Energy and Climate Stories Via Charts

The following charts show different pieces of a sobering story: the US and the world has not and is not in the foreseeable future doing enough to reduce carbon-intensive energy.  This shouldn’t come as any great surprise, but I think these charts enable us to look at the story graphically instead of just hearing the words.  Graphics tend to have a larger impact on thought retention, so I’m going to use them to tell this story.

Figure 1. Annual global installations of new power sources, in gigawatts.  [Source: MotherJones via BNEF]

This figure starts the story off on a good note.  To the left of the dotted line is historical data and to the right is BNEF’s projected data.  In the future, we expect fewer new gigawatts generated by coal, gas, and oil.  We also expect many more new gigawatts generated by land-based wind, small-scale photovoltaic (PV) and solar PV.  Thus the good news: there will be more new gigawatts powered by renewable energy sources within the next couple of years than dirty energy sources.  At the same time, this graph is slightly misleading.  What about existing energy production?  The next chart takes that into account.

Figure 2. Global energy use by generation type, in gigawatts.  [Source: MotherJones via BNEF]

The story just turned sober.  In 2030, coal should account for ~2,000GW of energy production compared to ~1,200GW today.  Coal is the dirtiest of the fossil fuels, so absent radical technological innovation and deployment, 2030 emissions will exceed today’s due to coal alone.  We find the same storyline for gas and to a lesser extent oil: higher generation in 2030 than today means more emissions.  We need fewer emissions if we want to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations.  The higher those concentrations, the warmer the globe will get until it reaches a new equilibrium.

Compare the two graphs again.  The rapid increase in renewable energy generation witnessed over the last decade and expected to continue through 2030 results in what by 2030?  Perhaps ~1,400GW of wind generation (about the same as gas) and up to 1,600GW of total solar generation (more than gas but still less than coal).  This is an improvement over today’s generation portfolio of course.  But it will not be enough to prevent >2°C mean global warming and all the subsequent effects that warming will have on other earth systems.  The curves delineating fossil fuel generation need to slope toward zero and that doesn’t look likely to happen prior to 2030.

Here is the basic problem: there are billions of people without reliable energy today.  They want energy and one way or another will get that energy someday.  Thus, the total energy generated will continue to increase for decades.  The power mix is up to us.  The top chart will have to look dramatically different for the mix to tilt toward majority and eventually exclusively renewable energy.  The projected increases in new renewable energy will have to be double, triple, or more what they are in the top chart to achieve complete global renewable energy generation.  Instead of a couple hundred gigawatts per year, we need a couple thousand gigawatts per year.  That requires a great deal of innovation and deployment – more than even many experts are aware.

Let’s take a look at the next part of the story: carbon emissions in the US – up until recently the largest annual GHG emitter on the globe.

Figure 3. Percent change in the economy’s carbon intensity 2000-2010. [Source: ThinkProgress via EIA]

As Jeff notes, the total carbon intensity (amount of carbon released for every million dollars the economy produces) of the economy dropped 17.9 percent over those ten years.  That’s good news.  Part of the reason is bad news: the economy became more energy-efficient in part due to the recession.  People and organizations stopped doing some of the most expensive activities, which also happened to be some of the most polluting activities.  We can attribute the rest of the decline to the switch from coal to natural gas.  Which is a good thing for US emissions, but a bad thing for global emissions because we’re selling the coal that other countries butn – as Figure 2 shows.

Figure 4. Percent change in the economy’s total carbon emissions 2000-2010. [Source: ThinkProgress via EIA]

Figure 4 re-sobers the story.  While we became more efficient at generating carbon emissions, the total number of total emissions from 2000 to 2010 only dropped 4.2%.  My own home state of Colorado, despite having a Renewable Energy Standard and mandates renewables in the energy mix, saw a greater than 10% jump in total carbon emissions.  Part of the reason is Xcel Energy convinced the state Public Utilities Commission that new, expensive coal plants be built.  The reason?  Xcel is a for-profit corporation and new coal plants added billions of dollars to the positive side of their ledger, especially since they passed those costs onto their rate payers.

In order for the US to achieve its Copenhagen goals (17% reduction from 2005 levels), more states will have to show total carbon emission declines post-2010.  While 2012 US emission levels were the lowest since 1994, we still emit more than 5 billion metric tons of CO2 annually.  Furthermore, the US deliberately chose 2005 levels since they were the historically high emissions mark.  The Kyoto Protocol, by contrast, challenged countries to reduce emissions compared to 1990 levels.  The US remains above 1990 levels, which were just under 5 billion metric tons of CO2.  17% of 1990 emissions is 850 million metric tons.  Once we achieve that decrease, we can talk about real progress.

The bottom line is this: it matters how many total carbon emissions get into the atmosphere if we want to limit the total amount of warming that will occur this century and the next few tens of thousands of years.  There has been a significant lack of progress on that:

Figure 5. Historical and projection energy sector carbon intensity index.

We are on the red line path.  If that is our reality through 2050, we will blow past 560 ppm atmospheric CO2 concentration, which means we will blow past the 2-3°C sensitivity threshold that skeptics like to talk about the most.  That temperature only matters if we limit CO2 concentrations to two times their pre-industrial value.  We’re on an 800-1100 ppm concentration pathway, which would mean up to 6°C warming by 2100 and additional warming beyond that.

The size and scope of the energy infrastructure requirements to achieve an 80% reduction in US emissions from 1990 levels by 2050 is mind-boggling.  It requires 300,000 10-MW solar thermal plants or 1,200,000 2.5-MW wind turbines or 1,300 1GW nuclear plants (or some combination thereof) by 2050 because you have to replace the existing dirty energy generation facilities as well as meet increasing future demand.  And that’s just for the US.  What about every other country on the planet?  That is why I think we will blow past the 2°C threshold.  As the top graphs show, we’re nibbling around the edges of a massive problem.  We will not see a satisfactory energy/climate policy emerge on this topic anytime soon.  The once in a generation opportunity to do so existed in 2009 and 2010 and national-level Democrats squandered it (China actually has a national climate policy, by the way).  I think the policy answers lie in local and state-based efforts for the time being.  There is too wide a gap between the politics we need and the politics we have at the national level.

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.

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?

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

Obama White House Continues Right-Wing Pandering & Left-Wing Slamming

President Obama’s administration had better start figuring out who helped propel them into office and who will never vote for them.

In the wake of the Obama administration’s largest initiative failure to date, an administration official ran crying to the tone-deaf Politico, telling them that it was all the enviros fault that a climate and energy bill won’t be taken up in the dysfunctional, anti-democratic Senate this year.

While Obama’s team keeps asking, “How high?” every time Fox Propaganda and Rush think about telling them to jump, action on issue after issue is reduced to a hollow shell and progressives are kicked to the bottom of the ditch by the side of the road.

The biggest problem with this whole scenario isn’t Obama or Sen. Reid or the right-wing disinformation and smear bloc – it’s unelected yo-yos like this official who just like to see their b.s. in D.C.-based media.  These clowns don’t care what the science says; they don’t care what Americans outside of D.C. think or want.  They’re attention whores and they’ll gladly sabotage any initiative that leans slightly left of the tea-baggers.

“They didn’t deliver a single Republican,” the official told POLITICO. “They spent like $100 million and they weren’t able to get a single Republican convert on the bill.”

In this idiot’s world, the administration is supposed to sit back and let issue groups write legislation and decide who needs to be targeted to pass it.  The President has the biggest bully pulpit in this country, but it’s people like this official who are holding him and this country back from the greatness we can achieve.

How much did the dirty energy corporations spend to water down the House legislation and water down the Senate Committee version even further? A lot more than $100 million, I assure you.  Which amounts to round-off error for corporations posting the biggest profits in the history of the world.

Politico does provide some context for how monumental this failure really is for the Obama administration:

Eighteen months ago, Barack Obama took office pledging to deal with a “planet in peril.”

His party held big majorities in Congress, and the House answered by passing a tough cap-and-trade bill. A massive climate conference in Copenhagen, with Obama at the center of the action, focused the world on the need to address global warming.

Then came the nation’s worst-ever environmental disaster, an oil spill in the Gulf that put momentum behind environmentalists and scarred the image of big, polluting industries.

Add in a summer of record-high temperatures, and it would seem the stars had been aligned like never before for climate legislation.

Climate legislation that the cowardly Dems have decided not to pursue this year.  Because there’s always next year, or maybe 2012 would be better … no, there’s a Presidential election that year – we wouldn’t want the Dems to have to make tough decisions while running for re-election.  Well, there’s always 2013, right?  I mean, big parts of the Health Insurance Reform Giveaway won’t even take effect until 2013 or 2014.  The Dems could certainly take up at least a small climate/energy bill in 2013 or so.

By all means, keep putting the most important issue our species faces until it’s a sure thing politically.  It’s not like this country faces any kind of negative consequences as a result of your continued inaction incompetence.

Just don’t take progressives’ votes and hard work for granted after you keep slapping us aside.

Sec. Salazar, Rep. Lamborn & Drilling

Two stories caught my eye today in the Denver Post. johne wrote a little something up about the first one – Half of state’s drill rigs idled. The other one is right next to the CO rig article in the paper version of the paper today.

“GOP Tries To Draw A Bead on Salazar“, or perhaps it should have been titled, “GOP Throws Another Dart At Wall In Search For Relevancy”. Having lost the White House last November in addition to being relegated to a smaller minority in Congress, the Cons are clearly desperate to bring any topic to the fore that has the least amount of traction in the public. Don’t tell them I said so, but I doubt it will be this topic.

One of our newest favorite Cons, Rep. Dougie Lamborn, along with some of his friends, have been trying to take Sec. of the Interior Ken Salazar to task over decisions surrounding drilling. In the first couple weeks in his new position, Sec. Salazar issued decisions to overturn some of the worst last-minute decisions the Bush “administration” put through. The overturned decisions include oil and gas leases in Utah, outer continental shelf leasing, and oil-shale development and leases in Colorado.

It turns out that Dougie & Co. don’t understand that winning elections has consequences. It also turns out they don’t understand how the executive branch works – at least not when one of their own isn’t in office. Take this silly quote as an example:

“I just don’t know who is in charge,” Lamborn said.

Lamborn is whining that Salazar might actually be operating under the direction of the President and not his own discretion. Oh noes!!! I seem to remember that Cabinet members serve at the pleasure of the President. That’s why Sen. Gregg made a fool of himself by accepting, then turning down the offer to be President Obama’s Commerce Secretary. He wasn’t going to be allowed to run it like the Con he is – Obama wanted his policies enacted. Funny how that works, eh?

President Obama clearly outlined his plans to move this country’s energy policy forward. He was overwhelmingly elected President to do so. If Lamborn doesn’t like it, maybe he and the rest of the Cons should come up with a better energy policy than “Drill, drill, drill”. It won’t solve our energy problems. The American electorate figured that out and voted accordingly.

If Lamborn, who I’m sure received plenty of fossil fuel campaign money, wants more drilling, he need only go to his corporate benefactors and demand they drill where they already hold leases. Opening up new lands to corporations that won’t drill isn’t in the public’s best interest.

The lease openings weren’t handled correctly or ethically by the Bush “administration”. Sec. Salazar hasn’t stamped them out, as Lamborn is trying to convince us. He is re-opening comment periods and allowing the appropriate agencies to examine the science involved to provide balanced opinions on where drilling should occur. Imagine that – a pro-science President and Cabinet. Will the horrors never cease, Dougie?

Cross-posted at SquareState.

News Items 10/13/08

The Treasury has come up with some solution details.  First: purchasing troubled mortgage-back securities.  That’s okay, I guess.  Second: buying mortgages, particularly from regional banks.  That’s a lot better.  Third: insuring mortgages and mortgage-backed securities.  That’s a good idea too.  Fourth: purchasing equity in a broad array of financial institutions.  That’s a darn good idea.  If taxpayer money is being used to take assets off company books, taxpayers should be in line for any potential future gains.  Fifth: helping delinquent borrowers stay in their homes.  That’s kind of vague, but it’s a good summary statement.  I’d really like to see some details on just how they’re planning on achieving this goal.  [Update]: These details and weekend-long meetings among the largest economic powers had a positive effect on U.S. markets today: the Dow gained 936.42 today, as an example.

67% of Coloradans would rather protect pristine national forest lands and not increase oil and gas protection in them. 70% thought that the high number of already unused leases was reason enough not to grant the industry new ones on public lands.  56% were intelligent enough to recognize that opening drilling up in the lands wouldn’t lower gas prices.  Just one more reason why “Drill, baby, drill” isn’t working out West: we live next to the areas where the drilling would actually occur and we don’t think it’s a good idea.

Google has come out with a 21st century energy plan (ClimateProgess’ take) and it’s darn good.  Here is their top-level summary of goals:

Our proposal will allow us to reduce from the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) current baseline for energy use:

• Fossil fuel-based electricity generation by 88%
• Vehicle oil consumption by 38%
• Dependence on imported oil (currently 10 million barrels per day) by 33%
• Electricity-sector CO₂ emissions by 95%
• Personal vehicle sector CO₂ emissions by 38%
• US CO₂ emissions overall by 48% (40% from today’s CO₂ emission level)

The cost of Google’s plan?  $4.4 Trillion!  Ah, but the savings of Google’s plan?  $5.4 Trillion!!  I’ve heard estimates of the cost of business-as-usual, but I forget what they are.  I’ll follow up on this in the future.

A Siegel also provides a take on Google’s plan.

The effects of climate change in Colorado are being assessed.  Among them: change in river flows through mid-century. Climates are expected to migrate upward in elevation.  Supplies of water will decrease.  Demand is likely to increase.  Guess what will happen to costs.  Or we could actually do something about our climate change forcings.  See the Google plan above.  It’s a step in the correct direction.

Help 350.org send 35,000 invitations to Sen. Barack Obama and John McCain to attend the December U.N. Climate Meetings.

The hysteria over Amendment 41 continues among wonky circles. It shouldn’t, as info from the Colorado Independent Ethics Commission came out last week. Scholarships, insurance policies and dinners are allowed, just like A41 supporters have maintained.  A41 banned gifts from lobbyists and anything over $50 in value from non-lobbyists.  The Colorado Supreme Court has refused to look at A41′s constitutionality until the law was applied or enforced.  I think the intent behind A41 was apparent to voters.  I don’t think the Commission will whittle away the intent, as opponents claim.

Arctic sea ice volume likely set an all-time minimum this year.  While the areal extent reached the second lowest value on record, the volume of the remaining ice was less this year than last.  It’s not hard to figure out why this is.  A record low areal extent last year meant the ice that formed last winter was new and thinner than ice that formed over decades or longer.  That ice melted easily this summer.  The small area of thicker ice?  It melted more this year because of the warmer ocean waters underneath it.  As those waters get warmer year after year, the ice above it has less long-term viability.  The NSIDC should continue to verify the final volume value for 2008.

Republicans have maintained their stranglehold on local and state politics with their GOPAC program – it trains folks how to push fringe policies to the public.  That’s how they’ve gotten so many extremists in positions of power.  Want to counter it?  Throw a little something toward Progressive Majority.

What does it mean to be fiscally conservative?  CONServatives certainly don’t know the answer.

Random Linkies 7/17/08

Imagine the chances: energy companies contaminated water in wells by Parachute, CO and made someone sick. At the same time, the companies are heavily lobbying the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to not adopt rules that would include environmental controls. Now, why would they fight against those kinds of rules, I wonder…

The EPA released a Global Warming and Health report. I’ll give you one guess who stymied its release. That’s correct: the Bush “administration”, which has worked hard to deny and delay such information from being relayed properly to Americans.

“Risk (to human health, society and the environment) increases with increases in both the rate and magnitude of climate change,” scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency said. Global warming, they wrote, is “unequivocal” and humans are to blame.

Betsy Markey and Marilyn Musgrave debated recently. Betsy isn’t letting Marilyn get away with any b.s. charges. It’s probably part of the reason why Betsy is doing a better job of fundraising than Marilyn. That and Marilyn is a hate-monger who refuses to accomplish much for her district.

Xcel estimates that about 47,000 of its customers will have their power cut off due to missed payments. Let’s see, the price of energy hasn’t gone down in what, seven years. Our take home pay hasn’t gone up in the same time-frame. And Republicans think folks like this are just a bunch of whiners. Being unable to pay for your electricity is a result of immoral conservative economic policies. Which is why they’re losing elections these days.

More Types of Plastics to be Recycled in Colorado?

Here is one example of demand actually affecting a market. But there isn’t a large corporation with a vested interest in gaming the market, so we can see things develop closer to a theoretical market. The market? Plastics recycling.

Recycle America, a subsidiary of Wast Management, is beginning to accept Nos. 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. They have been recycling Nos. 1 and 2 for years. They want to slowly get the word out that they’re accepting different types now due to the complexities involved in operations and marketing. Overseas markets such as China are interested in utilizing recycled plastics in goods they can sell their consumers.

Perhaps if we decrease the number of plastics we throw away, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch can be reduced in size or even eliminated.

Check out the article (1st link) to see the list of items that could be accepted.

Energy Bits 7/5/08

The 4th of July was good this year. Good friends and conversation, backyard swimming pool & slip-n-slide, cold microbrew beers, grilling, soccer, and of course firework displays.

My email filtered out a bunch of items that I would have blogged about in the past few weeks. Good thing I thought to look through my spam late last night. So I’m going to post a short piece now and update the post throughout the day as I have time. Enjoy!

Colorado was one of twelve states to receive a clean energy grant from the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices. Colorado’s $50,000 grant will go towards the Colorado Carbon Fund, which is a new initiative out the Governor’s Energy Office that is aimed at further advancing Colorado’s New Energy Economy. The Colorado Carbon Fund provides high quality, verifiable carbon offsets for consumers concerned about climate change.

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CO SB08-221 went into effect on July 1. It should decrease fire danger to personal property by funding local communities’ efforts to remove fire hazards, including lodgepole pine trees killed by bark beetles. It incentivizes removed lumber that have been killed by the beetles. Additional funds go toward watershed protection and other forest health projects.

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