An average homeowner will waste $500 fewer dollars annually than their neighbor who owns an energy wasteful house. That number does factor in improvements’ capitalized costs, according to the DoE. What is included in improvements? Things like increased insulation, more efficient lighting, making buildings and ducts more air-tight and checking up on commercial buildings after they’re built.
How big a deal is $500 per homeowner per year? Republicans are always touting reducing taxes as a way to put more money in homeowners’ pockets. Well, they’ve missed a huge opportunity for decades now to do just that with energy codes. The average American spends $2,340 in annual energy costs. That compares to $1,897 in property taxes and $822 in homeowners’ insurance. Knocking $500 off energy costs brings them down beneath average property tax numbers. But instead of starving municipalities of much needed monies by slashing taxes, savings on energy can be put back into those municipalities when homeowners spend the money. And they’re increasingly spending any saved money on necessities instead of consumer wants.
Saving energy isn’t just good for homeowners’ wallets either. It’s very good news for our energy security and reducing our global warming forcing. Less energy wasted means less dirty fuels burned. Hopefully, it’s not too late to implement these and other easy solutions.
The Senate’s version of climate and energy legislation was formally introduced yesterday. Titled “The American Power Act”, the draft is 987 pages long and includes darn near everything. Reading any substantial amount of the bill is going to take a while; understanding it will take even longer. Of course, by the time activists read and understand it, it will probably be in the process of being modified. Regardless, here are two links that I’m looking at. The first is the full bill; the second is a section by section summary.
I wanted to know a little more about President Obama’s proposed 2011 budget as it related to energy items. I’m wondering what priorities his administration has, for instance. I can’t say that after taking a brief look around I’m totally pleased with what I found. There is too much of a budget boost to legacy energy systems and not enough emphasis, in my opinion, to the energy systems of the future. Those future systems are what I think the government should be funding. Without a doubt, the subsidies to the dirty energy industry need to be cut off completely. They’re mature to the point of being nearly monopolistic, which means they can stand or fall on their own merits now. With that in mind, here is some of what I’ve found.
Really? Really, Sen. Udall – that’s what you’re going to work towards in the Senate? And again, we see a Democratic Senator pledge to work with their Republican colleague toward a policy solution when it is quite apparent what McCain really wants [emphasis mine]:
President Barack Obama must put forth a White House plan as soon as possible that congressional leaders can debate, McCain said.
Is this a continuation of the Cons’ view that executives make laws? Because if they do, then President Obama doesn’t need the Congress for anything. No, McCain and his Con buddies just want to continue to use President Obama as a smear target. Sen. Udall – you cannot work with these people until they demonstrate they want to work with you. And no, sliming Democrats at every opportunity and trashing the deliberative process in your chamber doesn’t count as working with you, in case you were curious or confused.
Now that the U.S. House has voted on H.R. 2454, the American Clean Enenergy and Security Act of 2009, and the Senate is loosely scheduled to take up their version of the legislation later this summer, a number of corporate media outlets have written something up on the effort to do something about how energy use will shift. One such article, “Energy legislation could bring deep change” is one such article. Unfortunately, like many other articles, it messes up on a number of key points.
Let’s start with the biggest problem: it omits any analysis on what would happen if the legislation hadn’t passed. Leading up to the vote, very little of this kind of information could be found via the largest media entities, which is an incredible disservice to news consumers. How are people to determine if the projected costs are worth incurring if they don’t have any similar numbers on what costs of inaction would be? The information is available through a number of reliable, non-partisan outfits. Today’s “journalism” is disappointing.
Next, read this paragraph:
Not all the higher energy costs would show up in people’s utility bills. Households, as well as business and factories — including those, for example, making plastic for toys — could use less energy, or at least use it more efficiently. The poorest of homes could get a government check as a rebate for high energy costs. That money would come from selling pollution allowances for industry.
Um, using energy more efficiently means that less energy is used for the same activity. That’s a pretty basic concept that isn’t unique to this context of energy. The fact that the article messes this point up is particularly glaring: the greatest amount of short-term cost reductions will be found by implementing higher energy efficiency technologies that are available today. Indeed, so much energy efficiency is available for us to take advantage of that total energy usage should decrease in the next 20-30 years, even with additional population. Our electricity system, for example, wastes the vast majority of energy it is supposed to deliver to users. That electric grid needs to be completely replaced with newer, better, more efficienct technologies. So households and businesses should have every reason to support this portion of the legislation – decreasing energy demand will decrease energy costs. Will energy utilities pass those savings along to us?
The article goes on to point out that the complication to carbon sequestration from coal plants will be citizens’ hesitation to do so “in their backyard”. This is absurd since there has been no demonstrated technology capable of even capturing the carbon from coal plants on a utility scale in the first place, despite being researched for over 20 years. Where to store something you’re not even collecting is a ridiculous question. Moving on to cite potential citizen complaints about that stored product is even more ridiculous. The icing on this cake is no similar statements are provided for nuclear waste after the article points out that the nuclear industry will receive billions more dollars in funding. That’s a product that is being generated today, and indeed nobody wants in their backyard – for obvious reasons. Until the nuclear industry can demonstrate it can safely store nuclear waste for hundreds of thousands to millions of years, they shouldn’t expect taxpayers to foot the bill to subsidize their energy production.
The article doesn’t point out that the true costs of nuclear power aren’t included in the electric rates charged to consumers – Americans that don’t receive nuclear power are included in the corporate subsidization of taking care of the details under the rug. These kinds of practices must stop. Let’s get every energy source put their true costs on the table – as the mis-labeled “free market” is supposed to do. Let’s get the government assistance out of the way and let each technology truly compete against one another. Americans would quickly realize that clean energy technologies like solar, wind and geothermal look pretty darned attractive in the long-term. The article’s refusal to mention anything close to this is telling.
Moving forward toward a greener future includes not only renewable energy and energy efficiency but efficiency in general. We are a very wasteful society – largely because there was little downside to generating the waste when infrastructure was first put in place. As more of us have swelled the size of society, that waste has become more important. I wanted to share some results I read about in this Climate Progress water efficiency post, which started out about Santa Clara, California water conservation efforts and moved onto larger studies and examples.
The results have been impressive: a savings of 370,000 acre-feet of water in 13 years. (A typical household uses one acre-foot of water per year).
But perhaps even more significant have been the energy savings and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions: 1.42 billion kilowatt hours of electricity and 335 million kg of carbon dioxide, which is equal to taking 72,000 cars off the road for a year.
That’s right: water efficiency translates to energy savings.
In early March, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on the Energy and Water Integration Act of 2009 sponsored by Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). The bill’s main emphasis is to study the impact of energy development on U.S. water resources, but it also calls on the Department of Energy to periodically assess the energy consumed in the delivery, treatment, and use of water.
That study is important: if nobody knows the extent of a potential problem, it’s harder to come up with potential solutions like crafting legislation to promote water conservation efforts. We know governments at every level offer varying tax credits for energy efficient windows, new water heaters, solar paneling and geothermal systems. Similar credits don’t yet exist on a large scale to assist consumers who want to buy water efficient items like dishwasher, clothes washers, faucets, toilets, etc. To boost energy savings nationally; to reduce as much demand on fossil fuel plants as possible; to reduce our GHG pollution, water conservation measures should join energy efficiency measures as programs that need to be supported.
More information [emphasis mine]:
In “Energy Down the Drain,” a 2004 study of the hidden costs of California’s water supply, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Pacific Institute found that the “end use of water–especially energy-intensive uses like washing clothes and taking showers–consumes more energy than any other part of the urban water conveyance and treatment cycle” and that “significant amounts of energy” can be saved through conservation. For example, one of their case studies found that if San Diego provided its next 100,000 acre feet of water through conservation instead of transporting it from northern California, the energy savings would be enough to supply 25 percent of San Diego households.
Separately, the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that if just 1 percent of American homes replaced old toilets with water-saving ones, it would reduce energy consumption by 38 million kWh, enough to electrify 43,000 homes for a month. This of course translates into financial savings. Implementing just a few water efficiency measures could save up to $170 annually on water and sewage bills, which on average are about $500 annually for an American household. If each U.S. household had seven water-efficient appliances, it would save $18 billion annually, according to the EPA.
In contrast to projects that might be more popularized, such as solar panels and geothermal, water conservation projects are cheaper and return their cost faster. That should make them more marketable in the short term, especially in our current recession.
In its publication “Water Efficiency for the Home,” the Rocky Mountain Institute offers some examples: In 10 years, an efficient showerhead will return 10-40 times its cost in saved energy alone, and inexpensive replacement faucets can reduce indoor water use by 3-5 percent and pay for themselves in less than a year.
[...]
Case in point: In a December 2008 study, the Alliance for Water Efficiency found that a $10 billion stimulus that focused on retrofitting homes with water-conserving appliances and fixtures, installing smart outdoor irrigation systems, and improving commercial and industrial water applications could create between 150,000 and 220,000 jobs and generate as much as $28 billion in economic output.
$10 billion can create over 150,000 jobs and generate $28 billion in economic output. Those are incredible numbers. Does the private sector have $10 billion sitting around? If it does, is it willing to pony it up to create those jobs and that economic output? If it is, why hasn’t it done it yet? No – the only entity that has the money and the incentive to put it on the table is the government. Anti-Obama-ites can mock and disparage the government all they want, but they don’t have access to those kinds of funds (or if they do, they’re unwilling to do something similar, which works out to about the same thing in the end). Obviously, they don’t have the interest in generating those jobs either. Those hypocrites who let the Bushies spend trillions of dollars occupying sovereign nations and are now “angry” at Obama spending money on America don’t want solutions. To them, it’s ideology over country. That’s why I’m glad Climate Progress, realists in the Senate, the NRDC, the Pacific Institute, a science-based EPA, the Rocky Mountain Institute, the Alliance for Water Efficiency and many others exist. They’re doing the heavy lifting to make this country greater and help solve our water and climate crises.
House Energy and Commerce Chair Henry Waxman and Energy and Environment Subcommittee Chair Ed Markey released their draft energy and climate bill last Tuesday. It’s very comprehensive. It’s also far from perfect. It’s also, for now, just a draft, sure to change and be amended. For those of you who just want a quick peek at what this bill is about, here is the bill’s 5-page summary (pdf) and here is a portion of the introduction:
The legislation has four titles: (1) a “clean energy” title that promotes renewable sources of energy and carbon capture and sequestration technologies, low-carbon transportation fuels, clean electric vehicles, and the smart grid and electricity transmission; (2) an “energy efficiency” title that increases energy efficiency across all sectors of the economy, including buildings, appliances, transportation, and industry; (3) a “global warming” title that places limits on the emissions of heat-trapping pollutants; and (4) a “transitioning” title that protects U.S. consumers and industry and promotes green jobs during the transition to a clean energy economy.
Overall, the bill is pretty decent. It’s not as strong as I think it should be. Knowing that it will be amended and changed in subcommittees, committees and during Senate-House negotiations, I’m afraid I see too much room for major weakening to be done. There is no time left for weakening. The U.S. needs to take an aggressive stance on greenhouse forcing. We’ve caused plenty of change to the climate system already with even more to come that’s “in the pipeline”. Whatever this legislation ends up doing, it will take time to implement and then more time to take effect. Then there will be interactions with the international community. As the world’s largest greenhouse forcer, it is up to us to take responsibility for our actions and start leading the world on the most critical 21st century issue we’ll face.
Below, I go through most of the 5-page summary items. The items stack up to a pretty big list. Having this draft summary is important as we’ll see what changes are implemented in the next couple of months and what the final legislation ends up containing. Oh, and if you’re feeling really adventurous, here is the entire draft bill (Big pdf!).
I am working on a post about 2009 Colorado legislation dealing with green energy and our New Energy Economy. To provide additional background on the post, I copied a list of bills from the past two years (provided by the state government). That past legislation constitutes a pretty large list:
HB-07 1037 (Levy/Fitz-Gerald), Energy Efficiency Rebates for Consumers
HB-07 1060 (Riesberg/Shaffer), Bioscience Research Grantsl
HB-07 1087 (A. Kerr/Romer), Wind for Schools Grant Program
HB-071145 (Merrifield/Gordon) Renewable Energy Dev. on State Lands
HB-07 1146 (Levy/Gordon), Energy Conservation Building Codes
HB-07 1150 (C. Gardner/Kester), Clean Energy Authority
HB-07 1169 (Solano/Shaffer), Net Metering
HB-07 1203 (Fischer/Romer), Energy Management Conservation Studies
HB-07 1228 (C. Gardner/Shaffer), Renewable Fuel Crops
HB-07 1279 (McKinley/Romer), Tax Credits, Renewable Energy Machines
HB-07 1281 (Schwartz/Pommer & Witwer), Renewable Portfolio Standard
HB-07 1309 (Weissmann/Tupa), School Energy Efficiency
HB-07 1379 (Weissmann/Tupa), County Enviro. Sustainability Program
SB-07 51 (Gordon/Witwer), High Performance State Buildings
SB-07 91 (Schwartz/Massey), Renewable Resource Generation Areas
SB-07 100 (Fitz-Gerald/McFadyen ), Energy Transmission Development
SB-07 126 (Keller/Pommer), Funding for the Collaboratory
SB-07 145 (Tupa/Gibbs), Local Incentives for Renewable Energy
SB-07 246 (Fitz-Gerald/Buescher), Clean Energy Fund
HB-08 1160 (Solano/Shaffer & Isgar), Net Metering & Rural Electric Utilities
HB-08 1164 (Solano/Schwartz), “New Solar Energy Technologies”
HB-08 1207 (Kefalas/Bacon), Procure Environmentally Preferable Products
HB-08 1270 (A. Kerr/Tupa), CICs Allow Energy Efficiency Measures
HB-08 1350 (Madden/Romer) Financing Renewable Energy
HB-08 1368 (Buescher/Brophy), Tax Prop. Used to Prod. Renewable Energy
HB-08 1387 (Buescher/Veiga), Low-Income Energy Assistance Funding
SB-08 078 (Renfroe/Sonnenberg)
SB-08 081 (Schwartz/Madden), Renewable Energy Authority
SB-08 117 (S. Mitchell/McNulty), Limit Local Bldg. Permit Fee Solar Panels
SB-08 147 (Gordon/Hodge & Levy), Increase Energy Efficiency State Buildings
SB-08 184 (Romer/Levy), Colorado Clean Energy Finance Program
SB-08 186 (Johnson/Levy), Colorado Carbon Fund Special License Plates
As part of the stimulus spending championed by President Obama and passed by the Democratic-led Congress, Colorado will receive more than $128.7 Million for weatherization funding and energy efficiency grants.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, Colorado will receive $128,753,213 in weatherization and energy efficiency funding – including $79,531,213 for the Weatherization Assistance Program and $49,222,000 for the State Energy Program.
Weatherization and energy efficiency are two methods of keeping energy costs down. Here’s how the Obama administration is playing this: weatherization, energy efficiency and other programs go into effect as soon as possible, saving energy consumers money right away. A carbon cap-and-trade program goes into effect in the next couple of years, which will have the effect of raising energy prices as the program spins up and a price for carbon is settled on. As Americans continue to use energy efficient programs (power generation, appliances, etc.), the raising energy prices don’t impact their budgets severely enough to disrupt their lifestyles. These kinds of things are being thought through by Obama and others. The right-wing reactionaries are desperately trying to tie into populist anger – I don’t think it’s going to get them very far as people do the math at their kitchen tables.
Oh, and as this funding is spent in Colorado, programs are expanded, which requires more employees. Thus, good paying jobs are created and the economy finds a bottom. A lot of people win under Obama’s plan.
I received an email from one of Colorado’s state legislators, Rep. Claire Levy. One of the things she discussed was her interest in improving energy efficiency as her focus on climate change policy. First off, a big tip of the hat to Claire for making climate change policy something she pays attention to at the state level. I think Americans are going to see a lot of good policies enacted at the state level in the next few years due to the pent up demand for action thanks to the Bush “administration”. Further, I am glad that Rep. Levy is examining energy efficiency as the starting point of needed actions. I approve of this not only because I want to see some kind of action toward addressing the crisis, but because energy efficiency is one of the least expensive solutions to making a difference. Note that I don’t think climate change policy is too expensive to consider, as many Cons are doing. Just the opposite: I think the only way we’re going to really break out of the severe Bush recession is by addressing climate change and the economy together.
Back to Rep. Levy, this is what she had to say:
I am working on legislation to help people reduce number of miles they drive (known in the field as “vehicle miles of travel”). Reducing vehicle miles of travel is a tough nut to crack because many people are locked into their driving habits by their housing options. Other than fuel, people are not generally tuned in with the cost per mile of their driving. In addition, transportation infrastructure generally is built to serve new development wherever it may be located, thereby stimulating yet more driving. Reducing vehicle miles of travel requires efforts to reduce sprawl and, as importantly, not facilitating sprawl through transportation policies.
Sprawl is indeed a huge obstacle to reducing miles traveled and thus reducing greenhouse gas emissions by the transportation sector. I recommend an increased focus on mass transit and telecommuting. Something else Rep. Levy doesn’t mention is that true cost-per-mile hasn’t factored in the costs of greenhouse gas emissions. Accounting for those very real costs will almost certainly force people to search for alternative methods of transportation.
I have three proposals in this area. I am taking a second crack at legislation to get local governments, which are in charge of land use policy, and the Colorado Department of Transportation together so we make more efficient use of existing highways rather than creating demand for new ones. I am also researching legislation to promote what is called “Pay as You Drive” automobile insurance, which would allow people to choose an insurance product that rewards them for driving less. (After all, if you aren’t driving you can’t cause a car accident.) Currently, we pay a lump sum regardless of how much we drive. Insurance becomes a sunk cost. But if you could reduce your insurance premium by reducing your driving, there would be an incentive, along with the saved fuel cost, to combine trips, walk, take transit, shop closer to home, etc.
Unfortunately, one of the things holding any solution dealing with transportation back is the dismal financial bind with which the Colorado Cons have saddled the state. Because of their anti-investment beliefs, Colorado is severely limited in options to pursue. The Cons want everybody to pay for everything themselves, as part of their “You’re On Your Own” dogma. As a result, it will prove very difficult to shift financial resources around to deal with the crises we currently face.
Energy efficiency outside of the transportation sector should also be on Rep. Levy’s goals. Buildings built in the 20th century and so far in the 21st century largely are horrible energy sinks. Reducing that waste (reducing demand), would stall the pro-fossil fuel burning folks’ plans of building new and still polluting power plants. Every ton of coal or cubic foot of natural gas that isn’t burned is a little carbon that doesn’t get emitted into the climate system. Again, programs to increase efficiency in cars and buildings are the cheapest available. Creating and assisting new programs would make increased energy efficiency even more the norm and would be a positive step in addressing climate change. It’s something Rep. Levy and others should be aggressively promoting. I hope the next session of Colorado’s legislature is productive in this area.
