, carbon taxes would be bad policy. When economies are already laboring under too much spending, and are at diminishing-return levels of taxation, implementing a carbon tax would be a mistake.”

“Number of Green Jobs Fails to Live Up to Promises”

August 22, 2011: The New York Times reports: “Flanked by a cadre of local political leaders, Mayor Chuck Reed of San Jose used a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a solar power company last week to talk up the promise of the green economy.  Mr. Reed called the opening of the new headquarters of SolFocus, which produces large, free-standing solar panels, an ‘enormously important’ development for the city’s economy. … But SolFocus assembles its solar panels in China, and the new San Jose headquarters employs just 90 people.  In the Bay Area as in much of the country, the green economy is not proving to be the job-creation engine that many politicians envisioned. President Obama once pledged to create five million green jobs over 10 years. Gov. Jerry Brown promised 500,000 clean-technology jobs statewide by the end of the decade. But the results so far suggest such numbers are a pipe dream. … A study released in July by the non-partisan Brookings Institution found clean-technology jobs accounted for just 2 percent of employment nationwide and only slightly more — 2.2 percent — in Silicon Valley. Rather than adding jobs, the study found, the sector actually lost 492 positions from 2003 to 2010 in the South Bay, where the unemployment rate in June was 10.5 percent. Federal and state efforts to stimulate creation of green jobs have largely failed, government records show. Two years after it was awarded $186 million in federal stimulus money to weatherize drafty homes, California has spent only a little over half that sum and has so far created the equivalent of just 538 full-time jobs in the last quarter, according to the State Department of Community Services and Development. … Job training programs intended for the clean economy have also failed to generate big numbers.”

EU May Propose Plan to Extend Kyoto

August 24, 2011: Reuters reports: “The EU could yet table a proposal that would throw the beleaguered Kyoto Protocol a lifeline and secure the future of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) beyond 2012, government negotiators and observers have told Point Carbon News. Officials from the bloc’s member states will in the next few weeks discuss whether to formally back a plan to extend the life of the 1997 climate treaty, on condition it would expire in 2018 and be replaced with a single global pact that includes capping all major nations’ emissions. If all 27 countries agree, the EU could announce the plan at U.N. climate talks in South Africa in November as part of an attempt to overcome the four-year impasse over Kyoto’s future and how to tackle the long-term problem of climate change. Such an agreement could bolster confidence in the CDM, for which new investment shrank to a fifth of its peak last year as U.N. negotiators tied the future of the offsetting system to new targets under the Kyoto pact that underpins it. ‘It’s not a formal EU position yet, although it is something that has gained ground in recent months,’ said one senior EU negotiator who requested anonymity. ‘We see there are a lot of parties that want to maintain the Kyoto Protocol and its rules-based system maybe it’s possible to preserve the rules, but not ratify (a second period),’ he added. The 27 EU states will discuss the proposal ahead of an October meeting of environment ministers, which is when the bloc is expected to agree a collective negotiating position for the year-end U.N. climate negotiations in Durban.”

“Eight Views on Climate Change: A Guide to the Republican Candidates”

August 25, 2011: iWatch News reports: “Many Republican candidates are challenging the government’s role in protecting the environment, and showing that Obama isn’t the only change they just can’t believe in.  While 74 percent of Americans are worried about climate change, according to a March study, all but two of the Republican candidates for president have expressed skepticism about climate change. And while the Environmental Protection Agency was created four decades ago by a leading Republican, some of today’s GOP candidates want to strip it of authority or shut it down almost entirely . … Of the front-runners, only former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has gone on the record as accepting climate change; he stresses the importance of reducing pollution that contributes to global warming. Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry take the opposite view, criticizing the EPA, which Bachmann vows to shut down except for overseeing conservation. Congress and President Richard Nixon, a Republican, created the agency in 1970, in response to growing public demand for cleaner air, water and land. All the campaign warming over climate, of course, may actually be about something else. As Michael McKenna , a prominent energy lobbyist and Republican strategist, has observed, climate change is more of a ‘surrogate’ issue, ‘a totem for how you feel about large government versus small government.’”