Your glowing problem could be a growing problem

Although the increasing possibility of fracking in the Tar Heel state has many North Carolinians in a dither, there's actually another mineral extraction opportunity just over the border in Chatham, Virginia that could be much, much worse.

Virginia's General Assembly might make that opportunity a reality very soon.

It's not a new concern.

After 20 years, EPA finally issues mercury rules

Um, no not that Mercury.

After 20 years of delays, the EPA has finally announced rules to curb mercury and other toxic materials from large (25 megawatt and larger) coal- and oil-powered electrical plants. The rules were mandated by the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. An initial, weaker set of mercury rules was issued in 2005 by the Bush administration, but those rules were vacated by a federal court because they specifically exempted electric utilities. The new rules fulfill the court's instructions.

When fully implemented, the EPA estimates that the long-delayed Mercury and Air Toxics Standards will prevent each year

• 4,200 to 11,000 premature deaths,
• 2,800 cases of chronic bronchitis,
• 4,700 heart attacks,
• 130,000 asthma attacks,
• 5,700 hospital and emergency room visits, and
• 540,000 missed work days.

To put the numbers in perspective, the numbers of deaths and illnesses that would be saved each year would likely exceed the deaths (4,484) and casualties (32,200) that the U.S. suffered over the eight and a half year course of the Iraq war.

The EPA estimates that the annual health benefits are worth $37 billion to $90 billion, while the cost to implement the changes is just under $10 billion. Much of that $10 billion will go toward construction and equipment operations jobs.

Hmm, a set of cost-effective, life-saving, and health-inducing rules. Cue the predictable screams from the Radical Right, including notable coal-apologist Rep. Ed Whitfield.

It's not easy being green -- part IV

The New York Times posts about an Economist article that predicts that more efficient light bulbs could increase the amount of electricity demanded.

...history suggests that better technology 'will serve merely to increase the demand for light.'

The logic is that people demand what the bulbs produce--light. More efficient bulbs reduce the price of that good, causing demand to rise. In this case, demand appears to be very responsive (elastic), leading not only to more light consumption but more energy consumption.

Time to lift the partial moratorium on off-shore drilling?

The Bipartisan Policy Center, a non-profit organization that was founded by four former Senate majority leaders, has just released a report that concludes that an appropriate regulatory regime has been established to take the place of the partial moratorium on deepwater oil drilling that was imposed after the BP disaster.

Specifically, the report concludes

The Department of Interior’s drilling moratorium has served the productive purpose of allowing time for both industry and government to prepare for a safer, more vigilant, and dependable future for U.S. offshore drilling. We believe DOI and the industry have used this time effectively to develop a new regulatory regime for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. At the same time, we readily agree with the oft-made point that drilling risks cannot be reduced to zero. But we are satisfied that compliance with the Interior Department’s NTLs 5 and 6 and other actions by the Department will achieve a significant and beneficial reduction of risk. If industry is diligent in incorporating these requirements and DOI is vigilant in oversight and enforcement, we believe this new regime will provide an adequate margin of safety to responsibly allow the resumption of deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

Lifting the moratorium and replacing it with a new regulatory regime is not a magic bullet--oil drilling would not resume immediately and the drilling that eventually would occur wouldn't be riskless.

With respect to the first point, affected drilling would continue to be halted for some time while companies bring themselves into compliance with the regulations. Thus, the lifting of the moratorium doesn't translate into an immediate resumption of drilling.

Moreover, the new regulations will increase the costs of deepwater drilling and are likely to discourage some activity. So there would be a reduction in future drilling activity. The recommendations are far from "drill, baby, drill."

With respect to the second point, the report makes clear that many risks would remain and that more steps need to be taken to prepare for possible disasters. The report also makes clear that the changes in the regulatory regime are just starting and that more work and research will be needed.

The administration's drilling ban was an appropriate but controversial (and as the report indicates "blunt") response to the BP disaster. While some criticized the economic impacts, imagine the response if another rig disaster had occurred. Given the problems and uncertainties that existed at that time, the ban was the right policy call.

The administration, however, has backed itself into a corner with the ban. The legality of the ban is in question (the initial moratorium was struck down by a federal court, and it's not at all clear whether the follow-on moratorium will survive judicial review). Moreover, the moratorium is idling work at a time when the economy is barely limping along. The administration is surely looking for a way to move forward.

Hopefully, this report will give it the political cover to do so and provide a blueprint for a more responsible energy policy.

Not so cool news

So much for skeptics' arguments (wish) that the Earth's climate is cooling. NASA has released a new analysis.

The first decade of the 21st century was the warmest ever on Earth according to data released by scientists at NASA.

The U.S. space agency's data also revealed that 2009 was the second warmest year since temperature records began in 1880, and only narrowly cooler than 2005, the warmest year ever.

Interested readers can also look at the NASA news release.

UPDATE (1/26/10): Ever careful, Pino makes the excellent point that the article describes the last decade as the warmest "ever" and is also unclear about 2005's place in history. The NASA article that is linked describes these records properly.

Ultimately we must accept climate change

Too much social discourse is directed at magnifying disagreement and disparaging the motives and intellect of others. In Why We Disagree about Climate Change: Understanding Controversey, Inaction and Opportunity (Cambridge University Press, 2009), Mike Hulme takes the position that reasonable people can and do disagree; he then sets off to examine the disagreements and the reasons.

Hulme explores numerous areas of disagreement and organizes his chapters around specific areas. He begins with three mostly (though not entirely) science-oriented sources of disagreement, which involve our conceptualization of climates and climate change, the development of scientific thought regarding climate change, and what science can and cannot tell us. From there, he moves onto disagreements regarding economics, religion, fears, communication strategies, development, and government action. The book ends with a provocative chapter about rethinking climate change.

My own nerdy biases initially drew me into the first chapters, especially the history of scientific thought regarding climate change. Hulme points out that scientific acceptance of the notion that climates change is relatively recent, dating only to the 19th century. Widespread scientific acceptance of the theory of anthropogenic climate change on human time scales is newer still. Although components of the theory, such as the greenhouse effect, were developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it wasn't until the last quarter of the century that broad elements of the scientific began to broadly accept anthropogenic global warming.

However, accepting the likelihood of anthropogenic global warming is only a scientific preliminary. For effective public policy, we need to know much more, including how strong the link between human activities and climate change is, when and how fast systemic changes are likely to occur, how the effects will be distributed, and what the possibilities are for catastrophic changes. As we move into these important areas, the scientific disagreements become larger, and the opportunities for other sources of disagreement to influence scientific discourse also grow.

At a first reading, I was initially disappointed with most of the follow-on, non-scientific "disagreement" chapters. The chapters work well enough in listing and explaining many ways that people can disagree about things. However, they do not explain which disagreements really matter and whether there are fundamental and connecting sources to the disagreements. There are interesting arguments and insights along the way, but much of the material reads like a middle-of-the-road undergraduate term paper--"it could be this (source A), it could be that (source B)," and so on.

Different readers will nonetheless appreciate different things in these chapters. As an economist, I enjoyed an outsider's take on my profession's disagreements. The discussion of development challenges was also very good, especially in reminding us of how many times smart, careful, and concerned people from Malthus to the Club of Rome have predicted doom only to discover that humans have innovated, adapted, and prospered within the then-existing environmental constraints.

The deeper rationale behind these chapters, though, became clearer after reading the final chapter. A central point of that chapter and ultimately of the book is that climate change is here, and the notion of climate change can't be undone. Climate has changed and will change, and humans, to some extent, are affecting this change. Once we accept this, we cannot "unknow" anthropogenic climate change.

Another crucial point in the chapter is that we are unlikely to "solve" the climate change "problem" in any conventional sense in our lifetimes. "Solving a problem" implies meeting a particular objective; in the case, of climate change, what would that be? Suppose that science could give us the magic key to setting the planet's climate--where would we set it? Do we want a pre-industrial climate, a 20th century climate, something warmer, something cooler. Also, (and this is the part where the non-science chapters come in) which objectives do we adopt?

Hulme instead advocates for the more sensible position of living with climate change. To be clear, he does not mean this in a fatalistic sense or as a call for a "do nothing approach." Hulme does mean that we must accept that human activities affect the global climate and that those activities have consequences that impede other objectives. He reminds us that our behavior and policy setting should focus on those objectives rather than the fact of climate change.

Harassment pure and simple

In the wake of the University of East Anglia e-mail scandal, a group of liberal activists has now made a tit-for-tat demand for the e-mails and other files of an outspoken climate-change skeptic, Dr. Patrick Michaels.

Greenpeace has filed a Virginia Freedom of Information Request with both Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine's (D) office and the University of Virginia demanding an array of correspondence concerning Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow at both the conservative Cato Institute and at George Mason University. Michaels also held the title of Virginia's official climatologist starting in 1980 until Kaine announced in August 2006 he did not consider Michaels as holding that honorary post.

The FOIA to Kaine requests any "letters, email, faxes, reports, meeting and teleconference agendas, minutes, notes, transcripts, tape recordings and phone logs generated by or involving Dr. Patrick Michaels regarding global climate change (a.k.a. global warming)."

Dr. Michaels' previous employment at the University of Virginia and his current employment at George Mason University are each state-related, potentially making him subject to FOIA requests (Dr. Michaels long claimed an official state title, possibly compounding his woes).

The group has also made similar demands at the institutions of several other outspoken researchers.

While I disagree vehemently with Dr. Michaels' positions and with many of his activities, he deserves the opportunity, as an academic, to write and research without turning over his work materials.

The FOIA demands are naked harassment. Requests of lists of funding sources and conflict of interest statements seem reasonable; however, requests for e-mails and other written materials are not.

It's not too late for Greenpeace to put this particular genie back in the bottle; however, I'm not holding my breath (benefits to the biosphere notwithstanding).

NC confirms double-dipping

The Program Evaluation Division (PED) of the NC General Assembly has now investigated the double-dipping in the NC wetland mitigation programs.

The PED describes in detail how credits for the same 46 acres of preserved land were purchased twice by the state--once as wetlands credits for the Department of Transportation and then later as nutrient offset credits for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

The PED determined that of the $911,000 that the DENR spent on the "new" nutrient offset credits, $698,372 paid for credits on land that had already been preserved. The PED also determined that another 18 acres remains available for further double-dipping.

Besides the double-dipping itself, one of the most appalling items in the report was a statement by a DENR Assistant Secretary, who wrote that

Approval of the EBX buffer/nutrient offset bank did not impose additional costs on taxpayers. The ability to use nutrient offset credits from an established stream and wetland restoration site made those credits less expensive.

By such logic are dead parrots and the Brooklyn Bridge sold.

The Assistant Secretary seems not to realize that that expenditure bought absolutely no additional environmental benefits to the taxpayers of North Carolina. The money was completely wasted; it has evaporated; it protects nothing, and it can't be used to protect anything. The state would have been better off if the DENR had taken 698,372 dollar bills, shredded them, and then used resulting fluff to insulate its headquarters or to stuff the Assistant Secretary's empty head.

The only positive from the report was that the DENR has issued a moratorium on most future "double" transactions and has drafted rules to prohibit this in the future.

It's not easy being green--part III

Energy-efficient traffic lights may be hazardous to your health.

Cities around the country that have installed energy-efficient traffic lights are discovering a hazardous downside: The bulbs don't burn hot enough to melt snow and can become crusted over in a storm — a problem blamed for dozens of accidents and at least one death.

Oops

Money for Nothing

Mark Knopfler had it wrong. EBX didn't have to learn to play the guitar or learn to play them drums. All it had to do was write a proposal, and it got its "money for nothing."

The News Observer has a follow-up story this morning that suggests that there isn't much urgency in the state government to address the double-payments problem.

Officials with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources have characterized the payment as the result of a regulatory loophole that they now want to close. But they also acknowledge that they support double payments in some cases when a restoration project enhances streams and the land alongside them. These projects are built by the state and by private companies.

EBX officials say the company should be entitled to the $911,000 because the state has supported double payments on the other restoration projects...

Chrissy Pearson, Perdue's communications director, said that the governor has been aware of the double-dipping concerns and told her Budget Reform and Accountability Commission to tackle the issue earlier this year.

"She told me quite bluntly that this process doesn't make sense to her and she does want some answers as to whether the groups involved in this type of work are working as efficiently and effectively as possible," Pearson said.

We can speed this along for the governor. The answers are "no" and "no."

Pollution mitigation projects often yield benefits that extend beyond the affected site. Although intended to address one type of pollution, they can sometimes address several. Economists refer to these extra benefits as positive externalities, or spillovers (especially apt for projects to reduce stream pollution). The externalities make the project all the more valuable from a social perspective.

The presence of externalities could explain why the state might prioritize one project over another. It might also explain why the state might be willing to pay more initially.

However, the state's responsibility is to get these benefits at the lowest possible cost. It should drive the best bargain possible initially. And under no circumstances, should it pay a second (or third or fourth) time for work that has already been performed.

Any "regulatory loophole" that allows double payments should be closed. In the meantime, no new double-payments contracts should be written, and existing contracts should be reviewed to see if the state can terminate them.

It's not moral being green

Slate has a fascinating article this morning about how acting "green" may lead people to behave less morally.

The article describes results from a set of two-stage experiments that examined how exposure to green items and the purchase of green items affected subsequent "moral" behavior. In first stage of the "exposure" experiment, subjects were asked to evaluate items from a hypothetical on-line store. In this set-up, subjects were randomly assigned to stores that varied in the number of green and conventional goods that they carried. In the first stage of the "purchase" experiment, subjects were also randomly assigned to stores with different numbers of green goods but tasked with making purchases from the assigned store.

In the second stage of each experiment, subjects then played a dictator game in which they were given a small amount of money to allocate anonymously between themselves and somebody else. In these games, the amount of money that a subject gives to someone else is a sign of economic altruism (other- or giving-oriented preferences). A purely selfish person would keep all the money for himself or herself, while a person who has strong concerns about fairness, others' well-being, or the appearance of these things gives some money away.

In the exposure experiment, the researchers found that subjects who were exposed to green goods gave more in the dictator game (behaved more altruistically) than those who were just exposed to conventional goods. The result is consistent with a "demonstration effect" in which exposure to good behavior prompts people to incorporate that norm into their subsequent behavior.

The really interesting result, however, came in the purchase experiment. Subjects who made green purchases gave less money in the dictator game than people who made conventional purchases.

The researchers followed these experiments up with another in which subjects were randomly assigned to purchase green or conventional goods and then given a task that tested their honesty. Once again, purchasing green goods was associated with less moral behavior.

The experiments are highly artificial, and some of the differences in moral behavior were very marginal. However, the results are consistent with a type of "licensing" in which performing one moral act gives people latitude to act less morally later. Licensing itself is consistent with people having preferences over moral and selfish acts and balancing their behavior across these acts.

This type of moral accounting could explain other phenomena, such as people's behavior in church parking lots. After an hour of prayer, reflection, and fellowship, congregants cut each other off and curse each other in the parking lot. An hour devoted to a higher purpose gives them license to act like jerks the minute they get behind the wheel.

In the experiment and the parking lot examples, the moral behavior comes first. However, the sequence could also be reversed. You could think of cases where people atone for immoral acts by subsequent moral acts (you honk at the idiot in the parking lot who is letting everyone pull out in front of him and then atone next Sunday by fixing pancakes for the homeless). In either order, people mentally keep track of moral credits and balance them across one another.

A broader implication of the findings is that there are limits to the amount of "good behavior" that society can get people to engage in. If the government or some other authority incentivizes or mandates one type of good behavior, people will conform in that dimension but compensate by acting poorly in some other dimension.

As my Mom is fond of saying, "I guess we just can't have nice things."

Will's "national commission"

In his Washington Post column today, George Will, cites some recent news stories and research that seemingly contradict expectations regarding global warming. Will impugns scientists who disagree with his take on the data.

For instance, Will muses about a scientist who is quoted in a news article as saying that evidence from one controversial study (Will conveniently ignores the controversey) might be misused or misrepresented by opponents (as Will does). Will also accuses a new scientific report that indicates greater long-term warming as being "strident," as if the report were written in reaction to the recent news articles (Will writes this way; the scientists did not).

Will ends his column with a call for "a national commission appointed to assess the evidence about climate change." Will either overlooks or ignores that the United States has had a series of independent, non-partisan, expert commissions that have studied and continue to study climate issues. The commissions have been organized under the auspices of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The current, ongoing commission is the Committee on America's Climate Choices.

The most recent assessment and summary of the evidence from the NAS reports as follows.

There is a growing concern about global warming and the impact it will have on people and the ecosystems on which they depend. Temperatures have already risen 1.4°F since the start of the 20th century—with much of this warming occurring in just the last 30 years—and temperatures will likely rise at least another 2°F, and possibly more than 11°F, over the next 100 years. This warming will cause significant changes in sea level, ecosystems, and ice cover, among other impacts. In the Arctic, where temperatures have increased almost twice as much as the global average, the landscape and ecosystems are already changing rapidly.

Most scientists agree that the warming in recent decades has been caused primarily by human activities that have increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (see Figure 1). Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, have increased significantly since the Industrial Revolution, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels for energy, industrial processes, and transportation. Carbon dioxide levels are at their highest in at least 650,000 years and continue to rise.

There is no doubt that climate will continue to change throughout the 21st century and beyond, but there are still important questions regarding how large and how fast these changes will be, and what effects they will have in different regions. In some parts of the world, global warming could bring positive effects such as longer growing seasons and milder winters. Unfortunately, it is likely to bring harmful effects to a much higher percentage of the world’s people. For example, people in coastal communities will likely experience increased flooding due to rising sea levels.

The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to begin taking steps to prepare for climate change and to slow it. Human actions over the next few decades will have a major influence on the magnitude and rate of future warming. Large, disruptive changes are much more likely if greenhouse gases are allowed to continue building up in the atmosphere at their present rate. However, reducing greenhouse gas emissions will require strong national and international commitments, technological innovation, and human willpower.

It takes another type of willpower to ignore recommendations of an independent, expert panel composed of the nation's top scientists.

Do reporters actually read these reports?

The Science section of the CNN index page (archived here) links to a story today about about a report by the Economics of Climate Adaptation Working Group. The title on CNN's link says, "Report blames warming for 800K deaths." The story itself opens with

The last fifty years have borne witness to a spate of climate related disasters across the world causing over 800,000 fatalities and $1 trillion in economic loss.

Those stark facts come from the Economics of Climate Adaptation (ECA) Working Group, a group of NGOs and corporations that has produced a report warning that if countries do not take active steps to build resilience to climate change soon, they are likely to suffer even larger economic losses in the coming decades.

According to the ECA report published on September 14, climate catastrophes have risen in direct proportion to global temperatures over the last several years.

The report does indeed list those figures, but the CNN story misinterprets them. First of all, the 800,000 deaths and $1 trillion in damages come from all weather-related natural disasters. Unlike the CNN story, the ECA is careful to avoid describing these as "climate-related" consequences but rather uses the figures to indicate how vulnerable countries are. Indeed, the report states (p. 20)

Many economies, then, are susceptible to significant damage from today’s climate – even without factoring in the possible future impacts of climate change and the potential growth of populations and asset value in vulnerable locations. Unfortunately, these factors could well heighten the vulnerability of many countries and regions.

Worse, the CNN story misses a key consideration in the ECA report. In particular, the ECA report emphasizes how population growth and development make the world more vulnerable to weather disasters.

By multiplying the overall pool of population and economic value, this pattern of growth increases the scale of losses from weather and climate. In many cases it has also heightened humankind’s vulnerability to the weather, for example by increasing population and value concentrations in coastal cities, and by degrading natural systems that historically have absorbed some extreme weather. Most of the increase in loss from weather disasters over the past two decades can be attributed to socio-economic factors.

Read the last sentence in that quote again and try to figure out how CNN came to the conclusion that climate changes caused the losses.

The misreporting by CNN is a shame. It detracts from an important story about how climate change may cause significant and unequally distributed economic hardship in the future. It also detracts from an analysis of how countries and communities can adapt their development policies to minimize the consequences of climate change.

What CNN should have reported are the actual conclusions of the report, which are

• although the exact local consequences of global warming are uncertain, we know enough about the potential consequences that we can plan precautions;
  
  
• the potential harms of global warming are enormous; of the eight countries the ECA studied, it found that likely economic losses would range from 1 to 12 percent of GDP by 2030 with much worse outcomes being possible;
  
  
• many cost-effective precaution and adaptation measures are available; and
  
  
• the adaptation measures can strengthen economic development in any case.

The report should be read by national and local governments, including Greensboro's.

CBO estimates of the economy-wide impacts of climate change legislation

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released a comprehensive analysis of The Economic Effects of Legislation to Reduce Greenhouse-Gas Emissions. The analysis looks at the GDP impacts of climate change and of the pending Cap and Trade Bill (H.R. 2454). It also discusses some policy considerations.

The main points that the report makes are that

• The expected harms to the U.S. economy over the next 40 years from unchecked climate change are likely to be very modest. Harms by 2100 are also likely to be relatively modest, perhaps in the range of 3 percent of GDP. However, harms become larger when non-economic outcomes are considered. Also, there are risks of catastrophic changes have to be considered.



• The expected costs to the U.S. economy from H.R. 2454 are also likely to be modest, on the order of .25 to .75 percent of GDP by 2020 and 1 to 3.5 percent by 2050. While these amounts might appear to be, well, immodest, they have to be compared to the overall expected growth in GDP. For instance, the CBO projects that GDP will be 2 1/2 times larger in 2050 than it is now.



• Considered just in terms of the measureable economic effects between now and 2050, climate change doesn't pass a cost-benefit test. However, the comparison becomes more favorable when non-economic harms and harms after 2050 are considered.

The report also points out that

• "Climate change is an international problem." The harms extend beyond the U.S. so that policy changes here have benefits inside and outside the U.S. As importantly, however, the benefits of U.S. policy changes are constrained by the changes taken by other countries.
  
  This raises standard public goods problems. One the one hand, if other countries don't act, U.S. actions won't make an appreciable difference in climate change. Worse, a go-it-alone policy could exaccerbate the economic harms as carbon-intensive economic activity moves to less-regulated economies. On the other hand, if other countries do act, the U.S. could benefit without any changes on its own. Because of this, no country has incentives to act independently. A coordinated approach is needed.



• A cap and trade policy is relatively efficient in terms of minimizing costs associated with reduction in greenhouse gases. However, a carbon tax policy could be more efficient still. Each type of policy involves certainties and uncertainties. The carbon tax leads to a predictable price change, but we can't be sure how much carbon output will respond. A cap and trade policy leads to more certainty about how much carbon output will change but less certainty about prices and costs. Given that climate change is a long-term problem, the costs of carbon output uncertainty are likely to be smaller than price uncertainty.

All in all, the report suggests several ways the H.R. 2454 can be improved. With the legislation still awaiting Senate action, there are also opportunities for improvement.

Yes, but we're telling the truth about climate change

In response to a Congressional investigation, Bonner and Associates, a lobbying firm hired to get breaks for coal companies into climate-change legislation, has acknowledged mailing more than a dozen fraudulent letters to members of Congress.

The letters claim to be from seniors centers, local NAACP chapters, and other groups. They express concerns about the effects of energy price increases on elderly and poor people's budgets. However, the letters were never sent by those groups.

The revelations make you wonder what else the paid opponents of climate-change legislation will lie about.

It just goes to show that if you can't astroturf nicely, you shouldn't astroturf at all.

Astroturf energy protest coming to Greensboro?

Ed Cone has a post this afternoon about astroturfed events that are being planned this month by the American Petroleum Institute to protest pending energy and climate protection legislation.

The events are described in a memo that was posted by TPM. From the memo

API is coordinating a series of "Energy Citizen" rallies in about 20 states across the country during the last two weeks of Congress's August recess...

The objective of these rallies is to put a human face on the impacts of unsound energy policy and to aim a loud message at those states' U.S. Senators...

Just in case this isn't enough astroturfing for your tastes, the memo continues

To be clear, API will provide the up-front resources to ensure logistical issues do not become a problem. This includes contracting with a highly experienced events management company that has produced successful rallies for presidential campaigns, corporations and interest groups. It also includes coordination with the other interests who share our views on the issues, providing a field coordinator in each state, conducting a comprehensive communications and advocacy activation plan for each state, and serving as a central manager for all events.

Keeping with the "astroturfers of the world unite" and "from each according to his ability" themes, the memo goes on

We are asking all API members to assist in these August activities. The size of the company does not matter, and every participant adds to the strength of our collective voice.

The memo concludes by listing tentative sites for the rallies. Among the sites is Greensboro, NC (where Senator Hagan has her office).

Faulty reporting

The New York Times finds fault with a new geothermal energy technique. The technique takes advantage of an abundant energy source--heat from the Earth's core. The minor downside is that it also causes earthquakes. Oops.

A new project is beginning 40 miles east of the San Andreas fault, in an area that already experiences swarms of earthquakes associated with previous projects.

Maybe it's time to go back to the drawing board on this one.

New fuel standards costly? Not really

The Obama administration is announcing new emissions and mileage rules for cars.

The Obama administration today plans to propose tough standards for tailpipe emissions from new automobiles, establishing the first nationwide regulation for greenhouse gases.

It will also raise fuel efficiency targets to 35.5 miles per gallon for new passenger vehicles and light trucks by 2016, four years earlier than required under the 2007 energy bill, sources close to the administration said.

The new rules are the result of negotiations intended to bridge differences between California and other states that were pushing for their own tougher standards, the White House, and automobile manufacturers. In return for the tougher new national standards, California will drop its fight to establish its own standards.

While cleaner air, fewer oil imports, and a more uniform regulations are big pluses, there will be added costs for manufacturers and ultimately consumers.

A senior administration official said the new standards would raise the cost of an average car by $1,300, $600 of which could be attributed to the rules being announced today. The remaining increase would stem from previous energy policy.

At first glance those costs seem high. However, upon closer inspection, they will be more than balanced by fuel cost savings over the life of each car.

The current CAFE standards for passenger cars are 27.5 mpg. Assuming that gas prices are $2.25 per gallon, it costs just under $818 to drive each ten thousand miles. The new passenger car standards will be 39 mpg. Assuming the same gas prices, it will cost just under $577 to drive the same distance, a savings of about $241. Ignoring discounting, a driver would recoup the $1,300 after about 54,000 miles driven or about four years of driving. If gas prices rise, the costs would be recouped even sooner.

That's not a bad deal at all.

It's not easy being green (cont.)

More evidence on how hard it is to be green and how there's no pleasing some people.

Senator Dianne Feinstein is planning to introduce legislation designating part of the Mojave Desert off-limits to solar and wind power projects. Sen. Feinstein is concerned that the development of these projects "will lead to the wholesale destruction of some of the most pristine areas in the desert." She is also concerned that development would break a promise to groups that donated the land. Fair enough.

However, as Fortune's Green Wombat blog reports

The area of the desert in dispute is some 600,000 acres formerly owned by Catellus, the real estate arm of the Union Pacific Railroad, and donated to the federal government a decade ago by the Wildlands Conservancy, a Southern California environmental group. About 210,000 of those acres are managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which opened part of the land to renewable energy projects.

...

The Catellus land controlled by the BLM forms something of a golden triangle between the Joshua Tree National Park and the Mojave National Preserve in Southern California and are particularly coveted for renewable energy development because of its proximity to transmission lines.

Alan Stein, a deputy district manager for the BLM in California, told Green Wombat that the solar and wind lease claims are in areas that are not designated as wilderness or critical habitat for protected species like the desert tortoise. 'This is public domain land,' he says.

Although Sen. Feinstein states that she "would welcome the opportunity to work with the Department of the Interior on legislation to ... encourage energy development on more suitable lands within the California desert," the offer is hollow as she fails to identify any alternative lands.

It was that long ago that California was suffering from brown-outs and power shortages. Energy production, especially non-polluting production, is much needed. However, production, whether the sources are renewable or not, comes at a cost. For renewable sources, these costs can sometimes include environmental harms (Joe Guarino has recently gone to bat about this issue). Sensible policy should balance benefits with the costs; it should not be based on the fantasy that energy can be produced with no costs whatsoever.

In this case, development with the most modest impacts imaginable would occur on the most marginal land imaginable--land that is already designated for some economic uses AND that would reduce other impacts because of its proximity to existing transmission infrastructure. If the U.S. can't develop a clean, renewable facility in the middle of a desert, it's unlikely to be able to develop it anywhere.

But for Sen. Feinstein and others, maybe that's the point.

Please Sen. Feinstein, let the sunshine in.