Ideology and Misperception in Energy and Climate

I could write a dissertation on this topic and spend the rest of my life researching and publishing on it.  I will have to settle for a short blog post for now, because my own research is in need of my attention.

People posted a number of tweets and articles on how “Political ideology affects energy-efficiency attitudes and choices“, which is the title of a new PNAS article.  The upshot: ideology trumps the free market.  This isn’t a surprise to me anymore – I’ve studied plenty of cases in the past two years that demonstrate this phenomenon.  In this case, peoples’ purchases of energy-efficient light bulbs were most influenced by what the bulb’s labeling stated.  The study made two stickers available: “Protect the Environment” or blank.  In both cases, the researchers made the same bulb benefits (energy use & cost) available to each potential purchaser.  The only difference was the presence of a blank or pro-environment sticker on the packaging.  With the pro-environmental sticker, conservatives were less likely to purchase the CFL bulb.  Without it, conservatives and liberals were equally likely to purchase the CFL bulb.  That’s not rational, which is a significant assumption of modern economic theory.  The result shows, unsurprisingly, that peoples’ behavior depends on their personal ideology and value system.  This has obvious implications for climate change activists: you have to operate in the value system of your targeted audience if you want them to receive your proposals well.  Beating the same drums harder won’t make conservatives care about climate change.

Climate groups are willfully failing elsewhere.  A new Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication poll demonstrates that increasing numbers of Americans are drawing incorrect conclusions from recent weather events to climate change.  The warmest year on record in the US (2012) was made more severe due to global warming, according to 50% of respondents.  A similar number believe the ongoing US drought is worse due to global warming.  The results go on and on.

Here is the rub: these beliefs have no basis in scientific fact.  2012 US temperatures were largely influenced by natural interannual variability.  It was warmer than 1998 by more than 1°F, which is significant.  But identifying a global warming signal in one year’s temperature data for the US is beyond the current capabilities of science.  We can say more robustly that the 2000s were significantly warmer than the 1990s, which were warmer than the 1980s, etc.  2012′s temperatures were extreme and it had implications that are still being felt by human and ecological systems.  The important point there is this: are existing systems capable of handling today’s weather extremes?  If not, we should do something.

The belief in climate change enhanced drought is also unsupported, as I wrote about a couple of weeks ago.  Initial findings from a NOAA-led team were unable to detect a global warming-related signal in either the onset, magnitude, or extent of the extraordinary 2012 drought.  This isn’t particularly surprising when you consider the last two droughts of similar extent and severity occurred in the 1950s and 1930s – prior to much anthropogenic forcing.  Specifically, they found that “The interpretation is of an event resulting largely from internal atmospheric variability having limited long lead predictability.”  Again, this drought is producing effects, but it isn’t directly attributable to climate change.  The question remains: are existing systems capable of handling these types of extreme events?  If they aren’t, we should do something about them, not draw unscientific causal linkages in an effort to build support for change.

The IPCC’s SREX report (Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation), issued just last year, reinforces this message.  There is a detectable global warming signal in a few measurable parameters such as temperature, water vapor, and sea level change.  But the climate system retains a great deal of natural variability which scientists do not fully understand.  Climate conditions will change in the next 90 years, but the likelihood of those changes varies.  Weather conditions may or may not change.  Their inherent transience makes it difficult to ascribe causal factors behind any changes.  Note further that climate projections of the 2090s are not climate conditions of the 2090s or 2010s.  Identifying likely future changes does not translate to detecting those changes today.

Yale and George Mason should digest their poll results along with the latest guidance from scientific peer-reviewed literature to help guide their communication efforts moving forward.  Given the results of this latest poll, they have their work cut out for them.  Framing, whether it is related to selling CFLs to a diverse public or differentiating between weather and climate, is critically important in climate communication.

CO Public Utilities Commission Rejects Xcel Energy’s Bid To Collect Remaining $16.6 Million in SmartGridCity Costs

I last wrote on this topic a couple of months ago, following a Denver Post article that started with a Judge’s decision that ratepayers should not be responsible for cost overruns associated with Xcel’s SmartGridCity program.  The judge’s decision was not the final step in the matter.  As a matter of course, the final step was the Colorado’s Public Utilities’ Commission decision whether to grant Xcel’s request to collect $16.6 million from Colorado ratepayers.

If this is the first time you’ve read about this, here is a short history.  In 2008, Xcel proposed SmartGridCity, in which they would install approximately 50,000 smart meters in the city of Boulder by year’s end.  It was one of the most ambitious smart grid projects announced at the time.  Xcel’s proposal totaled $15 million in costs, which they themselves would completely bear.  Seven partner companies were supposed to pay for the remainder of the $100 million project.  A little something called the Great Recession got in the way, along with little transparency and project mismanagement on Xcel’s part.  Today, 23,000 smart meters are installed – at a cost of $44.5 million, triple the original estimate for less than half the project deployment.  The PUC previously approved Xcel’s request for $27.9 million, which is currently collected through customer rates, not from Xcel’s assets.

Thankfully, the PUC decided today to reject Xcel’s request with prejudice, which means Xcel cannot appeal the decision.  I support this decision mainly because I do not think Xcel should saddle regional ratepayers with costs for benefits they cannot receive.  That is a disgusting business practice and terrible precedent to set for future projects.  In a similar vein, Xcel’s success in expanding a coal plant in Pueblo, CO seemed to many to be a grab at capital to pad profit.  Ratepayers overwhelmingly rejected the plant’s expansion because it would generate more electricity than demanded by the population as well as its long life: Xcel stuck CO with this expanded plant for the next 50 years.

I have expressed my frustration with the PUC on occasion.  I do not think they exert the appropriate level of oversight over Xcel when the energy utility asks for rate increases, especially given Xcel’s lack of correctly forecasting generation capacity or demand.  This decision doesn’t atone for past decisions I didn’t agree with, but I am glad of this result.

I reiterate my general support for the smart grid.  I think we will eventually witness a significant transformation of the US’s power sector, including its infrastructure.  Smart grid technologies could usher in an era of increased efficiency.  Energy consumers currently do not have much access to data on their usage.  Many (not all) people could change their consumption habits if they had access to that data.

US Carbon Intensity

I saw this article today – “US Getting More Economic Bang for Its Energy Buck” and wanted to make some observations about it.  The article contains the following assertion:

Energy intensity, or the amount of energy we use to create one dollar of GDP, has plummeted 58 percent between 1949 and 2011. Even more impressive is the 66 percent decrease in carbon intensity, or the amount of carbon emitted per real dollar of GDP.

The data are what the data are.  This comment follows the data:

These improvements are what greens miss when they call for Americans to make painful, costly cutbacks on energy usage.

Let’s take another look at that data, now that we know the bias of the author.  There are 62 years in the data cited.  That means there was a 0.94% annual decrease in energy intensity. The good news is there was a decrease. We generated the same GDP dollar for less energy, as we expect in an advanced society with research and innovation.  Similarly, there was a 1.06% reduction in carbon intensity. This value is important for energy and climate policy. The amount of carbon required for every GDP dollar fell over the past 62 years. Again, this is a good thing generally speaking. Technological efficiency permeated the economy over that time, which reduced the amount of carbon we emitted.

Now an important question: What caused this decrease? Was it emission reductions? No, US emissions have increased since 1950, with only a couple of periods when emission values didn’t increase every year. The US emitted just over 600 million metric tons (MMT) of carbon in 1950 and over 1500MMT in 2011. If carbon intensity is a measure of carbon per unit GDP, then the denominator increased faster than the numerator (GDP rather than carbon), in order for the ratio to decline over time. In 1950, the US real GDP was $2 trillion; in 2011, it was $13 trillion. Indeed, GDP increased faster than carbon emissions over the past 60 years.

What magnitude carbon intensity decrease is necessary to achieve carbon concentration reductions? First of all, carbon emissions have to decrease. Granted this has to occur globally, but let’s keep our focus on the US since we can actually control those emissions. Something between 3% and 4% annual decrease would do the trick. That is 3 to 4 times the historical rate! Let’s go back to the ratio: what has to change to achieve this decrease? It’s one of two things: carbon emissions or GDP. If GDP increases at the same rate it has historically, carbon emissions would have to decrease in value. If carbon emissions increased at the same rate they have historically, GDP would have to triple or quadruple in value.  The former case is more likely because while we want GDP to grow as much as possible, tripling or quadrupling the rate of GDP growth won’t happen.

So our goal should be to decrease carbon emissions. If we can simultaneously increase GDP along the way, so much the better. We obviously should not look at “solutions” that decrease GDP. Walter Russell is unfortunately partially correct when he says that some greens miss part of reality. They place too much focus on decreasing emissions regardless of the consequences. In the real world, people still have to eat and pay for the mortgage. Walter does miss his own share of reality however. These graphs do not indicate a wildly efficient economy. We should not break out into celebration because of the graphs. We should instead examine them soberly and then determine what our goals should be. Do we want to decrease emissions and concentrations and if so to what level? Those goals will help us establish the requisite policies to achieve them. I for one do not think we are decarbonizing nearly fast enough and I think we can decarbonize faster via some common sense policies.

Can Researchers Do Simple Math?

An upcoming paper in Energy Policy challenges an affirmative answer to that question.  Here is the paper’s topic: “Examining the Feasibility of Converting New York State’s All-Purpose Energy Infrastructure to One Using Wind, Water and Sunlight,”.   That sounds great from an environmental perspective.  The authors claim that by 2050, NY state can transform its entire energy infrastructure so that the state will not use any fossil fuel sources.  Based on my knowledge of the climate system and having done some work in the energy infrastructure realm, I challenge the conclusions drawn in the paper.  According to Andy Revkin, who wrote about this paper, the authors issued the following as part of their press release:

According to the researchers’ calculations, New York’s 2030 power demand for all sectors (electricity, transportation, heating/cooling, industry) could be met by:

4,020 onshore 5-megawatt wind turbines
12,770 offshore 5-megawatt wind turbines
387 100-megawatt concentrated solar plants
828 50-megawatt photovoltaic power plants
5 million 5-kilowatt residential rooftop photovoltaic systems
500,000 100-kilowatt commercial/government rooftop photovoltaic systems
36 100-megawatt geothermal plants
1,910 0.75-megawatt wave devices
2,600 1-megawatt tidal turbines
7 1,300-megawatt hydroelectric power plants, of which most exist

Kudos to the researchers for generating an actual list which we can use for discussion.  It is this list on which I base by answer.  And here is why.  What do all the numbers mean in that list?  They mean that if construction on this infrastructure began to finish as of January 1, 2013, the following would have to be built every year until 2030:

236 onshore 5MW wind turbines (~1 per day)
7512 offshore 5MW wind turbine (~2 per day)
23 100MW concentrated solar plants
49 50MW photovoltaic power plants
294118 5kW residential rooftop PV systems (806 per day!)
29412 100kW commercial/government PV systems (81 per day!)
2 100MW geothermal plants
153 1MW tidal turbines

It should be relatively easy to see the magnitude of the task in front of the researchers’ claim.  The social and political landscape is currently not one that supports doing this.  Where will this infrastructure be built?  What policies will we put in place to ensure this happens?

Look at the residential rooftop PV systems number: 1471MW needs to be installed every year: 294118 * 5kW * 1MW/1000kW.

And the commercial/industrial rooftop PV systems number: 2941MW needs to be installed every year: 29412 * 100kW / 1MW/1000kW.

If we add these two together, NY needs about 4,412MW of solar PV systems installed per year, for a total of 75,000MW by 2030.  We can compare these numbers to installation numbers maintained by different sources.  I couldn’t find anyone who tracks number of system installs per year.  In 2011, New York installed 60MW of solar capacity across residential, commercial, and utility projects, or 1.4% of the researchers’ stated goal.  That is a huge discrepancy.

MW installation won’t have to double every year to achieve the 75,000MW goal – that’s the good news.  The bad news is the installation will have to grow by 150% every year for the next 17 years.  What could possibly get in the way of that achievement?

We can also look at the number of PV installations: 806 and 81 per day!  While the solar industry has certainly grown considerably over the past decade, are there 81 100kW commercial and industrial rooftop PV installations taking place every day in the the state of NY?  How about 806 residential systems?  Every. Day.  If installers are not doing this at that rate today, those systems have to be installed at some point in the future in order to achieve the goals.  Will 1,000 installations take place every day by 2030?  It might be nice to hope so, but that ignores a whole suite of policy requirements.  Any delay in installation in the near term imposes a higher required rate of growth in the future to meet 2030 goals.

Zero off-shore wind turbines were installed as of the end of 2012.  The numbers listed above translates to 63.85GW of installed wind by 2030.  That exceeds the national goal of 54GW announced by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Energy Secretary Steven Chu just two years ago.  Goals can and should change, but they require people with vision and insight to establish them and set a course to meet them.  What happens if future Interior and Energy secretaries some from the fossil fuel industry?  What roadblocks will NY face in achieving 64GW of off-shore wind by 2030?

On the practical side, where is natural gas in this energy portfolio?  Do the researchers make a credible assumption that recent natural gas finds will remain in the ground for the next 17 years while renewable energy infrastructure booms?  How will that happen?  What about energy efficiency and net energy reduction?  The authors make a huge assumption that efficiency gains of 5%/year are achievable.  A further assumption is made that New Yorkers will consume less net energy over time.  Is that realistic?  If not, the above numbers would have to grow in size even further.  What technological innovations have to occur?  How will NY handle renewable energy variability?

Are there abundant renewable resources across America?  Yes, there absolutely are.  The keys to harnessing those resources as quickly and efficiently as possible are available through smart policies – something that this paper should include since it is going to Energy Policy.  At best, this paper presents an interesting thought exercise.  I for one want to see a lot more work on the policy trends required to get NY to these goals.

Restarting Japan’s Nuclear Plants Causes Hyperventilated Opining

In the aftermath of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster, many people missed an important lesson staring them in the face.  Nuclear power’s CO2 emissions are small in comparison to fossil fuels, there is no doubt.  But safe nuclear energy is very expensive.  Japan has to decide which goals it wants to attain.  Do the Japanese want carbon-free energy, cheap energy, or safe energy?

I read an article at Grist that takes the new Japanese Prime Minister to task over his desire to restart Japan’s off-line nuclear power stations.  I doubt that Susie Cagle has to find a way to deliver power to an industrialized island nation with no energy resources of its own, which allowed her to take this tack.  The title of her post is misleading or biased, take your pick.  Fukushima isn’t damned in this decision:

The newspaper said making the necessary upgrades to meet the proposed guidelines would cost plant operators about $11 billion, in addition to improvements already made after the Fukushima accident. The agency has said the new guidelines will be finalized and put in place by July 18.

$11 billion to meet new guidelines doesn’t come across as ignoring Fukushima’s lessons.  The fundamental flaw in Cagle’s argument is an incorrect interpretation of risk.  How many nuclear power plant disasters has the world suffered?  How many plant-hours have those plants operated?  What is the ratio of disasters to operating hours or Giga-watts of electricity produced for people?  Astoundingly low.  How many people are killed in Japan or the US by motor vehicles per year?  Fatalities decreased to 36,000 in 2009, if you’re curious.  What replacement technology does Cagle and other anti-nuclear advocates propose?  Because one technology kills people every day while the other does not.

How will Japan replace 33% of its electricity generation if it keeps all of its nuclear power plants offline?  Natural gas has replaced nuclear since Fukushima, which still releases CO2 into the atmosphere and requires drilling and transport.

The Japanese government’s handling of nuclear safety was and is an issue (corruption infests regulation enforcement).  But Cagle’s article didn’t discuss the causes behind Fukushima (besides using nuclear at all) or offer solutions – about either nuclear safety or energy policy.  Does she really expect Prime Minister Abe to try to convince the Japanese people they shouldn’t have electricity or they should pay more for their energy when viable technologies are at hand?

Also missing from the article was the following.  As Japan and Germany add to CO2 concentrations by closing nuclear power plants and burning more fossil fuels, Japan’s coast faces rising sea levels in a warming world.  Cagle could have discussed the need to add sea-level change projections into Japan’s nuclear energy policy as they strengthen infrastructure.  How many additional billions of dollars might the Japanese need to spend to handle climate change effects?

Can Carbon Emissions Be Reduced In Electricity Generation While Including Variable Renewables? A California Case Study

This is a class paper I wrote this week and thought it might be of interest to readers here.  I can provide more information if desired.  The point to the paper was to write concisely for a policy audience about a decision support planning method in a subject that interests me.  Note that this is only from one journal paper among many that I read every week between class and research.  I will let readers know how I did after I get feedback.  As always, comments are welcome.

40% of the United States’ total carbon dioxide emissions come from electricity generation.  The electric power sector portfolio can shift toward generation technologies that emit less, but their variability poses integration challenges.  Variable renewables can displace carbon-based generation and reduce associated carbon emissions.  Two Stanford University researchers demonstrated this by developing a generator portfolio planning method to assess California variable renewable energy penetration and carbon emissions (Hart and Jacobson 2011).  Other organizations should adopt this approach to determine renewable deployment feasibility in different markets.

The researchers utilized historical and modeled meteorological and load data from 2005 in Monte Carlo system simulations to determine the least-cost generating mix, required reserve capacity, and hourly system-wide carbon emissions.  2050 projected cost functions and load data comprised a future scenario, which assumed a $100 per ton of CO₂ carbon cost.  They integrated the simulations with a deterministic renewable portfolio planning optimization module in least-cost and least-carbon (produced by minimizing the estimated annual carbon emissions) cases.  In simulations, carbon-free generation met 2005 (99.8 ± 0.2%) and 2050 (95.9 ± 0.4%) demand loads in their respective low-carbon portfolios.

System inputs for the 2005 portfolio included hourly forecasted and actual load data, wind speed data generated by the Weather Research and Forecasting model, National Climatic Data Center solar irradiance data, estimated solar thermal generation, hourly calculated state-wide aggregated solar photovoltaic values, hourly temperature and geothermal data, and approximated daily hydroelectric generation and imported generation.  They authors calculated 2050 load data using an assumed annual growth rate of 1.12% in peak demand and 0.82% growth in annual generation.

The Monte Carlo simulations addressed the uncertainty estimation of different system states.  As an example, the authors presented renewables’ percent generation share and capacity factor standard deviations across all Monte Carlo representations.  The portfolio mix (e.g., solar, wind, natural gas, geothermal, and hydroelectric), installed capacities & capacity factors of renewable and conventional energy sources, annual CO₂ emissions, expected levelized cost of generation, and electric load constituted this method’s outputs.

A range of results for different goals (i.e., low-cost vs. low-carbon), the capability to run sensitivity studies, and identification of system vulnerabilities comprise this method’s advantages.  Conversely, this method’s cons include low model transparency, subjective definition and threshold of risk, and a requirement for modeling and interpretation expertise.

This method demonstrates that renewable technologies can significantly displace carbon-based generation and reduce associated carbon emissions in large-scale energy grids.  This capability faces financial, technological, and political impediments however.  Absent effective pricing mechanisms, carbon-based generation will remain cheaper than low-carbon sources.  The $100 per ton of CO₂ assumption made in the study’s 2050 portfolio is important, considering California’s current carbon market limits, its initial credit auction price of $10.09 per metric tonne (Carroll 2012), and its a $50/ton price ceiling.  In order to meet the projected 2050 load with renewable sources while reducing emissions, technological innovation deserves prioritization.  More efficient and reliable renewable generators will deliver faster investment returns and replace more carbon-based generators.  Improved interaction with all stakeholders during the planning phase of this endeavor will likely reduce political opposition.

Carroll, Rory. 2012. “California Carbon Market Launches, Permits Priced Below Expectations.” Reuters, November 19. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/19/us-california-carbonmarket-idUSBRE8AI13X20121119.

Hart, E. K., and M. Z. Jacobson. 2011. “A Monte Carlo Approach to Generator Portfolio Planning and Carbon Emissions Assessments of Systems with Large Penetrations of Variable Renewables.” Renewable Energy 36 (8): 2278–2286.

Customers Not Responsible For Xcel’s SmartGridCity Cost Overruns

So ruled a judge yesterday, with which I agree.

I was very excited when Xcel first announced their SmartGridCity plans back in 2008.  Work on the project started shortly thereafter.  It quickly became apparent to me that something was amiss: their flagship project was woefully under-reported.  The project, by generous description, was mismanaged almost from the start.

A quick description of the project: Xcel Energy planned to hook up residential, commercial, and industrial properties in Boulder, CO to new technologies so that the utility could more easily see which parts of the grid were performing well or poorly and so customers had real-time access to their energy usage.  The latter feature was particularly intriguing to me since I’m a data junkie.  I look at my solar PV system’s website constantly to see how much energy its generating.  I would do backflips of joy if I had access to energy consumption by my appliances and outlets.

The initial cost of the project was reported to be $15 million, although Xcel said that collectively with its partners, $100 million might be spent to lay the infrastructure and get everything working.  Xcel’s publicly stated plan was to install digital meters in 15,000 homes Aug. 1 2008 and approximately 50,000 meters by year’s end.  Xcel targeted 1,850 installations of in-home energy devices.  They told Boulder’s mayor that they would not seek payment for customers for their grand experiment.  Their overall plan?  To revolutionize how power was monitored and controlled by stakeholders.  That’s about where the good news ends.

Due to the Great Recession as well as overall mismanagement, costs tripled: $44.5 million was the final price tag.  Xcel had a good idea a few months after their original announcement that costs would approximately double, but did not inform either the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) or the public.  As usually happens when a corporation has an epic fail, the customer was held financially responsible.  Xcel filed rate increase requests with the PUC that increased over time as they sought more and more money from all its ratepayers.  Customers throughout Xcel’s service region (not just Boulder customers) have already paid $27.9 million!

For what did ratepayers actually pay?  Today, only 23,000 meters are hooked up.  Customer’s with the meters can view 15-minute energy data, not up-to-the-minute data.  Only 101 homes have in-home energy devices (5.5% of the original number).  So fewer than half the original number of smart meters  and 5% of in-home energy devices were installed.  The service delivered does not match the service promised when the project was first proposed.  For all this, Xcel wants 3X the money they initially requested.

Which brings us to the judge’s decision.  In November 2008, Xcel filed a $15.3 million SmartGridCity (SGC) request with the PUC.  In May 2009, they re-filed for $27.3 million with the PUC for SGC.  In July 2009, they re-filed for $42 million.  Xcel included $44.5 million in a 2010 general rate increase, which the city of Boulder and the Colorado Office of Consumer Counsel challenged.  In January 2011, the PUC approved SGC and allowed Xcel to collect $27.9 million for the project (more than the 1st re-filing and almost 2X the original filing).  In December 2011, Xcel filed to collect the remaining $16.6 million.  Yesterday, the judge ruled that “The lack of information provided here regarding customer-facing benefits or justification of the cost overruns fails to meet the Company’s burden of proof.”  The PUC will consider the judge’s ruling at a future meeting, which means that customers still might have to pay for this folly of an experiment.

I could make a dozen analogies why I think this situation is so bad.  Suffice to say corporate experiments should not be paid for by customers, especially when the corporation hasn’t acted in good faith.  Moreover, I challenge anyone to find the local libertarians who take up space in the media railing against Xcel for this money grab.  They’ll complain long and loud about the Transportation District and its decisions regarding expansion of light rail across the Denver metro area.  Due to rising commodity prices and mismanagement, an entire line could be delayed until 2042 while every other line is built out by 2019 and some lines receive luxury stops because District personnel live by them.  There is a big difference, however, in a public agency issuing transit projections based on revenue projections which turned out to be more optimistic because they didn’t forsee the Great Recession and a corporation hiding ballooning costs from a public regulatory agency.  But while RTD is a governmental entity, Xcel is a corporate entity.  In these so-called libertarains’ minds, government can do little good while corporations can do little harm.  Hence, the only commentary on the topic was 3 paragraphs from Vincent Carroll back in August: “SmartGridCity delivered less consumer benefit than originally advertised. More to the point, however, it cost way more than Xcel estimated. Surely this sort of major miscalculation should cost Xcel more than a little bad publicity.”  That’s the same Carroll who has had plenty to say about FasTracks and little of it useful for discussion.

The PUC needs to tell Xcel to eat the costs because Xcel severely mismanaged their project.  Ratepayers already are responsible for twice the originally quoted amount.  Xcel should revamp their smart grid strategy.  The smart grid will be a valuable tool for higher energy awareness in the future.  Other utilities are implementing smaller but more reasonable portions of their smart grids.  A lesson a supervisor hammered into me years ago is apt: don’t go out and design the Cadillac version of something on your first try.  With all the mistakes that will occur with a ground-breaking venture, design something basic but solid first, from which you can add bells and whistles later.

SmartGridCity

GE Suspends CO Solar Thin Film Plant Construction For 18 Months

The thin film plant was supposed to be the biggest of its kind in the US.  GE declared the suspension due to tumbling panel prices and a desire to boost the modules’ efficiency and conduct a redesign of the plant.

So, a piece of good news, not-so-good news (at least in the short-term).  350 fewer workers employed at this plant in the original time frame.  Higher efficiency panels could eventually be constructed at the redesigned plant.  Panel prices are falling rapidly – which is itself a good news, not-so-good news kind of story.

Interestingly, enough panels to power ~80,000 US homes were to be constructed annually at the plant.  That’s still a pretty low number, although each panel that is produced is that much less GHG emissions down the road.

Arctic Will Be Opened To Drilling

Among the reasons: Russia, Canada and Norway will drill, so we should also.  This from a “Democratic” administration.  This development is the result of increasing  corporate control over a government.  When people voted for “Hope and Change” in 2008, did they really think that any part of Obama’s administration would stand up to fossil fuel drilling in the most sensitive areas left on Earth?  In Colorado, policy allows natural gas drill pads physically closer to elementary schools than are marijuana dispensaries.  All this is occurring just two years after one of the worst oil spills in world history – how short is our memory?  Maybe people figure as long as the oil only destroys an Arctic ecosystem instead of an ecosystem which Americans might personally experience, then it’s alright.

Shell will receive approval for drilling later this year, according to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.  The article also includes a couple of reassurances that any potential spills in the future will be dealt with quickly because sufficient technologies will be in place already.  Once a spill occurs (as they always do), every politician and corporate executive interviewed will lament that nobody could possibly have foreseen an oil spill in the Arctic.

Solar panels and wind farms don’t explode or leak, to say nothing of the lack of carbon emissions from their energy generation.  The resources utilized are also common resources (nobody owns the sun or air – yet), so they directly threaten the obscene profits realized by a handful of corporations who now  have more rights than American citizens.

Bonn Climate Negotiations Predictably Go Nowhere

As I predicted last week, the climate deal negotiations held in Bonn, Germany resulted in … nothing.  Well, that’s not completely accurate.  There was plenty of bickering and diplomatic drama, but the negotiations produced nothing of substance.  Put simply, there are too many competing interests for any global-scale deal to be decided on or put into place in the next 5-10 years.  Economic growth garners more attention and too many people still incorrectly believe that scientific innovation doesn’t facilitate that growth.

The quickest way to get countries to act on the climate is to improve their peoples’ standard of living.  Pull or push the developing world up to developed-world standards and hundreds of millions more people will be able and willing to take action on anthropogenic climate change.  As the world stands now, too many people are still forced to prioritize their personal survival.  Environmental NGOs would do themselves and the world a favor by focusing efforts toward cheap, clean energy access to billions who don’t currently have it.

Additionally, interested countries need to take the lead on action and set up mechanisms that allow them to benefit as currently recalcitrant countries climb on the climate action bandwagon.  While it would be unwieldy in the mid-term, countries should consider establishing multiple climate treaties that perform various tasks, then combining those treaties at some point in the future.  Almost everyone agrees that some action is better than none.  So why should everyone shoot for the moon from the start?

Negotiators will meet again in Qatar in November of this year.  The stated goal is to have drafted something by 2015 that goes into force by 2020.  I don’t think they will succeed for the reasons I briefly discussed above in addition to ones left out of this post.  Let’s see if I’m wrong.