Climate change, extreme weather and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new and existing power plants were the focus of a confirmation hearing for Janet McCabe, President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation.
In the hearing—at which lawmakers took jabs at one another on the impacts of climate change and criticized McCabe’s recent comments on extreme weather causes—the acting assistant administrator for air and radiation told the committee that if confirmed she would evaluate the full consequences of the EPA’s current and pending rules. She pointed to her work as a state regulator in Indiana, highlighting her sensitivity to the economic impact of environmental regulations.
“I come from Indiana, where people rely on coal,” she told the committee (subscription).
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has not announced when it will vote on McCabe’s nomination, which still requires approval by the full Senate.
Just a day earlier, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy touted the draft rule for existing power plants, which is scheduled for release by June 1. “We are going to make them cost-effective, we are going to make them make sense,” McCarthy said at a conference. “That doesn’t mean it’s going to be so flexible that I’m not going to be able to rely on this as a federally enforceable rule.”
Flexibility for states was emphasized by McCarthy who insisted the EPA will give states the tools to curtail emissions that drive climate change and that the proposed rule will not threaten electric reliability or shutter large numbers of facilities.
EPA officials have met with more than 200 groups about the upcoming rule. Last week, the White House began its review of the rule—the final step before the EPA can publish it and gather formal comments from the public.
EIA Energy Outlook Predicts Decrease in Oil Imports
Net U.S. energy imports declined last year to their lowest level in more than 20 years, meaning U.S. net imports could reach zero within 23 years, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
The finding is the first in a staged release of the EIA’s complete Annual Energy Outlook 2014. Future releases—running April 14 to April 30—will look at matters ranging from the implications of accelerated power plant retirements and lower natural gas prices for industrial production to light-duty vehicle energy demand and the potential for liquefied natural gas to be used as a railroad fuel.
Between 2012 and 2013, net energy imports decreased by 19 percent. The EIA cited increased growth in oil and natural gas production as the reason. Crude oil production grew 15 percent in 2013.
“In EIA’s view, there is more upside potential for greater gains in production than downside potential for lower production levels,” the report said. It noted that U.S. oil production should hit 9.6 million barrels per day by 2020.
Global Renewable Energy Investment Down as Tax Credits Resurface
Global investment in renewable energy fell 14 percent in 2013, according to a new report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Bloomberg New Energy Finance and the Frankfurt School-UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance. The drop in investment was attributed, in part, to energy policy uncertainty and the falling cost of renewable energy technology. The latter factor may seem counterintuitive but one of the report’s lead editors, UN energy expert Eric Usher said that the fall in the cost of the clean energy technologies, particularly solar, had “left some governments thinking that they had been paying too much and reviewed their subsidies.”
Even with investment down, the shift toward low-carbon sources hasn’t slowed. “The onward march of this sector is inevitable,” said Michael Liebreich of Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Renewables accounted for 8.5 percent of power generated worldwide last year—up from 7.8 percent in 2012. Liebreich told Mother Jones that proprietary data about future investments suggest annual clean tech installations worldwide are likely to jump 37 percent to 112 gigawatts—a record level—by 2015.
Further incentives for renewables may be in the offing. Last week, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee approved a draft bill that includes some 50 temporary tax breaks, including one for renewable energy. The bill includes provisions for wind energy through an extension of the U.S. Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit, which was responsible for jumpstarting much of the last decade’s U.S. wind energy development. Provisions were also included for biofuel.
Congress is expected to pass the bill by the end of year, allowing businesses and individuals to continue to claim tax breaks on their 2014 taxes.
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.
As the 2012 harvest season comes to a close, pumpkins appear to be one of the few successes for farmers following the severe drought felt across many parts of the United States. Damage to the nation’s two largest crops, corn and soybeans, puts these staples below demand for the first time since 1974, while the rising cost to feed cattle drives up the cost of milk as herds shrink to an eight-year low. As a result, U.S. agricultural exports could be down as much as $2 billion.
More Americans are connecting warming and weather extremes such as drought. According to their latest survey, Yale found 74 percent believe global warming is affecting weather in the U.S.—up from 69 percent in March 2012. One large reinsurance company agrees with this consensus—claiming climate change is driving the increase in natural disasters since 1980 and will continue to for years to come. Others aren’t sold on the findings. “Thirty years is not an appropriate length of time for a climate analysis, much less finding causal factors like climate change,” said Roger Pielke, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado.
New software described in the journal Environmental Science and Technology attempts to share the impact of emissions on the health of the climate. The Hestia program maps emissions by city, right down to street level. “Cities have had little information with which to guide reductions in greenhouse gas emissions—and you can’t reduce what you can’t measure,” said Kevin Gurney, the lead scientist behind the project. “With Hestia, we can provide cities with a complete, three-dimensional picture of where, when and how carbon dioxide emissions are occurring.”
U.S. Slaps Trade Tariffs on Chinese Solar Panels
The U.S. Department of Interior has approved 33 renewable energy projects amounting to 10,000 megawatts of electricity on public lands since 2009. This, ThinkProgress points out, meets a goal expressed by Congress in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 of authorizing this type of power from non-hydro renewable energy by 2015.
Renewable energy investment, however, has declined roughly 20 percent in the past year. Excess capacity that’s driven down prices for solar panels and wind turbines is to blame, Bloomberg said. Governments are paring support for the industry in places such as the U.S. and Europe after a record $280 billion was invested in clean and low-carbon technologies in 2011. On Wednesday the U.S. Commerce Department announced its final decision on tariffs for Chinese solar panels—imposing tariffs ranging from 24 to near 36 percent. The ruling follows findings that government subsidies may have given Chinese companies an unfair advantage by allowing them to charge less per panel. Some Chinese solar executives blame the country’s glut of solar power on U.S. tariffs—although others blame the Chinese government for propping up the industry and showering it with low-interest loans and other subsidies. Following the ruling, China demanded the U.S. repeal the tariff with Ministry of Commerce Spokesman Shen Danyang saying, “The United States is inciting trade friction in new energy and sending a negative signal to the whole world about protectionism and obstructing the development of new energy development.”
Meanwhile, Australia took one step toward ambitious renewable energy targets—calling for 20 percent of its electricity to come from renewables by 2020—when it switched on its first solar farm. While it is currently expected to produce 10 megawatts, plans are already underway to expand that to 40.
Iraq Predicted to Become New Top Oil Supplier
Iraq, the world’s third largest oil exporter, could push past Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the top supplier by the 2035, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Their report predicts Iraq could not only top 8 million barrels per day, but become a key supplier to Asian markets. “Developments in Iraq’s energy sector are critical for the country’s prospects and also for the health of the global economy.” said IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol, the main author of the report, in a statement. “But success is not assured, and failure to achieve the anticipated increase in Iraq’s oil supply would put global oil markets on course for troubled waters.” Iraq had previously been aiming for a production capacity of 12 million barrels per day by 2017, a target many considered ambitious.
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.
NASA’s rover, Curiosity, made a successful landing on Mars earlier this week. Some scientists say the car-sized rover, the most high-tech ever designed by the space agency, could have a lot to tell us about our own climate.
As Mother Jones reports, scientists have made great strides in predicting what will happen to our climate, but we only have one climate to test hypotheses on. The rover will give scientists a chance to test their assumptions. “You learn about how to understand an atmosphere by seeing different atmospheres,” said Mark Lemmon, a planetary scientist from Texas A&M University who is part of Curiosity’s climate team. “And the more we know about Mars’ atmosphere, the better we can really understand our own.”
While Curiosity sends back readings about the cold temperatures on the red planet, Earth is heating up. NOAA confirmed what many of us have felt (literally): July was the hottest month in 118 years of recordkeeping. One NASA scientist links the increasing number of unusually hot summers to climate change in a new study. The findings have received mixed reviews: some said it was a smart way of understanding the magnitude of heat extremes, while others criticized the study’s statistical analyses. Another study by Harvard researchers suggests the vapors from powerful storms could be depleting the ozone layer, which could lead to an increase in the amount of ultraviolet radiation reaching the Earth’s surface.
This is around the time the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee came off a three-year hiatus to discuss the state of climate science, with neither side budging on the issues. Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp reflected on the disagreements in a Wall Street Journal op-ed: “It is time for conservatives to compete with liberals to devise the best, most cost-effective climate solutions. Solving this challenge will require all of us.” Meanwhile, in a New York Times op-ed physicist and long-time climate-change skeptic Richard Muller recounted his recent “total turnaround” on climate change following intensive research by his Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project. Muller is now convinced not only that global warming is real, but also that humans are the cause. “Call me a converted skeptic,” he said.
Global Energy Demand Sees Increase
Global energy demand grew by more than 3 percent in 2011, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The way energy is consumed and produced must change, but no single solution exists, argued IEA Deputy Executive Director Richard Jones in the documentary Switch. “There is no one magic bullet,” Jones said. “There is no one technology you need, because the world is different in different places.”
The Obama administration is expediting seven proposed renewable energy projects on public lands expected to produce power for 1.5 million homes from wind and solar in Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming and California. Federal permitting could be completed as early as December. Many more renewable energy projects are in the works for power-thirsty military bases after the Pentagon and the U.S. Department of Interior inked a deal earlier this week. The plan is designed to ensure energy for bases if the commercial grid were interrupted, and proposes the use of a mix of offshore wind generation for coastal bases with other solar, geothermal and biomass projects.
In the Arctic, Shell has scaled back plans for drilling as the start of production efforts approaches. Lingering sea ice delayed the start of the company’s original four-month drilling plan, initially projected to begin July 1.
Drought Threatens Food Surplus
The worst drought in more than half a century—now affecting 63 percent of the U.S.—has some analysts predicting the U.S. will deliver the smallest corn crop in five years—keeping prices at record highs. Nearly 80 percent of the country’s corn crop and more than 11 percent of the soybean crop have been affected. Both are major exports for the U.S. Global food reserves continue to decline, raising food-import cost forecasts to a near-record $1.24 trillion.
The drought’s effect on crop and livestock production has prompted President Barack Obama to seek aid for the Midwest. “Congress needs to pass a farm bill that will not only provide important disaster relief tools, but also make necessary reforms and give farmers the certainty they deserve,” said Obama.
In Georgia, one farmer is taking a different approach to keeping his crops healthy despite the drought. Farmer Glenn Cox is relying on new technology that uses sensors encased in PVC pipes to gather moisture and temperature readings from different soil depths and locations in his corn and peanut fields. Antennas fitted to the pipes transmit data to his computer for monitoring—taking the guess work out of when and where to water.
Elsewhere, other measures are being taken to better cope with drought conditions—including introducing to cattle breeds in Iowa genes from hardier breeds more accustomed to drought.
Climate’s Impact on Marine Life
Ocean acidification—caused when greenhouse gas emissions dissolve in the ocean to form acid—is not only making it harder for sea creatures to grow their shells, but it could also be disrupting the marine food chain, according to a new study. Polar regions may be most affected, making it difficult for clams and sea urchins to extract enough calcium carbonate to grow their shells and skeletons.
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.
Editor’s Note: The Climate Post will take a short summer break next week, returning Aug. 9.
Oceans, which cover more than two-thirds of the planet, hold a large amount of energy. In fact, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates ocean wave and tidal currents have the potential to account for 15 percent of the nation’s electricity by 2030.
While technologies harnessing energy from tides and currents have been domestically discussed for decades, the nation’s first commercial tidal energy project was dedicated in Maine Tuesday. This first tidal generator is expected to begin delivering electricity to the regional power grid in September—with just enough juice to power 25 homes as it starts out. The U.S. Navy, too, is exploring harnessing wave power as part of a larger plan to reduce energy consumption by 50 percent by 2020.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Interior identified 17 sites on public land across six Southwestern states that could be ideal for the development of solar energy. The plan, which will be finalized after a 30-day comment period, places 445 square miles of public land in play for utility-scale solar facilities. On the technology front, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles are taking the idea of solar power from roofs to windows with the invention of a thin, transparent solar cell that can turn the sun’s energy into electricity while still allowing visible light to stream through. The cells, researchers claim, can be produced at high volume for low cost and installed at an estimated $10 to $15 per window.
Effects of Drought, Heat Continue To Be Felt
NASA satellites tracking ice surface melt in Greenland recorded unprecedented melting over the course of four days in July—melting even occurred at Greenland’s coldest, highest place, Summit Station. While the ice sheet normally sees melting over summer months, the speed and scale of the thaw—which went from 40 to 97 percent—surprised scientists. “Ice cores from Summit show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average,” said Lora Koenig, a glaciologist who belongs to the research team analyzing the satellite data. “With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time. But if we continue to observe melting events like this in upcoming years, it will be worrisome.”
The drought in the United States continues to spread, forcing some plains ranchers to sell cattle and driving down the U.S. corn yield to a 10-year low. It has some contemplating whether we are headed for a repeat of the 2008 global food crisis, but others are more optimistic, saying farmers may weather the drought better than in 1988. With National Weather Service forecasts indicating the drought is likely to worsen, The Washington Post took a comprehensive look at whether climate change is causing the drought. The short answer: Droughts have multiple causes, there have been worse ones in the past, and most evidence suggests droughts will become more intense in many parts of the world if the planet keeps heating up, which could disrupt the world’s food supply.
Rules Get Review
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is reviewing part of a controversial rule that sets the first federal standards to reduce mercury and other toxic pollutants from power plants. The review was prompted by power plant operators who found the rule was confusing for new plants.
The EPA also has issued new—and largely unnoticed—rules limiting sulfur dioxide and soot emissions from cruise ships. The new rules, which go into effect Aug. 1, would require cruise ships to immediately reduce the sulfur content of their fuel from an average of 2.7 percent to 1 percent, and to reduce that number to 0.1 percent by 2015. EPA estimates the benefits of the new rule, by 2015, will be like removing 12.7 million and 900,000 cars off the road per day in terms of sulfur dioxide and soot emissions. The cruise ship industry and some Alaskan officials worry about the increased cost and availability of the lower-sulfur fuel, however, and Alaska’s attorney general has filed a lawsuit to block the new rules.
The European Commission announced a rescue plan that would withhold carbon allowances to support its Emissions Trading Scheme, which has struggled of late due to an oversupply of carbon credits. The rescue plan would involve “backloading,” or delaying auctions of carbon allowances, in an effort to bolster the program. While there are no firm numbers in the draft proposal itself, a Commission analysis assesses the possibility of withdrawing 400 million, 900 million or 1.2 billion allowances over the first three years of the market’s next phase.
Cars that Drive Themselves
Motor vehicles are responsible for a significant percentage of U.S. carbon emissions. As YaleE360 tells it, self driving cars—which could greatly reduce the risk of accidents and slash fuel consumption and emissions—may be a reality sooner than you think.
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.
BP has made headlines again, two years after the Gulf oil spill. For the spill, the company stands to pay billions of dollars in environmental fines under the Clean Water Act; a new study indicates thousands of jobs could be created along the coast if those funds were used for coastal restoration. Specifically, if $1.5 billion per year over the course of the next decade were spent on coastal restoration, it could result in close to 57,000 jobs. Penalty figures are still being decided.
As Hollywood actors are clenched in a legal battle over technology that may have helped clean the Gulf following the spill, federal investigators are looking at whether BP officials lied to Congress about just how much oil was actually leaking between April 20 and July 15, 2010. Internal e-mails, to the highest levels of BP, show a struggle over well flow and reveal that some company engineers warned early on that size estimates of the undersea leak might be too low. Meanwhile, another set of recently released e-mails—some 3,000 to be exact—is stirring up controversy. In a Boston Globe op-ed two Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute scientists detail how they reluctantly acceded to BP’s demands for confidential e-mails detailing the scientific process they used to calculate oil flow rate following a court order. The scientists cited concerns over “not simply invasion of privacy, but the erosion of the scientific deliberative process.” BP’s request for access to White House e-mails related to the spill, however, was denied.
While people are beginning to return to the Gulf to vacation and Gulf leases to oil and gas companies are on sale for the first time since the spill, the tiny microbes that once inhabited the area’s beach sands still haven’t bounced back.
Negotiators Face Stumbling Blocks on Way to Rio+20
Spring in the U.S. has been the warmest since record keeping started in 1895. As temperatures rise, representatives from some 135 heads of state will be present when United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20 Earth Summit, begins June 20. A newly surfaced document indicates there may be some difficulty reaching a blueprint for sustainable development that all can agree on. Specifically, just 20 percent of the wording in the draft—addressing everything from corporate sustainability reporting to universal access to clean energy—has been agreed upon. With the deadline for negotiations soon approaching, WWF director general Jim Leape worried about the prospect of “an agreement so weak it is meaningless, or complete collapse.”
In a recent interview with Yale e360, the International Energy Agency’s Fatih Birol urges countries to band together to address dangerous rises in global temperatures. “Individual efforts of countries or sectors will not bring us to 2 degrees,” said Birol. “And if the trends continue like this, we can very soon kiss goodbye to a 2-degree trajectory.”
Despite worldwide criticism, a senate panel in North Carolina approved a bill that would prohibit some scientific data to be used to predict future sea level rise. The current bill allows only the state’s Coastal Resources Commission to calculate the rate of rise using historic data, not projections of sea level rise from climate change. The senate went on to approve the controversial bill Tuesday by a vote of 35-12. Virginia appears to have taken a similar approach. Lawmakers there have commissioned a study of the coastline, only after references to climate change were removed.
The New Hampshire legislature passed a bill that would pave the way for the state to exit the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), but the law would require that two other states leave the cap-and-trade pact first. New England’s emissions have fallen recently—supporters of the cap-and-trade pact attribute this RGGI; others say cheap natural gas explains the decrease. “Natural gas has changed the complexion of the whole situation,” said the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions’ Brian Murray. Meanwhile, a New York judge has dismissed a lawsuit that would have ended that state’s participation in RGGI.
U.S. Energy Output Soars
As global energy consumption grew 2.5 percent worldwide, so did the United States’ energy output, as the U.S. became the world’s largest natural gas producer and its oil output grew more than any nation outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Meanwhile, two industry groups have come out with a study indicating the Obama administration has overestimated methane emissions from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. This comes after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued the first regulations for fracking in April.
North Carolina is closer to legalizing hydraulic fracturing, despite new evidence that the state’s reserves might be much smaller than previously thought. New Jersey is looking to restrict wastewater treatment plants from accepting water used in hydraulic fracturing—claiming it could harm water supplies.
Hydraulic fracturing is not the only energy method in the spotlight. A new U.N. report shows global investment in renewable energy is at a record high. In fact, in 2011 it was up 17 percent to $257 billion—with solar investment surging past wind to take the lead.
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.