Tag: barack obama

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“Crony Capitalism” Alleged Behind Tar Sands Pipeline Review

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which could carry a diluted form of tar sands from Canada to Texas, has attracted the ire of many environmentalists, including Bill McKibben, who spearheaded protests in front of the White House last month.

This week, McKibben argued the Obama administration is practicing “crony capitalism” and that e-mails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request imply the State Department—charged with evaluating the pipeline—may have worked closely with TransCanada, the company building the pipeline, to help the plan win approval.

The State Department rejected the accusations of bias. In response, the heads of a more than a dozen major environmental groups and other nonprofits called for President Obama to strip the State Department of its authority over the pipeline. Environmental groups also sued to stop the pipeline, saying TransCanada had unlawfully begun preparations in Nebraska for the pipeline, although it is still awaiting approval.

The opposition went more mainstream when a New York Times editorial called for the United States to “Say No to the Keystone XL,” arguing it would not do much to help energy security because much of the oil appears slated for export, and the best bet for long-term job creation is through renewable and alternative energy, rather than building more pipelines.

The European Union appears likely to stymie imports of fuels made from tar sands, through a new fuel quality directive.

Haunting Visit

The Obama administration also came under fire because the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) had hired top campaign supporters to help direct loan guarantees and other support for cleantech companies, including $535 million for now-bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra.

Obama was warned before his May 2010 visit to Solyndra, the trip may come back to haunt him because the company was already looking shaky, according to newly released e-mails.

Before a major loan guarantee program ended, the DOE completed $4.75 billion in loan guarantees for four large solar projects, on top of $11.4 billion in loans backed by the program before.

Solar Decline

It’s not just solar companies such as Solyndra that have struggled. Sales of solar panels may drop in 2012, according to a Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst and two large solar companies. This runs counter to 15 years of double-digit growth rates, and would be the first time, at least since 1975, that annual installations have fallen.

The U.S. solar industry is headed for a “solar coaster” as key federal subsidies are set to expire.

In Germany, consumers are rushing to install more panels in anticipation of a scheduled drop in the country’s solar subsidies. Chancellor Angela Merkel also said the government may cut the subsidies further.

With a surplus of panels on the market and prices falling, Germany’s plan to shut its nuclear plants may cost the country less than expected, taking away some of the bite of this transition.

Subsidy Backfire

In 2010, the world spent $409 billion subsidizing fossil fuels, up 36 percent from the year before, since policies remained largely unchanged while fossil fuels prices rose, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

In industrialized countries, subsidies tend to go to fuel producers, while in developing countries the price to consumers is subsidized as a way to help the poor. However, the vast majority of fossil fuel subsidies go to middle and upper classes, the report found. It also argued the subsidies encourage waste and make prices more volatile, thus backfiring by creating hardship for the poor.

The countries with the biggest subsidies are major oil and gas producers that rely heavily on oil revenue—mostly members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), plus Russia. In 2010, about half the subsidies went toward oil, a quarter toward natural gas, and the remaining quarter toward coal. “The time of cheap energy is over,” said the Executive Director of the IEA, Maria van der Hoeven.

Fighting Denial

Many of the leading Republican candidates for the presidency have, while on the campaign trail, questioned whether climate change is real, or whether people are causing it.

Some Republicans who supported policies to cut emissions in the past have been quiet about this issue recently. But National Journal reports that, behind the scenes, former Republican officials and other insiders are trying to shift the GOP’s focus back to acknowledging climate change is real.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

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Cutting Oil Use Should Be Focus of U.S. Energy Research, New Roadmap Says

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

A major study modeled after goal-setting reports from the Departments of Defense and State, the first Quadrennial Technology Review by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), called for a shift in energy research and development priorities to reduce America’s dependence on oil.

“Reliance on oil is the greatest immediate threat to U.S. economic and national security and also contributes to the long-term threat of climate change,” the report said.

The DOE spends about $3 billion annually on research and development, with about three-quarters of that going toward “stationary energy” technologies—such as power plants and buildings—and one-quarter allotted for transportation. The report’s release could shift the funding balance more toward transportation, in particular more efficient cars and electric cars.

It will likely shape the 2013 fiscal year budget request from the Obama administration, due to be sent to Congress in February 2012.

Big Dreams

But a longer-term view isn’t synonymous with funding blue-sky ideas, as in the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), which Time dubbed “the Department of Big Dreams.” The Quadrennial Technology Review criticized the DOE for placing too much emphasis on technologies “multiple generations away from practical use.”

Instead, the report called for greater focus on integrated energy systems and deployment over the medium to long term. The Obama administration has no choice but to focus on the longer term, argued Jeff Tollefson of Nature, because the weak economy and political stalemates have stymied progress in the shorter term.

The report sticks close to President Obama’s goals: getting one million electric cars on the road by 2015 and cutting oil imports by one-third by 2025. It also focuses on modernizing the electric grid and deploying clean energy, in line with Obama’s goal for 80 percent for America’s electricity to come from clean sources by 2035.

Carbon Credit Controversy

WikiLeaks has once again stirred up controversy, this time by releasing a diplomatic cable sent by the U.S. embassy in India, revealing discussions about questionable projects there that earn carbon credits through the United Nation’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

Most of the CDM projects in India should not have been certified, the cable said, because they did not achieve emissions cuts beyond what would have happened without the sales of carbon credits.

The cable shows “the CDM is basically a farce,” said a group critical of the program, but officials involved in the program said it has been improved since the cable was sent in 2008.

However, an investigative series last year by the Christian Science Monitor found many instances of fraud and exaggeration. And last week Oxfam published a report alleging 20,000 people were evicted from their land in 2010 to make way for a tree plantation that would earn carbon credits.

Superconductor Espionage

American Superconductor, which designs magnet systems for wind turbines, alleges that Chinese turbine manufacturer Sinovel, its largest customer, stole trade secrets by bribing a disgruntled employee, one of a handful with access to a crucial bit of software.

A court in Austria is hearing the case, in which Sinovel stands accused of offering the rogue employee an employment contract worth at least $1 million. The employee only received a small fraction of what he was promised, and American Superconductor sent Sinovel many parts also without receiving payment.

Sen. John Kerry said such theft would hurt American investment in China.

Master of the Domain

With the internet opening to new domains, there has been a tussle over who will control the .eco domain, with Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection vying against the Canadian company Big Room, supported by former Soviet leader Michel Gorbachev’s charity Green Cross International.

Al Gore’s group has dropped its bid, after many green groups—including 350.org, Greenpeace, and WWF—backed Green Cross International. The new domain is intended to be a badge of credibility, said the co-founder of Big Room, and may require disclosure about environmental performance when registering to use the domain.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

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Ending Oil Tax Breaks Could Pay For New Jobs—and Some May Be Green

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

President Obama unveiled a new job creation plan in a major speech to Congress last week and follow-up speeches this week, in which he called for an end to tax breaks for oil and gas companies to bring in an additional $32 billion over 10 years to pay for increased government spending.

Earlier this year, Obama called for repealing those same tax breaks to help pay for clean energy.

In his new speeches on jobs, Obama has not dropped the words “energy” or “green”—but some commentators said, reading between the lines, the president is still calling for more green jobs.

As green stimulus programs have approached their end, in recent months there has been controversy over how many green jobs—and of what kinds—were created.

An article featured in the New York Times said there were not as many jobs created as some had hoped, and that the spending helped outsource numerous jobs to places like China. But sources quoted in the article shot back, saying the article, among other things, neglected to mention many of the green jobs companies created in the United States.

A recent study estimated green stimulus spending created 367,000 jobs directly, and also created jobs indirectly that brought the total to one million jobs.

Meanwhile, the oil and gas industries said they can create 1.4 million jobs, if many areas are opened to drilling—but to create that many jobs would require drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, off the East and West coasts and Florida’s Gulf coast, and on most federal lands besides national parks.

Solar Probe

One company touted for its green jobs—solar panel manufacturer Solyndra—was probed by Congress this week, since it had received $535 million in federal loan guarantees before declaring bankruptcy this month, triggering an FBI raid.

While some have accused Republicans of grandstanding and using the company’s failure as a way to argue against green stimulus spending, some Democrats who supported the company said they also want answers—such as Henry Waxman, who released a July letter from the company indicating it was in good financial shape.

There are many myths about the situation, however, wrote Brad Plumer of the Washington Post. While there do seem to be irregularities about the way the company got its loan guarantee, Plumer argued its failure does not shoot down the idea of green loan guarantees or cleantech subsidies.

Going Flat

Overall, the U.S. failed to add any additional jobs in August, retail sales were flat, and fears grew of an approaching recession.

The fragile economic situation is having widespread effects on energy, with many forecasters lowering their expectations for oil demand the rest of this year and next year. Nonetheless, Americans may spend a record amount on gasoline this year: $491 billion.

Also, the growth of U.S. ethanol consumption appears to be slowing down, after registering several-year growth spurt, in part because of a drop in gasoline use and because most gasoline is now at the legal limit with 10 percent ethanol blended in.

The economic slowdown is likely taking a bite out of some energy efficiency efforts as well, the Energy Information Administration pointed out. Refrigerator replacements, for example, have dropped over the past several years—meaning people are sticking with older, less efficient fridges.

Two Kinds of Green

Two-thirds of the world’s 500 largest companies now include climate change in their business strategies, according to a survey by the Carbon Disclosure Project—and companies that work to cut their greenhouse emissions also outperformed their competitors on the stock market. Also, more companies reported their efforts to cut emissions have resulted in actual reductions, with the fraction soaring from about one-fifth in 2010 to nearly half in 2011.

Sails, Flowers and Honeycombs

Most pylons for power lines are reminiscent of the 19th-century Eiffel Tower, but a U.K. competition for “pylons of the future” aims to update this piece of critical infrastructure. Energy and climate change minister Chris Huhne announced six finalists in the competition, including a pylon design resembling a cylindrical honeycomb, a curved design similar to the sail-shaped Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai, and another with a single stem branching out to several arms like a flower’s stamens.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

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Tar Sands Pipeline Gets Green Light in Environmental Review

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

Hundreds of protesters—including famed climate researcher James Hansen—have been arrested in protests in front of the White House over the past two weeks, in an attempt to stop the construction of a pipeline from Canada to Texas to carry diluted tar sands to Gulf Coast refineries, mainly over concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and risks of tainting a nearby water aquifer.

The U.S. State Department has been weighing whether to approve the pipeline, and under what conditions. In a major step last week, the State Department published its final environmental review, which said the pipeline would have “no significant impact to most resources” along its path, assuming “normal operation.”

U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said energy security concerns could help the pipeline win approval on the grounds that importing oil from Canada is preferable to imports from the Middle East—an argument echoed in a Washington Post editorial by veteran business reporter Robert Samuelson.

Shale Gas Shakedown

The Marcellus shale deposits—so far, the biggest site for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking— may contain far less gas than recently projected by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), according to a new assessment by the U.S. Geological Survey.

Although the new estimate is higher than the U.S. Geological Survey’s own 2002 estimate, it is much lower than an estimate EIA published earlier this year. In response, the EIA said it will downgrade their next estimate—perhaps by as much as 80 percent. But the Washington Post reports there may be more to these numbers.

In light of allegations that petroleum companies have overstated how much gas they could get out of shale deposits, the New York State Attorney’s Office is investigating whether companies “overbooked” reserves. Earlier this summer, federal lawmakers called on the Securities and Exchange Commission, the EIA and the Government Accountability Office to investigate industry estimates.

Rise and Fall of Solar, Wind

China achieved a meteoric rise in wind power over the past five years, and last year pulled ahead of the U.S. to become the country with the largest installed capacity of wind turbines.

At the same time, the growth of China’s wind industry is slowing down due to over capacity and withdrawal of subsidies, among other causes. And some of China’s largest wind turbine manufacturers reported falling profits due to fierce competition, as has been seen in the solar panel industry.

Solar manufacturers in the U.S. and Europe have been struggling to compete with panels from Asia, China especially. Two weeks ago, Evergreen declared bankruptcy, followed by Solyndra this week. Both companies had been touted by the Obama administration and local officials as models for the green economy. New York-based SpectraWatt, a solar spin-out from computer chip manufacturer Intel, also filed for bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, China is pushing ahead with plans to greatly expand their installations of solar power, doubling their targeted installations over the next decade. By 2015, they aim to have 3 gigawatts installed—10 times as much as they had last year—and by 2020, 50 gigawatts.

Despite such difficulties in the market, the United States’ net exports of solar power products more than doubled in 2010 compared with the year before, reaching $1.8 billion. Total U.S. exports of solar products rose 83 percent, to $5.6 billion, in part because Asia is importing equipment for manufacturing solar panels.

Burying the Problem

The first industrial-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) plant in the U.S. broke ground in Illinois, with the aim of capturing emissions from a large corn ethanol plant. Work on the plant began just after a U.S. utility canceled its plan for CCS on a West Virginia coal plant.

In Canada, a CCS plant for capturing emissions from tar sands processing may move ahead after Canada’s government recently agreed to underwrite two-thirds of the $1.35-billion project’s cost.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

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China Aims to Become Solar Powerhouse with New Subsidies

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

China is already the world’s biggest solar panel manufacturer, but now it is making a move to become a major solar energy consumer as well, with a nationwide feed-in tariff to pay people or businesses a subsidy for electricity they produce with solar panels. This follows on the heels of the country’s wind energy feed-in tariff in 2009, which led to explosive growth in their wind industry.

China had a mishmash of solar incentives before, but the new policy will give a clearer signal to the market and “encourage more companies to participate in the industry,” said an analyst from Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

China’s latest five-year plan, released in March, set the goal of using 20 percent renewable energy by 2020, and a solar feed-in tariff has been expected for months—so in anticipation many solar installations have already gotten rolling, and a flurry of projects may soon qualify.

Fast and Steady Wins the Race?

China, Germany and the U.K. have the most stable and consistent clean energy policies, which helps boost investment, according to a new report by Deutsche Bank Climate Change Advisors.

However, on the same day as China’s announcement, the U.K. put into place a cut in its solar power subsidy for installations over 50 kilowatts, “effectively ending solar farm development” in the country, Business Green argued.

There was a stampede of projects trying to get completed before the deadline, but some are planning more large installations nonetheless. Also, it turns out a loophole in the solar feed-in tariff would have allowed large projects to still get high subsidies—but the government is now moving to close that.

The U.K. had planned to raise subsidies for other clean energy—but it is delaying the raise in the feed-in tariff for anaerobic digesters.

Besides the U.K., a number of other European countries—including Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic—hacked away at their solar subsidies before, and now the Australian state of Western Australia has also eliminated theirs.

The Canadian state of Ontario, on the other hand, is trying to protect clean energy projects by changing regulations to make it harder to cut clean energy subsidies.

Meanwhile, solar installations have been rising fast worldwide as the price of solar panels has fallen about 20 percent in the past year. But manufacturer’s margins are also falling, so it is not clear how much longer these price trends can continue.

Ethanol Subsidy Survives—For Now

It came down to the wire, but the U.S. Congress passed a deal to raise the debt ceiling before the Aug. 2 deadline, and Obama signed it into law.

But the deal did not include a near-term cut of ethanol tax breaks, as some had expected, which would have netted an estimated $2 billion in additional revenue.

However, it is likely the ethanol tax break will not be renewed, in which case it would cease at the end of this year.

Meanwhile, ethanol producers are pushing for a change in regulations to allow more ethanol to be blended into gasoline, allowing gasoline to be E15—15 percent ethanol—compared with E10 today. Last month, experts testified to Congress that the higher ethanol content may damage some cars’ engines, and more tests were needed to ensure E15 is safe.

There are also plans to carry ethanol in existing oil pipelines—but a new study found ethanol could crack the pipes, since bacteria that eat the fuel and excrete acids could thrive inside the pipes.

Making the Smart Grid Smarter

There have been many proposals for making our electricity grids and appliances smarter to help them use less electricity at peak times and shift use to off-peak hours of the day.

However, if many people’s appliances all switch on suddenly when the electricity rate drops, an MIT study found, the spike in power use could bring down the grid. But smarter tuning of how electricity rates go up and down during the day could avoid the problem.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

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Beleaguered EPA Must Take Charge of Greenhouse Gases, Supreme Court Rules

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court shot down a global warming lawsuit several states and environmental groups had brought against five of America’s biggest utilities, responsible for about one-tenth of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. The case was aimed at getting the court to rule greenhouse gas emissions a public nuisance and order the defendants to reduce them. But the court said Congress had already authorized the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to handle greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, concluding: “We see no room for a parallel track.”

The new decision bolstered the court’s 2007 decision, in which it ruled the EPA does have the authority to regulate greenhouse gases as well as traditional pollutants, like smog and particulate matter.

After the new decision, the door is still open for environmental nuisance suits in general, and potentially even for state-level nuisance suits on greenhouse gases, noted Yale law professor Douglas Kysar. And, he pointed out, if Congress strips the EPA of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases—as some recent bills attempted to do—then the nuisance suits on a federal level could return.

In the Spotlight

The new ruling “puts the spotlight squarely on EPA,” said David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Recently, the agency has issued new rules on emissions from light-duty vehicles and is moving forward on similar rules for larger vehicles. It is also developing its regulations on power plant emissions, which were scheduled to be published in draft form in late July, but have now been pushed back two months in response to complaints from industry and state governments.

Meanwhile, a study by nonprofit group Media Matters found opponents of the EPA dominate TV discussion of the topic, appearing more than four times as often as those in favor of greenhouse regulation by the agency.

Some commentators said the ruling will stoke attempts to hamper the EPA. The Obama administration signaled it may veto any laws that attempt to block the EPA. When asked about attempts to hamstring the EPA, Obama’s chief of staff Bill Daley said, “we’re not going to allow any legislation that impedes the need to improve our health and safety.”

Obama Gets Gored

In a long article in Rolling Stone, former Vice President Al Gore made pointed criticisms of the Obama administration’s work on climate change. “His election was accompanied by intense hope that many things in need of change would change,” Gore wrote. “Some things have, but others have not. Climate policy, unfortunately, is in the second category.”

Obama’s backers pointed out that many new programs are now coming into place. One is a “game-changing” $2.6-billion solar panel project announced this week that would install nearly as many panels as were installed in the whole country in 2010. The U.S. Department of Energy is backing more than $1 billion in loans for the project, and earlier this month announced it would also back $1.9 billion in loans for two solar power projects in California.

Meanwhile, private financing of renewable energy projects has picked up, with Google emerging as one of the biggest spenders. This year, the company has already invested 10 times as much in renewables and clean tech as it did in 2010, reaching a total of $780 million—including, this month alone, $102 million for a wind energy center and $280 million for a residential solar panel partnership.

Big Oil on the Big Screen

U.S. gasoline prices have dropped somewhat in the past couple of weeks, but the high prices are still a brake on the economy, said Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and several members of Congress are targeting oil speculators to try to make prices lower and more stable.

Big Oil is also in the sights of the cartoon “Cars 2.” In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Director John Lasseter said, “I kept going to big oil” as the villain in the soon-to-be-released film.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

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Ethanol Tax Breaks Survive, but Vote May Have “Broken the Dam”

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

While a bill to slash $6 billion in annual tax breaks for ethanol fuel failed to pass the U.S. Senate, it was still hailed by some lawmakers and analysts as a major break from the past.

It raises a philosophical quandary, says the Christian Science Monitor: “If Congress takes away a tax subsidy, should that count as a tax hike?” Nearly all Republican representatives have signed on to “The Pledge,” an agreement to never vote to raise taxes.

The bill to end ethanol tax breaks attracted votes from both sides of the aisle, with 34 Republicans and 6 Democrats voting for it—but it fell 20 votes short of passing. Nonetheless, some Democrats said the vote broke the dam, opening the way for the repeal of other tax breaks, such as larger ones for the oil industry.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of Midwestern senators introduced an alternative to ending ethanol subsidies. Instead of a flat-rate tax credit of 45 cents per gallon of ethanol-gasoline blend, the new bill would introduce a variable subsidy that would increase when oil prices drop, and fall when oil prices climb.

On Thursday, a wide majority in the Senate did vote in favor of another piece of legislation that would end tax breaks for U.S. ethanol as well as tariffs on foreign ethanol. However, the change is unlikely to go into effect immediately, Bloomberg reports, because the repeal of the subsidies and tariffs is attached to another piece of legislation that is unlikely to become law.”

Fuel Woes Cause Ripple Effects

A report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, and seven other international agencies called for an end to subsidies for biofuels because they are driving up food prices. Prices for both food and fuel have been rising fast in India and China, leading the Chinese government to adjust banking rules to try to quell inflation.

Meanwhile, if oil prices remain high—above the current level of $120 for Brent crude—there is a risk of derailing the economy, into a double-dip recession, said Fatih Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Agency. “We all know what happened in 2008. Are we going to see the same movie?”

U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu also warned high fuel prices are taking their toll. “We’re very cognizant of … the fact that higher gasoline prices so impede the economic recovery,” Chu said. One of the measures the Obama administration considered for bringing down gasoline prices, he said, was to tap the government’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, intended for emergencies.

More details came in a report from Reuters, with anonymous sources saying that in the weeks before a recent, fractious OPEC meeting, U.S. and Saudi officials met to discuss “an unprecedented arrangement” of oil trades. In the proposed deal, the U.S. would send Europe low-sulfur, “sweet” crude from the strategic reserve, and in return receive more high-sulfur, “sour” crude from Saudi Arabia. The deal fell through, the sources said, because Saudi Arabia was unwilling to sell the oil at a discount.

Another Kind of Military Power

The U.S. military—the world’s single largest user of oil, and responsible for 80 percent of the U.S. government’s energy consumption—has now created an Operational Energy Strategy. “Before, it was assumed energy would be where you needed when you needed it,” a Pentagon official told National Journal. “The new strategy is to say that energy is a strategic good that enables your military force.”

Earlier this month, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, called on the Army to use fuel more efficiently. In addition to efficiency, renewable energy will be a major priority for investments by the military over the next 20 years, according to a study by clean tech group Pike Research.

Nuclear Risks Still Weigh Heavily

Nuclear plants and nuclear waste disposal have been under increased scrutiny since Japan’s Fukushima disaster, which the government recently confirmed had led to a meltdown of three of the six reactors at the site.

Republicans called for Gregory Jaczko, head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to step down after it was revealed he had “unilaterally” moved to stop work on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump—a project for a long-term disposal site that has been in the works for decades, but that President Obama vowed in 2009 to end.

An independent review of temporary waste storage sites in the U.S. indicated that the threat of a release of radioactivity dwarfs the risk Japan faced. The report’s lead author, Robert Alvarez, said, “The largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet will remain in storage at U.S. reactor sites for the indefinite future.”

Meanwhile, China’s nuclear power plants all passed a recent safety review by government inspectors, paving the way for the country to move ahead with its ambitious plans for expanding atomic energy.

Germany’s decision to phase out nuclear power by 2022 has turned the country into “a multibillion-dollar laboratory experiment” on how to roll out alternatives quickly to replace the quarter of Germany’s electricity that came from nuclear prior to Japan’s disaster. To enable renewables to take on a larger share of the load will likely require huge investments in expanding the grid and add a few thousand miles (several thousand kilometers) of additional power lines.

Are We Headed for a New Ice Age?

The Sun may go into hibernation for decades, a few new studies suggest, with a dramatic drop in the number of sunspots. Previous drops in the number of sunspots have been linked to cooler times on our planet, such as the “Little Ice Age” that struck medieval Europe.

Although some newspapers trumpeted that we’re approaching a “second little ice age,” New Scientist says the effect would actually be more like “a slightly less severe heatwave.” In fact, even if sunspots do go quiet, it would lower the Sun’s heating of Earth by at most 0.3 watts per square meter, whereas theman-made greenhouse effect is now about six times larger, at 1.7 watts per square meter.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

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Natural Gas Fracking Under Increasing Pressure

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

The Oscar-nominated documentary “Gasland” featured dramatic clips of people whose tap water could be set on fire, apparently a side effect of “fracking,” a method of opening up fissures deep underground to unlock natural gas.

A new Duke study backs up these residents’ woes, finding that drinking water near fracking sites had average methane levels 17 times higher than normal. (Natural gas is mainly composed of methane.) The methane in the water wells also had a chemical signature that showed it was from deep underground, where companies are doing fracking.  

Meanwhile, the Obama administration formed a blue ribbon panel to look into fracking safety. France had already put a temporary freeze on drilling into shale gas and oil formations, and now their National Assembly has passed a bill to ban exploration for shale gas or oil. 

It’s Not Easy Being Green

The summary of a major report on renewable energy from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was leaked earlier in draft form, and has now been published and has generated a lot of discussion. Some touted the study’s findings that by mid-century, renewable energy could power at least 80 percent of projected energy demand, while others pointed out this was based on the most optimistic of the study’s 160 scenarios. So far, only the 25-page summary has been released; details to back up the study’s conclusions will await publication of the full report.

The IPCC report included biomass as a major player in the future of renewable energy. But today’s biofuels can be worse for the climate than conventional fossil fuels, according to another new study, because of the emissions from clearing land, growing crops, and processing the plants to turn them into fuel.

Backing Away from Nuclear

Japan’s prime minister announced the country will abandon plans to expand nuclear power, and it will “start from scratch” on a new energy policy that puts more emphasis on renewables.

As a response to the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear reactors, Germany temporarily shut down its seven oldest nuclear power plants. The New York Times reports a panel appointed by Chancellor Angela Merkel has recommended closing all of Germany’s nuclear reactors within a decade—reactors that currently provide about one-fifth of the country’s electricity.

In the U.K., the Committee on Climate Change, a group advising the U.K. government, recommended building more nuclear power plants, as well as relying on wind turbines, to meet the country’s greenhouse gas emission goals.

The U.K.’s existing policies won’t meet those goals, according to a new assessment—but a massive new energy bill is wending its way through the U.K. Parliament that aims to boost emissions cuts. The bill now carries an additional measure that aims to seal up the country’s famously drafty homes, by making it illegal for landlords to rent their properties unless they meet energy efficiency standards.

Weather Woes

Swathes of the U.S. South and Midwest have been socked by wild weather this spring. First, the areas suffered 800 tornadoes in April. Now the Mississippi is flooding with the highest levels on record in some regions—and global warming has likely played a role in the flooding, since rainfall in the region has risen 10 to 20 percent over the past century, said meteorologist Jeff Masters. The floods would likely break records along the length of the river if it weren’t for controlled levee breaches that have released water onto spillways and farmland. Perhaps it is time, argues Good, to follow in the footsteps of the Dutch, with their “Room for the River” policy, and give up more ground to rivers to adapt to climate change.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

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Obama’s Popularity and the Next Election may be Tied to Gas Prices

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

Whenever prices at the gas pump soar, President Obama’s popularity takes a hit, he suggested at a private fundraising event—and which is backed up by a recent poll. House Speaker John Boehner argued high gas prices could even cost Obama the 2012 election.

Obama argued the long term solution is clean energy, but to try to help in the shorter term, though, the administration launched two new efforts. The Justice Department will conduct a probe into speculation in oil trading, to see if it is inflating oil prices, as Obama has claimed before. Also, a new federal program will aid homeowners in getting loans to pay for improvements that boost energy efficiency. “We’re making it easier for American homeowners to save money by saving energy,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said.

A “Crazy and Unsustainable” Policy

With the 2012 Presidential elections approaching, some Republican hopefuls have lit into Obama’s approach to energy. To help with high oil prices, last week Donald Trump supports Libyan intervention if the U.S. can take their oil. This week, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty called for opening drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as well as more offshore wells, while saying  Obama “sat on his hands” regarding drilling in America.

Despite calls to boost domestic fossil fuel production, “it is simply crazy and unsustainable to continue to subsidize the oil-and-gas companies when we need to reduce our deficit and invest elsewhere,” said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney. Several major oil-and-gas companies should report significant profit, according to the Associated Press.

Since the 2009 G20 meeting, Obama has been pushing for an end to fossil fuel subsidies around the world. Obama may be gaining traction on this issue, with Speaker Boehner saying oil companies “ought to be paying their fair share” of taxes.

Who Resurrected the Electric Car?

Electric cars have been resurrected, with the maker of the 2006 documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car” to film a follow-up, “Revenge of the Electric Car.”

While electric cars are still a minuscule slice of the auto market, the market continues to shift in larger ways, according to a new report. As the economy has recovered somewhat from the Great Recession, sales of most kinds of cars have risen. But sales of small cars, hybrids, and diesels (which are often fuel efficient) are growing much faster than car sales as a whole. Compared to the first quarter last year, this year sales jumped roughly 25 to 45 percent for various classes of more efficient cars, but rose only 7 percent for SUVs.

Western Water Woes to Deepen

Water supplies in the Western U.S. will only get tighter as climate change worsens, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of the Interior, which billed it as “the first consistent and coordinated assessment of risks to future water supplies across eight major … river basins,” including the Colorado, Rio Grande and San Joaquin. Flows in these three basins, the government report said, are likely to decline by 8 to 14 percent by 2050—a time frame in which future warming is largely already set by past emissions. In California, however, there’s large uncertainty about the impacts, making planning all the more difficult.

When it comes to moisture-loving fungi, climate change is already changing landscapes. Truffle-hunting dogs have turned up troves of the valuable fungi in Germany, where they were never known to exist before, a new study reports. Although the study was on expensive edible fungi, the findings could have much wider implications. “Without fungi, plants don’t work,” the study leader, a fungal ecologist, told Wired Science. “We know climates are changing and that fungal habitats are shifting. What we’re not certain about are the effects.”

Nuclear Power Protests Mark Chernobyl Anniversary

With progress slow on controlling Japan’s damaged nuclear power plants, farmers from the area protested against nuclear power, and thousands protested in France and Germany against nukes in their countries.

Meanwhile, NRG Energy announced it is pulling the plug on a nuclear power plant it was building in Texas.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

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The Clean and Dirty of Obama’s Energy Plan

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

Following Obama’s energy speech a week ago, which set out a goal to cut U.S. oil imports by one-third within a decade, the administration unveiled more projects to bolster energy production—both clean and dirty. This included $112 million for solar power, $26 million for advanced hydropower, and lease sales for new coal mines and deepwater oil exploration. Global private investment in clean energy is also on the rise. This is according to a new report from the Cleantech Group, which indicated it reached $2.5 billion for the first quarter of this year, a 50 percent jump compared with the quarter before.

However, efforts to foster renewable energy have a long way to go, said the International Energy Agency (IEA) in its new “Clean Energy Progress Report.” Annual government subsidies for renewables amount to $57 billion, compared with $312 for fossil fuels, according to the IEA’s tally. “More aggressive clean energy policies are required,” the report argued, “including the removal of fossil fuel subsidies and implementation of transparent, predictable and adaptive incentives for cleaner, more efficient energy options.”

Meanwhile, President Obama promised to veto a bill that would handcuff the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and prevent it from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Several Republicans tried another tack, proposing amendments to another bill that would have the same effect—but all four amendments failed to pass the Senate.

Could we be Headed for a Double-dip Recession?

A new poll says Americans have become far more concerned about gasoline prices in the past several months than Iraq, Afghanistan, immigration, terrorism and taxes. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said there’s nothing they can do to keep oil below $120 a barrel, and gas prices will continue to rise, according to a Moody’s forecast, while Algeria’s former energy minister said at an oil summit that turmoil in Arab countries will have dramatic effects on energy markets for years to come.

If the turmoil in the region spreads to Saudi Arabia, the country’s oil minister warned, the price of oil could soar. “If something happens in Saudi Arabia it will go to $200 to $300 [per barrel],” the minister, Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, told Reuters. “I don’t expect this for the time being, but who would have expected Tunisia?”

Today’s high oil prices are already hampering global economic growth, an IEA official said. In the U.S. as well, high gasoline prices are taking their toll on the U.S. economy, and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich argues the U.S. is heading for a double-dip recession.

Even without a double-dip, governments’ belt-tightening measures have already eaten into green energy subsidies in Washington, D.C., as well as in Spain and France.

Fish Turning Up Radioactive

The fight continued to control the nuclear reactors in Japan, which are still facing the possibility of meltdowns. Authorities intentionally released 11,500 tons of radioactive water into the ocean before some uncontrolled leaks were sealed with a mix of  sawdust, newspaper,  concrete, and liquid glass. Despite these ongoing troubles, nuclear remains safer than many other energy sources, especially coal, according to an analysis of Europe’s energy sector and its effect on health.

Since the accident, U.K. environmental writer George Monbiot has been widely cited for his argument that Fukushima should actually make us more confident in nuclear power. This week he has stuck to his guns while sparring with Helen Caldicott, a Nobel Prize-winning anti-nuclear activist. Others have had their trust shaken,, however, including the European Union’s energy commissioner, who told Der Spiegel, “Fukushima has made me start to doubt” nuclear power.

The Japanese government is screening its fish, and finding some are highly radioactive—and halfway around the world from Japan, one New York restaurant has taken radiation scanning into its own hands, buying scanners to test incoming fish. Such fears are misplaced, argues risk expert David Ropeik—and fear itself may take a bigger toll on people’s health than radiation from the leaking plants.

Stern Rebuke

The latest round of United Nations climate talks, held in Bangkok, Thailand, got off to a rocky start. As the talks opened, U.S. Special Envoy on Climate Change, Todd Stern, was at an energy conference in New York, where he called for an agreement for developed and developing countries alike, without a “firewall” between them. But at the same time, he called a binding international agreement “unrealistic” and “not doable.” Rather than international agreements, Stern said, “it is the national plans of countries, written into law and regulations, that count and that bind.”

Developed and developing countries have set goals for cutting their emissions over the coming decades—but these don’t go far enough to avoid dangerous climate change, said Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Christiana Figueres at the Bangkok meeting.

Didn’t See That Coming

After “Climategate” in late 2009, many climate skeptics launched studies independent of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that took a closer look at the temperature record. Richard Muller, a physics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is leading one such effort, which has received a large part of its funding from Koch Industries, known for fighting hard against emissions controls and accused by Greenpeace of funding a “climate denial machine.”

When Muller presented the initial results to a congressional hearing, “Republicans expected Muller to challenge the accepted wisdom,” according to Science. But he told the hearing, “we see a global warming trend that is very similar to that previously reported by the other groups.”

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.