Blog Archive for December, 2010
Holiday slowdown
Over the next week or so, your blog host will be taking some time to enjoy a cup of nog and gather around the solar-powered rainbow machine with the family. Which means Highwire won’t be updated again until January 3.
The main site will still be updated on weekdays (except for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve), and the daily email digest will still go out on those days as well. If you haven’t signed up for the daily email, you can do so in the green box immediately to the right of this post.
If you think I’ve missed any important news in my nog-induced haze, story tips are welcome at paulman@midwestenergynews.com.
As always, thanks for reading, and Happy Holidays!
Going on a gasoline diet
Move over, Portland. The Midwest is coming to get you!
Gasoline demand may have peaked in the United States, but our appetite for driving isn’t going away.
The downturn, as reported by the Associated Press today, is primarily because of two factors: stricter mileage requirements, and the federal renewable fuel mandate. The number of cars on the road, the number of miles they’re driving, and the total amount of fuel they’re consuming, are still projected to increase.
That means there is still a lot of potential to further decrease gasoline consumption (which, in America, is by far the highest in the world per capita) – through reducing vehicle miles traveled.
Recently, a group of transportation planners from Chicago, Minneapolis and other cities traveled to the transit-and-bike-o-topia of Portland, Oregon, to find out how to do that (Jay Walljasper, a Twin-Cities based writer, went along for the ride and offers this report).
Some participants were surprised to learn that in Portland, as in every other major American city, the majority of people still get around by car. Nevertheless, per-capita vehicle miles traveled in the city has been declining since the mid-1990s, thanks to investments in mass transit and cycling infrastructure.
And much of the credit for that decline goes to a simple idea: paint. Bike lanes, left-turn boxes, and other types of infrastructure have proven to be relatively simple and inexpensive to install. Bike infrastructure in the city accounts for less than one percent of city transportation costs while carrying 3-7 percent of all trips.
But the bigger economic benefit comes from money being spent in the city rather than flowing out through gasoline and other car-related purchases. Walljasper notes a recent study that pegs that amount at $800 million. Portland’s bike industry supports nearly 1,000 workers and $100 million in annual economic activity.
Reducing oil consumption is fine and good, but boosting local economies is nice, too.
Read Jay’s post on bikesbelong.org for more details about the trip.
Photo by livewombat via Creative Commons
It’s about time…
Someone’s built a solar-powered rainbow machine. They’re going to set it up in Omaha. I’m not kidding.
Read more here.
Renewables and rate hikes
I don’t listen to talk radio, but I have a funny feeling a story from Oregon is going to be making the rounds this afternoon.
Customers of Pacific Power will see their electric rates spike 14.5 percent in January. … Meanwhile, customers of the state’s largest electric utility, Portland General Electric Co., will see a lesser, but still significant, rate increase of about 3.9 percent.
The biggest factor driving the increases: renewable power.
Oregon’s public policy choices during the past few years are coming home to roost in rates, a trend that will continue and likely be exacerbated in coming years by environmental edicts dealing with global warming and haze reduction. (Oregonian, Dec. 17)
Now, before we break out the Al Gore effigy and the lighter fluid, let’s hold on for just a minute.
The mercury myth
No, not THAT Mercury...
This blog has been stranded in Wonkytown lately, which can only mean one thing: It’s time to start yammering on about light bulbs again.
When we were talking about CFLs last week, I gave short-shrift to the mercury issue. Luckily, a helpful commenter reminded me about the controversy:
…each bulb contains about as much mercury as the dot at the end of this sentence. Multiply that hundreds of times for the bulbs that won’t be recycled, then you do have a environmental nightmare.
It’s true that CFLs contain mercury (about 4 milligrams each), and it’s also true that any amount of mercury pollution is a bad thing. And it’s completely naïve to think that a lot of these bulbs won’t go into the trash – in fact, even the EPA says it’s OK to toss them in the garbage as long as they’re double-sealed in plastic bags.
And there is a rather elaborate cleanup ritual that the EPA recommends if you break a bulb in the house. No, you don’t need to call a hazmat crew, but you’ll need to maybe shut down the furnace and open the window.
But the idea that sticking with incandescent light bulbs will help prevent mercury contamination is complete, utter hogwash.
The primary source of mercury pollution in the U.S. is burning coal for electricity generation. Despite EPA efforts to clamp down on emissions, in 2008, U.S. power plants pumped nearly 90,000 pounds of mercury into the air. That’s the equivalent of 10 billion CFL bulbs.
Ten. Billion.
And most of that pollution is concentrated in the Midwest.
As we’ve noted, CFLs use about one-fourth the energy of comparable incandescent bulbs. The EPA estimates that over its life cycle, a single CFL bulb will result in a net reduction of mercury emissions of about 4 milligrams, even if the bulb goes into a landfill.
So it seems if one is truly worried about mercury pollution, the obvious choice would be to buy energy-efficient bulbs and dispose of them properly.
There. That wasn’t so difficult, was it?
Climate rule challenge dead – at least temporarily
West Virginia Sen. John Rockefeller threatened yesterday to force a vote on EPA greenhouse gas regulations, but for now, it’s an empty gesture.
Rockefeller had pledged to add an amendment to the omnibus spending bill in the Senate, delaying enforcement of the regulations for two years.
However, just this morning, Senate majority leader Harry Reid pulled the spending bill, saying he didn’t have enough votes to overcome a Republican filibuster of the $1.2 trillion package.
However, as Politico reports, efforts to weaken EPA authority over greenhouse gases are likely to persist in the next Congress.
The solar stimulus
R2D2 says: "Beep beep boop!"
An obscure provision in the stimulus act has led to a dramatic decline in the cost of small-scale solar power installations, according to researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
According to the report (warning: HUGE PDF), a key factor pushing down solar costs was the removal of a $2,000 cap on federal investment tax credits for installations. The provision, part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, let to a 24% decline in the average net installed cost for residential solar systems.
Regulations bad for business?
Earlier this week, the incoming Attorney General of Kansas, Derek Schmidt, announced that his office would consider litigation against the EPA over rules regulating greenhouse gases. Schmidt says he’s concerned that the rules will force small farmers to make expensive upgrades to their equipment – a claim that simply isn’t true.
Schmidt’s comments reflect a common narrative – that is, regulations, by default, are bad for business.
But not all businesses fear the EPA. On Wednesday, a group of 14 business organizations issued a news release voicing support for stronger environmental regulations. In all, the groups represent more than 60,000 U.S. businesses of varying sizes.
To be fair, at least two of the groups, the American Wind Energy Association and Environmental Entrepreneurs – include companies that stand to gain financially from crackdowns on pollution.
But that’s exactly the point. A dollar spent controlling pollution doesn’t just vanish into thin air. It saves money in other areas – lower health costs, reduced absenteeism, etc., – and may help stimulate other areas of the economy.
‘Climategate’ at Fox News
Media Matters, a left-leaning press watchdog group, posted an email today that shows a Fox News managing editor ordering staff to downplay climate science data.
From the email:
Fox News managing editor Bill Sammon
…we should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question.
The email was sent in December, amid the “Climategate” email scandal and the COP15 climate summit in Copenhagen. Media Matters further details how “Fox’s news and opinion programs relentlessly hyped the supposed scandal in order to cast doubt on the scientific case for climate change.”
Politico has picked up the story, but tiptoes around the issue of climate science, instead focusing on Media Matters’ “crusade” against Sammon.
That, frankly, is the more revealing of the two stories.
Twitter fight!
There have been many great rivalries throughout history: Foreman and Ali, the Celtics and the Lakers, Less Filling and Tastes Great, the list goes on and on.
Add to it the occasional Twitter sparrings of David Roberts and Steve Everley. Roberts is a reporter for environmental news site Grist, and Everley is the manager of policy research at American Solutions, a policy group founded by Newt Gingrich.
The Roberts-Everley exchanges are something to behold when they spring up. They even inspired a full-fledged video debate on the Huffington Post in October.
Below is an unvarnished exchange, complete with links, that took place earlier this afternoon.
