NY Times
October 30, 2006
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
DENVER — Cheers fit for a revival meeting swept a hotel ballroom as 1,800 entrepreneurs and experts watched a PowerPoint presentation of the most promising technologies for limiting global warming: solar power, wind, ethanol and other farmed fuels, energy-efficient buildings and fuel-sipping cars.
“Houston,” Charles F. Kutscher, chairman of the Solar 2006 conference, concluded in a twist on the line from the movie “Apollo 13,” “we have a solution.”
Hold the applause. For all the enthusiasm about alternatives to coal and oil, the challenge of limiting emissions of carbon dioxide, which traps heat, will be immense in a world likely to add 2.5 billion people by midcentury, a host of other experts say. Moreover, most of those people will live in countries like China and India, which are just beginning to enjoy an electrified, air-conditioned mobile society.
The challenge is all the more daunting because research into energy technologies by both government and industry has not been rising, but rather falling.
In the United States, annual federal spending for all energy research and development — not just the research aimed at climate-friendly technologies — is less than half what it was a quarter-century ago. It has sunk to $3 billion a year in the current budget from an inflation-adjusted peak of $7.7 billion in 1979, according to several different studies.
Britain, for one, has sounded a loud alarm about the need for prompt action on the climate issue, including more research. [A report commissioned by the British government and scheduled to be released today calls for spending to be doubled worldwide on research into low-carbon technologies; without it, the report says, coastal flooding and a shortage of drinking water could turn 200 million people into refugees.]
President Bush has sought an increase to $4.2 billion for 2007, but that would still be a small fraction of what most climate and energy experts say would be needed.
Federal spending on medical research, by contrast, has nearly quadrupled, to $28 billion annually, since 1979. Military research has increased 260 percent, and at more than $75 billion a year is 20 times the amount spent on energy research.
Internationally, government energy research trends are little different from those in the United States. Japan is the only economic power that increased research spending in recent decades, with growth focused on efficiency and solar technology, according to the International Energy Agency.
In the private sector, studies show that energy companies have a long tradition of eschewing long-term technology quests because of the lack of short-term payoffs.
Still, more than four dozen scientists, economists, engineers and entrepreneurs interviewed by The New York Times said that unless the search for abundant non-polluting energy sources and systems became far more aggressive, the world would probably face dangerous warming and international strife as nations with growing energy demands compete for increasingly inadequate resources.
Most of these experts also say existing energy alternatives and improvements in energy efficiency are simply not enough.
“We cannot come close to stabilizing temperatures” unless humans, by the end of the century, stop adding more CO2 to the atmosphere than it can absorb, said W. David Montgomery of Charles River Associates, a consulting group, “and that will be an economic impossibility without a major R.& D. investment.”
A sustained push is needed not just to refine, test and deploy known low-carbon technologies, but also to find “energy technologies that don’t have a name yet,” said James A. Edmonds, a chief scientist at the Joint Global Change Research Institute of the University of Maryland and the Energy Department.
At the same time, many energy experts and economists agree on another daunting point: To make any resulting “alternative” energy options the new norm will require attaching a significant cost to the carbon emissions from coal, oil and gas.
“A price incentive stirs people to look at a thousand different things,’ ” said Henry D. Jacoby, a climate and energy expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
For now, a carbon cap or tax is opposed by President Bush, most American lawmakers and many industries. And there are scant signs of consensus on a long-term successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the first treaty obligating participating industrial countries to cut warming emissions. (The United States has not ratified the pact.)
The next round of talks on Kyoto and an underlying voluntary treaty will take place next month in Nairobi, Kenya.
Environmental campaigners, focused on promptly establishing binding limits on emissions of heat-trapping gases, have tended to play down the need for big investments seeking energy breakthroughs. At the end of “An Inconvenient Truth,” former Vice President Al Gore’s documentary film on climate change, he concluded: “We already know everything we need to know to effectively address this problem.”
While applauding Mr. Gore’s enthusiasm, many energy experts said this stance was counterproductive because there was no way, given global growth in energy demand, that existing technology could avert a doubling or more of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide in this century.
Mr. Gore has since adjusted his stance, saying existing technology is sufficient to start on the path to a stable climate.
Other researchers say the chances of success are so low, unless something breaks the societal impasse, that any technology quest should also include work on increasing the resilience to climate extremes — through actions like developing more drought-tolerant crops — as well as last-ditch climate fixes, like testing ways to block some incoming sunlight to counter warming.
Without big reductions in emissions, the midrange projections of most scenarios envision a rise of 4 degrees or so in this century, four times the warming in the last 100 years. That could, among other effects, produce a disruptive mix of intensified flooding and withering droughts in the world’s prime agricultural regions.
Sir Nicholas Stern, the chief of Britain’s economic service and author of the new government report on climate options, has summarized the cumulative nature of the threat succinctly: “The sting is in the tail.”
The Carbon Dioxide Problem
Many factors intersect to make the prompt addressing of global warming very difficult, experts say.
A central hurdle is that carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere like unpaid credit card debt as long as emissions exceed the rate at which the gas is naturally removed from the atmosphere by the oceans and plants. But the technologies producing the emissions evolve slowly.
A typical new coal-fired power plant, one of the largest sources of emissions, is expected to operate for many decades. About one large coal-burning plant is being commissioned a week, mostly in China.
“We’ve got a $12 trillion capital investment in the world energy economy and a turnover time of 30 to 40 years,” said John P. Holdren, a physicist and climate expert at Harvard University and president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “If you want it to look different in 30 or 40 years, you’d better start now.”
Many experts say this means the only way to affordably speed the transition to low-emissions energy is with advances in technologies at all stages of maturity.
Examples include:
¶ Substantially improving the efficiency and cost of solar panels;
¶ Conducting full-scale tests of systems for capturing carbon dioxide from power plants and pumping it underground;
¶ Seeking efficient ways to generate fuels from crops;
¶ Finding new ways to store vast amounts of energy harvested intermittently from the wind and sun.
Carbon dioxide levels will stabilize only if each generation persists in developing and deploying alternatives to unfettered fossil-fuel emissions, said Robert H. Socolow, a physicist and co-director of a Princeton “carbon mitigation initiative” created with $20 million from BP and Ford Motor.
The most immediate gains could come simply by increasing energy efficiency. If efficiency gains in transportation, buildings, power transmission and other areas were doubled from the longstanding rate of 1 percent per year to 2 percent, Dr. Holdren wrote in the M.I.T. journal Innovations earlier this year, that could hold the amount of new nonpolluting energy required by 2100 to the amount derived from fossil fuels in 2000 —a huge challenge, but not impossible.
Another area requiring immediate intensified work, Dr. Holdren and other experts say, is large-scale demonstration of systems for capturing carbon dioxide from coal burning before too many old-style plants are built.
All of the components for capturing carbon dioxide and disposing of it underground are already in use, particularly in oil fields, where pressurized carbon dioxide is used to drive the last dregs of oil from the ground.
In this area, said David Keith, an energy expert at the University of Calgary, “We just need to build the damn things on a billion-dollar scale.”
In the United States, the biggest effort along these lines is the 285-megawatt Futuregen power plant planned by the Energy Department, along with private and international partners, that was announced in 2003 by President Bush and is scheduled to be built in either Illinois or Texas by 2012. James L. Connaughton, the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the Bush administration was making this a high priority.
“We share the view that a significantly more aggressive agenda on carbon capture and storage and zero-pollution coal is necessary,” he said, adding that the administration has raised annual spending on storage options “from essentially zero to over $70 million.”
Europe is pursuing a suite of such plants, including one in China, but also well behind the necessary pace, several experts said.
Even within the Energy Department, some experts are voicing frustration over the pace of such programs. “What I don’t like about Futuregen,” said Dr. Kutscher, an engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., “is the word ‘future’ in there.”
Beyond a Holding Action
No matter what happens in the next decade or so, many experts say, the second and probably hardest phase of stabilizing the level of carbon dioxide will fall to the generation of engineers and entrepreneurs now in diapers, and the one after that. And those innovators will not have much to build on without greatly increased investment now in basic research.
There is plenty of ferment. Current research ranges from work on algae strains that can turn sunlight into hydrogen fuel to the inkjet-style printing of photovoltaic cells — a technique that could greatly cut solar-energy costs if it worked on a large scale. One company is promoting high-flying kite-like windmills to harvest the boundless energy in the jet stream.
But all of the small-scale experimentation will never move into the energy marketplace without a much bigger push not only for research and development, but for the lesser-known steps known as demonstration and deployment.
In this arena, there is a vital role for government spending, many experts agree, particularly on “enabling technologies” — innovations that would never be pursued by private industry because they mainly amount to a public good, not a potential source of profit, said Christopher Green, an economist at McGill University.
Examples include refining ways to securely handle radioactive waste from nuclear reactors; testing repositories for carbon dioxide captured at power plants; and, perhaps more important, improving the electricity grid so that it can manage large flows from intermittent sources like windmills and solar panels.
“Without storage possibilities on a large scale,” Mr. Green said, “solar and wind will be relegated to niche status.”
While private investors and entrepreneurs are jumping into alternative energy projects, they cannot be counted on to solve such problems, economists say, because even the most aggressive venture capitalists want a big payback within five years.
Many scientists say the only real long-term prospect for significantly substituting for fossil fuels is a breakthrough in harvesting solar power. This has been understood since the days of Thomas Edison. In a conversation with Henry Ford and the tire tycoon Harvey Firestone in 1931, shortly before Edison died, he said: “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”
California, following models set in Japan and Germany, is trying to help solar energy with various incentives.
But such initiatives mainly pull existing technologies into the market, experts say, and do little to propel private research toward the next big advances.
The Role of Leadership
At the federal level, the Bush administration was criticized by Republican and Democratic lawmakers at several recent hearings on climate change.
Mr. Connaughton, the lead White House official on the environment, said most critics are not aware of how much has been done.
“This administration has developed the most sophisticated and carefully considered strategic plan for advancing the technologies that are a necessary part of the climate solution,” he said. He added that the administration must weigh tradeoffs with other pressing demands like health care.
Since 2001, when Mr. Bush abandoned a campaign pledge to limit carbon dioxide from power plants, he has said that too little is known about specific dangers of global warming to justify hard targets or mandatory curbs for the gas.
He has also asserted that any solution will lie less in regulation than in innovation.
“My answer to the energy question also is an answer to how you deal with the greenhouse-gas issue, and that is new technologies will change how we live,” he said in May.
But critics, including some Republican lawmakers, now say that mounting evidence for risks — including findings that administration officials have tried to suppress of late — justifies prompt, more aggressive action to pay for or spur research and speed the movement of climate-friendly energy options into the marketplace.
Martin I. Hoffert, an emeritus professor of physics at New York University, said that what was needed was for a leader to articulate the energy challenge as President John F. Kennedy made his case for the mission to the moon. President Kennedy said his space goals were imperative, “not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
In a report on competitiveness and research released last year, the National Academies, the country’s top science advisory body, urged the government to substantially expand spending on long-term basic research, particularly on energy.
The report, titled “Rising Above the Gathering Storm,” recommended that the Energy Department create a research-financing body similar to the 48-year-old Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, to make grants and attack a variety of energy questions, including climate change.
Darpa, created after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, was set up outside the sway of Congress to provide advances in areas like weapons, surveillance and defensive systems. But it also produced technologies like the Internet and the global positioning system for navigation.
Mr. Connaughton said it would be premature to conclude that a new agency was needed for energy innovation.
But many experts, from oil-industry officials to ecologists, agree that the status quo for energy research will not suffice.
The benefits of an intensified energy quest would go far beyond cutting the risks of dangerous climate change, said Roger H. Bezdek, an economist at Management Information Systems, a consulting group.
The world economy, he said, is facing two simultaneous energy challenges beyond global warming: the end of relatively cheap and easy oil, and the explosive demand for fuel in developing countries.
Advanced research should be diversified like an investment portfolio, he said. “The big payoff comes from a small number of very large winners,” he said. “Unfortunately, we cannot pick the winners in advance.”
Ultimately, a big increase in government spending on basic energy research will happen only if scientists can persuade the public and politicians that it is an essential hedge against potential calamity.
That may be the biggest hurdle of all, given the unfamiliar nature of the slowly building problem — the antithesis of epochal events like Pearl Harbor, Sputnik and 9/11 that triggered sweeping enterprises.
“We’re good at rushing in with white hats,” said Bobi Garrett, associate director of planning and technology management at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “This is not a problem where you can do that.”
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
John F. Wasik: Global warming is likely to hit your wallet
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 10/29/06
GLOBAL WARMING IS challenging celebrity worship as the latest obsession in worldwide media. Magazines from Newsweek to Scientific American have devoted issues to this threatening phenomenon.
If global warming triggers devastating climate change and disrupts world agriculture, financial markets will also react severely. It will be "the mother of all market corrections," according to David Korten in his book "The Great Turning."
Overlay other widely circulated premises that oil and gas production may have reached its peak or might be subject to regional supply shutdowns, and it's clear you have a menacing leviathan lurking about.
Retirement savings hurt
On a personal level, energy prices socked almost every consumer this year, curtailing other financial goals. In a survey conducted by Boston-based Fidelity Investments, more than three-quarters of U.S. households said "steep fuel prices in recent months had hurt their ability to save for retirement."
Is it a stretch to say that global warming is also a significant personal-finance issue?
Most of the electricity generated in the U.S. is produced by fossil fuels, namely coal and natural gas. The more power that is produced — with the exception of energy from nuclear, hydroelectric and alternative technologies — the more atmosphere-heating carbon dioxide is spewed into the air.
While coal is cheap and abundant on most continents, the costs to the environment are hurting the physical and economic health of everyone. Pollutants released by burning coal circle the globe, scientists have found.
In lieu of a massive changeover to alternative energy systems — something that will happen over decades — the cost of "cleaning up" fossil-fuel power will rise.
Homeowners will ultimately foot the bill for cleaner power and heat in terms of higher utility payments.
Another troubling scenario is the catastrophic reduction of oil or natural-gas supplies through terrorist attacks. Major oil and gas production is dangerously concentrated in volatile areas such as the Middle East.
"A single well-designed attack could send oil prices to well over $100 a barrel and devastate the world's economy," the Committee on the Present Danger, an antiterrorism group in Washington, said in a paper co-written by former Secretary of State George Schultz and former CIA Director James Woolsey.
Woolsey, now an energy consultant for Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., a global consulting firm based in New York City, advocates the production of cellulosic ethanol from agricultural waste; 125 mile-per-gallon "plug-in" hybrid autos that recharge using cheap electricity at night; improved diesel vehicles; and a reduction of the amount the U.S. borrows to pay for imported oil.
"The U.S. in essence borrows about $2 billion a day, every day, principally from Asian states, to finance its consumption," the paper states. "The single-largest category of imports is the approximately $1 billion per working day borrowed to import oil. The accumulating debt increases the risk of a flight from the dollar or major increases in interest rates."
Lack of attention
The committee's study is bolstered by a recent report by the Council on Foreign Relations that concludes "the lack of sustained attention to energy issues is undercutting U.S. foreign policy and U.S. national security."
Global warming and escalating energy prices may make the North American status quo of vehicle-based commuting, large suburban homes, mammoth shopping malls and urban sprawl economically unsustainable. Yet such dire pronouncements are daunting for most people.
How do you personalize this issue? A useful starting point is reducing your "carbon footprint," which is the amount of carbon dioxide your lifestyle is generating from your home- energy use and transportation habits.
Enter your energy-consumption estimates into a carbon calculator. There's one at www.cool-it.us. Then see what you can do to alter your daily routine to lower your output. Here are some basic suggestions:
If remodeling or building new, install the most energy-efficient appliances, lighting, doors, windows and heating- cooling systems. The U.S. government — and many European and Asian agencies — is offering tax credits for everything from solar panels to low-emission windows.
Downsize your transportation. You don't have to buy an expensive hybrid gas-electric vehicle to save on fuel and emissions. According to the Consumer Federation of America, a public-interest group, there's a 100 percent variance in mileage ratings within each class of vehicle. Shop carefully and buy the one with the best mileage that suits your needs.
Comprehensive energy legislation is needed to marry tax incentives with tougher efficiency standards for appliances, homes and vehicles, and to make buildings and factories energy misers and producers.
Reducing your carbon footprint will not only make a difference environmentally, it will lower your home-operating expenses, simplify your lifestyle and free up more money to save for your financial goals.
ON THE WEB: Visit our Web site, www.app.com, and click on this story for a link to a bonus William Pesek Jr. column.
John F. Wasik is a columnist for Bloomberg News.
GLOBAL WARMING IS challenging celebrity worship as the latest obsession in worldwide media. Magazines from Newsweek to Scientific American have devoted issues to this threatening phenomenon.
If global warming triggers devastating climate change and disrupts world agriculture, financial markets will also react severely. It will be "the mother of all market corrections," according to David Korten in his book "The Great Turning."
Overlay other widely circulated premises that oil and gas production may have reached its peak or might be subject to regional supply shutdowns, and it's clear you have a menacing leviathan lurking about.
Retirement savings hurt
On a personal level, energy prices socked almost every consumer this year, curtailing other financial goals. In a survey conducted by Boston-based Fidelity Investments, more than three-quarters of U.S. households said "steep fuel prices in recent months had hurt their ability to save for retirement."
Is it a stretch to say that global warming is also a significant personal-finance issue?
Most of the electricity generated in the U.S. is produced by fossil fuels, namely coal and natural gas. The more power that is produced — with the exception of energy from nuclear, hydroelectric and alternative technologies — the more atmosphere-heating carbon dioxide is spewed into the air.
While coal is cheap and abundant on most continents, the costs to the environment are hurting the physical and economic health of everyone. Pollutants released by burning coal circle the globe, scientists have found.
In lieu of a massive changeover to alternative energy systems — something that will happen over decades — the cost of "cleaning up" fossil-fuel power will rise.
Homeowners will ultimately foot the bill for cleaner power and heat in terms of higher utility payments.
Another troubling scenario is the catastrophic reduction of oil or natural-gas supplies through terrorist attacks. Major oil and gas production is dangerously concentrated in volatile areas such as the Middle East.
"A single well-designed attack could send oil prices to well over $100 a barrel and devastate the world's economy," the Committee on the Present Danger, an antiterrorism group in Washington, said in a paper co-written by former Secretary of State George Schultz and former CIA Director James Woolsey.
Woolsey, now an energy consultant for Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., a global consulting firm based in New York City, advocates the production of cellulosic ethanol from agricultural waste; 125 mile-per-gallon "plug-in" hybrid autos that recharge using cheap electricity at night; improved diesel vehicles; and a reduction of the amount the U.S. borrows to pay for imported oil.
"The U.S. in essence borrows about $2 billion a day, every day, principally from Asian states, to finance its consumption," the paper states. "The single-largest category of imports is the approximately $1 billion per working day borrowed to import oil. The accumulating debt increases the risk of a flight from the dollar or major increases in interest rates."
Lack of attention
The committee's study is bolstered by a recent report by the Council on Foreign Relations that concludes "the lack of sustained attention to energy issues is undercutting U.S. foreign policy and U.S. national security."
Global warming and escalating energy prices may make the North American status quo of vehicle-based commuting, large suburban homes, mammoth shopping malls and urban sprawl economically unsustainable. Yet such dire pronouncements are daunting for most people.
How do you personalize this issue? A useful starting point is reducing your "carbon footprint," which is the amount of carbon dioxide your lifestyle is generating from your home- energy use and transportation habits.
Enter your energy-consumption estimates into a carbon calculator. There's one at www.cool-it.us. Then see what you can do to alter your daily routine to lower your output. Here are some basic suggestions:
If remodeling or building new, install the most energy-efficient appliances, lighting, doors, windows and heating- cooling systems. The U.S. government — and many European and Asian agencies — is offering tax credits for everything from solar panels to low-emission windows.
Downsize your transportation. You don't have to buy an expensive hybrid gas-electric vehicle to save on fuel and emissions. According to the Consumer Federation of America, a public-interest group, there's a 100 percent variance in mileage ratings within each class of vehicle. Shop carefully and buy the one with the best mileage that suits your needs.
Comprehensive energy legislation is needed to marry tax incentives with tougher efficiency standards for appliances, homes and vehicles, and to make buildings and factories energy misers and producers.
Reducing your carbon footprint will not only make a difference environmentally, it will lower your home-operating expenses, simplify your lifestyle and free up more money to save for your financial goals.
ON THE WEB: Visit our Web site, www.app.com, and click on this story for a link to a bonus William Pesek Jr. column.
John F. Wasik is a columnist for Bloomberg News.
Sprague to open biofuel facility in S. Portland
Portland Press Herald
Tux Turkel
October 31, 2006
A new biofuels facility set to open in December on the South Portland waterfront will help boost the use of blended petroleum for heating and transportation in southern Maine, the project's owner said Monday.
Sprague Energy Corp. will set aside a 40,000-gallon tank to hold the biofuel and use an automated injection system to mix it in trucks carrying heating oil and diesel fuel.
The facility is being located at Sprague's South Portland terminal. The company recently set up similar blending operations at terminals in Albany and Long Island, N.Y.
"The announcement of this latest biofuel facility for Sprague Energy keeps us at the forefront of clean fuels distribution in the Northeast," said John McClellan, Sprague's president and chief executive officer.
McClellan is scheduled to make further remarks this afternoon during a news conference at the terminal. Other speakers are to include Gov. John Baldacci, Beth Nagusky, director of the Office of Energy Independence and Security, and Kevin Carley, executive director of the Maine Audubon Society.
Biofuels are made by mixing vegetable oil with petroleum. Retailers typically sell concentrations ranging from 5 percent to 20 percent. The resulting blend reduces air pollution and cuts dependence on petroleum, when burned in diesel engines and furnaces.
Sprague said the company is making today's announcement to get the word out to local oil dealers and customers that fuel for bioheat is readily available in southern Maine.
Increased use of biofuels is supported by the state of Maine, which uses the blend to heat buildings. The Legislature also enacted a biofuel production tax credit and excise tax reduction.
Biofuel currently is available in Portland Harbor from Frontier Energy Corp., a leading wholesaler and distributor of the alternative product. The company maintains a 12,000-gallon biofuel depot not far from the Sprague terminal. Brad Taylor, Frontier's president, said he welcomed Sprague's efforts to promote biodiesel.
"It means there's more demand out there," he said. "I think there's room in the market."
Sprague plans to get its biofuel supply from pure soybean oil delivered by rail from the Midwest. By using the injection technology, the company will offer a fuel that's blended precisely for better performance, according to Andy Lynch, Sprague's marketing communications manager.
Lynch said he wasn't sure how much biofuel Sprague might sell, but he anticipated growth in the heating oil market. The Albany operation, he said, has created more than 1 million gallons of blended fuel since March from two 20,000-gallon tanks.
"We're really turning over those tanks and we expect the Portland area to follow," he said.
Staff writer Tux Turkel can be contacted at 791-6462 or at:
tturkel@pressherald.com
Tux Turkel
October 31, 2006
A new biofuels facility set to open in December on the South Portland waterfront will help boost the use of blended petroleum for heating and transportation in southern Maine, the project's owner said Monday.
Sprague Energy Corp. will set aside a 40,000-gallon tank to hold the biofuel and use an automated injection system to mix it in trucks carrying heating oil and diesel fuel.
The facility is being located at Sprague's South Portland terminal. The company recently set up similar blending operations at terminals in Albany and Long Island, N.Y.
"The announcement of this latest biofuel facility for Sprague Energy keeps us at the forefront of clean fuels distribution in the Northeast," said John McClellan, Sprague's president and chief executive officer.
McClellan is scheduled to make further remarks this afternoon during a news conference at the terminal. Other speakers are to include Gov. John Baldacci, Beth Nagusky, director of the Office of Energy Independence and Security, and Kevin Carley, executive director of the Maine Audubon Society.
Biofuels are made by mixing vegetable oil with petroleum. Retailers typically sell concentrations ranging from 5 percent to 20 percent. The resulting blend reduces air pollution and cuts dependence on petroleum, when burned in diesel engines and furnaces.
Sprague said the company is making today's announcement to get the word out to local oil dealers and customers that fuel for bioheat is readily available in southern Maine.
Increased use of biofuels is supported by the state of Maine, which uses the blend to heat buildings. The Legislature also enacted a biofuel production tax credit and excise tax reduction.
Biofuel currently is available in Portland Harbor from Frontier Energy Corp., a leading wholesaler and distributor of the alternative product. The company maintains a 12,000-gallon biofuel depot not far from the Sprague terminal. Brad Taylor, Frontier's president, said he welcomed Sprague's efforts to promote biodiesel.
"It means there's more demand out there," he said. "I think there's room in the market."
Sprague plans to get its biofuel supply from pure soybean oil delivered by rail from the Midwest. By using the injection technology, the company will offer a fuel that's blended precisely for better performance, according to Andy Lynch, Sprague's marketing communications manager.
Lynch said he wasn't sure how much biofuel Sprague might sell, but he anticipated growth in the heating oil market. The Albany operation, he said, has created more than 1 million gallons of blended fuel since March from two 20,000-gallon tanks.
"We're really turning over those tanks and we expect the Portland area to follow," he said.
Staff writer Tux Turkel can be contacted at 791-6462 or at:
tturkel@pressherald.com
Monday, October 30, 2006
Kyoto Failing to Cool the Planet
Associated Press 08:15 AM Oct, 30, 2006
The industrialized world's emissions of greenhouse gases are growing again, despite efforts under the Kyoto Protocol to cap them and stave off global warming, the United Nations reported Monday.
Emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases declined in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the shutdown of polluting factories and power plants in eastern Europe. But now those economies are rebounding, contributing to a 2.4 percent rise in emissions by 41 industrialized nations between 2000 and 2004.
"This means that industrialized countries will need to intensify their efforts to implement strong policies which reduce greenhouse gas emissions," said Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. climate treaty secretariat, referring to taxes on carbon-based fuels, energy-efficiency regulations and other steps.
Scientists attribute a 1 degree Fahrenheit rise in global temperatures in the last century in part to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, a trend they say will lead to climate disruptions.
Under the 1997 Kyoto accord, 35 industrialized nations have committed to reducing emissions by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. The United States, the biggest emitter, rejects the agreement.
Between 1990 and 2004, emissions of all industrialized countries decreased by 3.3 percent, mostly because of a 36.8 percent decrease in the former Soviet bloc, the U.N. reported. Since 2000, however, those "economies in transition" have increased emissions by 4.1 percent.
Of the 41 industrialized nations, 34 increased emissions between 2000 and 2004, the U.N. reported. In the United States, source of two-fifths of the industrialized world's greenhouse gases, emissions grew by 1.3 percent in that period, and by almost 16 percent between 1990 and 2004.
Among countries bound by Kyoto, Germany's emissions dropped 17 percent between 1990 and 2004, Britain's by 14 percent and France's by almost 1 percent, the U.N. reported.
But Kyoto signatories such as Japan, Italy and Spain have registered emissions increases since 1990. De Boer said such countries will have to make extensive use of Kyoto's market-based programs, such as the Clean Development Mechanism. That program allows northern nations to buy credits from emission-reduction projects in the developing world, which is not bound by Kyoto quotas.
The 41 nations defined as industrialized by the 1992 U.N. climate treaty do not include fast-developing Third World countries like China and India.
On a positive note, the U.N. said the industrialized world is growing more energy-efficient. Between 2000 and 2004, it said, it took 7 percent less greenhouse gas to produce a dollar of gross domestic product.
The industrialized world's emissions of greenhouse gases are growing again, despite efforts under the Kyoto Protocol to cap them and stave off global warming, the United Nations reported Monday.
Emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases declined in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the shutdown of polluting factories and power plants in eastern Europe. But now those economies are rebounding, contributing to a 2.4 percent rise in emissions by 41 industrialized nations between 2000 and 2004.
"This means that industrialized countries will need to intensify their efforts to implement strong policies which reduce greenhouse gas emissions," said Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. climate treaty secretariat, referring to taxes on carbon-based fuels, energy-efficiency regulations and other steps.
Scientists attribute a 1 degree Fahrenheit rise in global temperatures in the last century in part to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, a trend they say will lead to climate disruptions.
Under the 1997 Kyoto accord, 35 industrialized nations have committed to reducing emissions by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. The United States, the biggest emitter, rejects the agreement.
Between 1990 and 2004, emissions of all industrialized countries decreased by 3.3 percent, mostly because of a 36.8 percent decrease in the former Soviet bloc, the U.N. reported. Since 2000, however, those "economies in transition" have increased emissions by 4.1 percent.
Of the 41 industrialized nations, 34 increased emissions between 2000 and 2004, the U.N. reported. In the United States, source of two-fifths of the industrialized world's greenhouse gases, emissions grew by 1.3 percent in that period, and by almost 16 percent between 1990 and 2004.
Among countries bound by Kyoto, Germany's emissions dropped 17 percent between 1990 and 2004, Britain's by 14 percent and France's by almost 1 percent, the U.N. reported.
But Kyoto signatories such as Japan, Italy and Spain have registered emissions increases since 1990. De Boer said such countries will have to make extensive use of Kyoto's market-based programs, such as the Clean Development Mechanism. That program allows northern nations to buy credits from emission-reduction projects in the developing world, which is not bound by Kyoto quotas.
The 41 nations defined as industrialized by the 1992 U.N. climate treaty do not include fast-developing Third World countries like China and India.
On a positive note, the U.N. said the industrialized world is growing more energy-efficient. Between 2000 and 2004, it said, it took 7 percent less greenhouse gas to produce a dollar of gross domestic product.
World oil production may have peaked-executive
Reuters
October 26, 2006
By Scott Malone
BOSTON, Oct 26 (Reuters) - World production of crude oil may have already peaked, setting the stage for declining output that could lag demand, a top advocate of the "peak oil" theory said on Thursday.
Matthew Simmons, chairman of Simmons & Co. International, a Houston-based investment banking firm specializing in the energy sector, said U.S. government data showed that the world oil supply has declined through the first half of this year.
Energy Information Administration data showed world supply of crude oil has declined to 83.98 million barrels per day in the second quarter after hitting 84.35 million bpd in the fourth quarter of 2005.
"If you basically have another six to ten months of that decline lasting, then I think for certain we would look back and say, 'Guess what? We actually reached a sustainable peak in crude oil production in December 2005,'" Simmons said at a meeting of the United States of the the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas.
The peak oil theory has detractors, who note technology can help extend the life of the world's oil reserves.
Simmons acknowledged his call may be premature, saying, "If that number turns around, that will be wrong."
TEMPERED VIEW
Other speakers at the conference took a more tempered view of the world's oil capacity, arguing that peak production is still a few years out.
"Conventional oil production is going to increase by a few million barrels a day between now and the period between 2010 and 2015," when it may peak, said Mike Rodgers, a partner at PFC Energy, an energy industry consulting company.
Advocates of the peak oil theory, however, said a decline in high oil prices was likely to lead to less pressure for oil companies to invest in production.
Rising demand for oil, stoked by the rapid economic development of China and India, have helped to drive oil prices to record highs. U.S. oil futures peaked above $78 in July, but have since eased to about $61 per barrel.
"If the supply and demand are such that we see declining oil prices, and given that the economy functioned pretty well through a period of high oil prices, the question is -- are policymakers going to lose focus on this problem?" Rodgers asked. "I would argue that they probably will."
It's hard to determine just how much oil is left in the world, since companies in different countries use varying standards to calculate their oil reserves, speakers said.
Major oil companies haven't raised the specter of peak supply with their shareholders.
One speaker said that could suggest their oil reserves are richer than many executives disclose, as a result of strict U.S. regulations on how public companies may estimate their reserves.
"We don't have data which allows us to study in detail the depletion of oil fields," said Jeremy Gilbert, managing director of Barrelmore Ltd. and a former top engineer at BP Plc. (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research). "The industry itself does know more about the way things are behaving, wells are producing and it may be that if we had access to that data, we might refine some of our estimates."
October 26, 2006
By Scott Malone
BOSTON, Oct 26 (Reuters) - World production of crude oil may have already peaked, setting the stage for declining output that could lag demand, a top advocate of the "peak oil" theory said on Thursday.
Matthew Simmons, chairman of Simmons & Co. International, a Houston-based investment banking firm specializing in the energy sector, said U.S. government data showed that the world oil supply has declined through the first half of this year.
Energy Information Administration data showed world supply of crude oil has declined to 83.98 million barrels per day in the second quarter after hitting 84.35 million bpd in the fourth quarter of 2005.
"If you basically have another six to ten months of that decline lasting, then I think for certain we would look back and say, 'Guess what? We actually reached a sustainable peak in crude oil production in December 2005,'" Simmons said at a meeting of the United States of the the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas.
The peak oil theory has detractors, who note technology can help extend the life of the world's oil reserves.
Simmons acknowledged his call may be premature, saying, "If that number turns around, that will be wrong."
TEMPERED VIEW
Other speakers at the conference took a more tempered view of the world's oil capacity, arguing that peak production is still a few years out.
"Conventional oil production is going to increase by a few million barrels a day between now and the period between 2010 and 2015," when it may peak, said Mike Rodgers, a partner at PFC Energy, an energy industry consulting company.
Advocates of the peak oil theory, however, said a decline in high oil prices was likely to lead to less pressure for oil companies to invest in production.
Rising demand for oil, stoked by the rapid economic development of China and India, have helped to drive oil prices to record highs. U.S. oil futures peaked above $78 in July, but have since eased to about $61 per barrel.
"If the supply and demand are such that we see declining oil prices, and given that the economy functioned pretty well through a period of high oil prices, the question is -- are policymakers going to lose focus on this problem?" Rodgers asked. "I would argue that they probably will."
It's hard to determine just how much oil is left in the world, since companies in different countries use varying standards to calculate their oil reserves, speakers said.
Major oil companies haven't raised the specter of peak supply with their shareholders.
One speaker said that could suggest their oil reserves are richer than many executives disclose, as a result of strict U.S. regulations on how public companies may estimate their reserves.
"We don't have data which allows us to study in detail the depletion of oil fields," said Jeremy Gilbert, managing director of Barrelmore Ltd. and a former top engineer at BP Plc. (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research). "The industry itself does know more about the way things are behaving, wells are producing and it may be that if we had access to that data, we might refine some of our estimates."
Scientists eye ethanol boost for gasoline engines
Autocar
28 October 2006
By SCOTT MALONE
BOSTON: Injecting small quantities of ethanol into car engines at moments of peak demand – such as accelerating sharply or climbing a steep hill – could improve the fuel economy of gasoline engines by 20 percent to 30 percent, a scientist said on Wednesday.
A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is working on the system, which scientists say would allow carmakers to use smaller engines in their vehicles, reducing weight and improving fuel economy at a lower cost to consumers than by adding a hybrid engine.
"To have a big impact on reducing oil consumption, one needs a low-cost way of improving efficiency, so a lot of people buy the car," said Daniel Cohn, senior research scientist at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
He estimated that adding the ethanol injection system to a car would cost about $1,000 ($NZ1509) and that cars using the new system could be in mass production by 2011.
"We view it as a very important near-term way to reduce oil consumption," Cohn said.
Volatile U.S. retail gasoline prices – which hit a record high above $3 per gallon this summer but have since eased to around $2.20 per gallon – have piqued consumer interest in fuel-efficient cars.
"It's crucial that the internal combustion engine, whether it's gasoline or advanced diesel, is improved to the point where those improvements are meaningful," said Ron Cogan, editor of the Green Car Journal, a quarterly magazine focused on alternative powertrains.
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Much attention has focused on hybrid cars, such as Toyota Motor Corp.'s Prius, which couple an electric motor with a traditional gasoline engine to improve fuel efficiency. But they are pricey – hybrid engines can add $3,000 or more to a car's cost – and account for just about 1 percent of new car sales in the United States.
HOW IT WORKS
The U.S's Big Three Detroit automakers – General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and the Chrysler unit of DaimlerChrysler – as well as the White House have backed the adoption of cars that can burn the 85 percent ethanol-15 percent gasoline blended fuel known as E-85 as an alternative to pure gasoline, which is made from petroleum.
But the limited supply of ethanol, which is made from plant matter, limits its usefulness as a primary fuel source. There are only 900 pumping stations nationwide that sell E-85.
The MIT scientists' plan gets around the ethanol supply issue by using small amounts of it – so little that Cohn estimated the ethanol tank in cars using the technology would need to be refilled every three months or so.
A turbocharger is added to produce more power. The ethanol injection system with the turbocharger would give a driver more power than a conventional engine of the same size.
The higher pressures and temperatures of a turbocharged engine can lead to a problem known as knock, which occurs when the fuel and air in the engine explode prematurely, hurting performance and potentially damaging the engine.
Cohn said his group's technology avoids that problem by injecting ethanol into the engine when knock is likely to occur. The ethanol vaporizes and cools the fuel-air mixture, keeping it from exploding until the engine is ready.
"This is a very special feature of ethanol," Cohn said.
28 October 2006
By SCOTT MALONE
BOSTON: Injecting small quantities of ethanol into car engines at moments of peak demand – such as accelerating sharply or climbing a steep hill – could improve the fuel economy of gasoline engines by 20 percent to 30 percent, a scientist said on Wednesday.
A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is working on the system, which scientists say would allow carmakers to use smaller engines in their vehicles, reducing weight and improving fuel economy at a lower cost to consumers than by adding a hybrid engine.
"To have a big impact on reducing oil consumption, one needs a low-cost way of improving efficiency, so a lot of people buy the car," said Daniel Cohn, senior research scientist at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
He estimated that adding the ethanol injection system to a car would cost about $1,000 ($NZ1509) and that cars using the new system could be in mass production by 2011.
"We view it as a very important near-term way to reduce oil consumption," Cohn said.
Volatile U.S. retail gasoline prices – which hit a record high above $3 per gallon this summer but have since eased to around $2.20 per gallon – have piqued consumer interest in fuel-efficient cars.
"It's crucial that the internal combustion engine, whether it's gasoline or advanced diesel, is improved to the point where those improvements are meaningful," said Ron Cogan, editor of the Green Car Journal, a quarterly magazine focused on alternative powertrains.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Much attention has focused on hybrid cars, such as Toyota Motor Corp.'s Prius, which couple an electric motor with a traditional gasoline engine to improve fuel efficiency. But they are pricey – hybrid engines can add $3,000 or more to a car's cost – and account for just about 1 percent of new car sales in the United States.
HOW IT WORKS
The U.S's Big Three Detroit automakers – General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and the Chrysler unit of DaimlerChrysler – as well as the White House have backed the adoption of cars that can burn the 85 percent ethanol-15 percent gasoline blended fuel known as E-85 as an alternative to pure gasoline, which is made from petroleum.
But the limited supply of ethanol, which is made from plant matter, limits its usefulness as a primary fuel source. There are only 900 pumping stations nationwide that sell E-85.
The MIT scientists' plan gets around the ethanol supply issue by using small amounts of it – so little that Cohn estimated the ethanol tank in cars using the technology would need to be refilled every three months or so.
A turbocharger is added to produce more power. The ethanol injection system with the turbocharger would give a driver more power than a conventional engine of the same size.
The higher pressures and temperatures of a turbocharged engine can lead to a problem known as knock, which occurs when the fuel and air in the engine explode prematurely, hurting performance and potentially damaging the engine.
Cohn said his group's technology avoids that problem by injecting ethanol into the engine when knock is likely to occur. The ethanol vaporizes and cools the fuel-air mixture, keeping it from exploding until the engine is ready.
"This is a very special feature of ethanol," Cohn said.
Climate Camp Eyes U.S. Elections
Associated Press 12:00 PM Oct, 28, 2006
NEW YORK -- Delegates flying to Kenya next week for a global conference on climate are watching the turn of U.S. election seasons as much as the rise in temperatures in their effort to cool planetary warming.
Talks to extend the Kyoto Protocol's caps on greenhouse-gas emissions beyond 2012 have been marking time while governments try to draw the Bush administration, which rejects Kyoto, into the process. The Nov. 7 U.S. congressional elections may help their cause, but the diplomat presiding over the talks says 2008 will be the watershed.
"I would imagine it" -- U.S. involvement -- "would take place after the next presidential election," said Michael Zammit Cutajar of Malta.
A European climate campaigner also views it as a matter of time. "A new administration will have a different policy on the matter," said Matthias Duwe of the Belgium-based Climate Action Network Europe.
Prospective presidential candidates, including Sens. John McCain, R-Arizona, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York, say federal action is needed to rein in emissions of carbon dioxide and other industrial, automotive and agricultural gases blamed by scientists for global warming.
McCain co-sponsors one Senate proposal to cap U.S. emissions, and a half-dozen similar bills have been introduced in the Senate. Individual states are taking action, meanwhile, led by California, where a month-old law mandates greenhouse-gas reductions expected to cut that state's emissions by 25 percent by 2020.
"There's a huge amount of change going on in Congress at this time, and in the states," said Manik Roy, who monitors Congress for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a Washington research group.
"The thinking is that John McCain has the inside track at this point to get the Republican nomination, and many people view climate change as McCain's signature issue."
A key player in climate diplomacy, the European Union's environment commissioner Stavros Dimas, sees "a very important development" in changing attitudes among some U.S. businesses. Heavyweight companies -- from Shell Oil to Wal-Mart -- have endorsed mandatory emissions reductions.
But Dimas agreed U.S. mandates may have to await a new U.S. chief executive.
"I cannot understand why President Bush will not do what his successor will most probably do, that is, introduce a U.S. cap for carbon," he said in a telephone interview from Brussels. "The earlier the United States moves to exercise leadership, together with us, the earlier we shall have beneficial results for the world and the U.S."
In response, a spokeswoman for the White House's Council on Environmental Quality reiterated the position Bush took in rejecting the Kyoto agreement in 2001.
"President Bush is dedicated to advancing technologies and harnessing the power of the markets to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gases and opposes any program that could hurt the economy or simply shift emissions overseas," said Kristen Hellmer.
The U.S. administration says emission caps would damage the energy-intensive U.S. economy, and says it has devoted $29 billion over five years to research on climate and on clean-energy technology.
"There is no one-size-fits-all approach to climate change," lead U.S. climate negotiator Paula Dobriansky told The Associated Press.
Referring to bilateral deals worked out with China and others, the undersecretary of state said Washington "is committed to collaborative partnerships that advance economic growth and the development and deployment of clean, efficient energy technologies."
The Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 annex to the 189-nation U.N. climate treaty, requires 35 industrialized nations to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by an average 5 percent from 1990 levels by 2012.
At the two-week annual treaty conference, opening Nov. 6 in Nairobi and drawing up to 6,000 participants, the 165 nations that have ratified Kyoto will resume their talks on what regime of quotas and timetables should succeed that agreement after 2012.
On a "second track," meanwhile, all climate-treaty nations, including the United States, are more broadly discussing ways to confront global warming. In both forums, a central subject is when and how to control emissions by such fast-industrializing giants as China and India.
Cutajar, refereeing the post-2012 talks, said the Nairobi meeting won't produce "numbers," that is, a concrete plan.
The Kyoto countries "won't sign up to a new set of numbers until they see what is happening around them, and that includes not just developing countries, but the United States," he said.
NEW YORK -- Delegates flying to Kenya next week for a global conference on climate are watching the turn of U.S. election seasons as much as the rise in temperatures in their effort to cool planetary warming.
Talks to extend the Kyoto Protocol's caps on greenhouse-gas emissions beyond 2012 have been marking time while governments try to draw the Bush administration, which rejects Kyoto, into the process. The Nov. 7 U.S. congressional elections may help their cause, but the diplomat presiding over the talks says 2008 will be the watershed.
"I would imagine it" -- U.S. involvement -- "would take place after the next presidential election," said Michael Zammit Cutajar of Malta.
A European climate campaigner also views it as a matter of time. "A new administration will have a different policy on the matter," said Matthias Duwe of the Belgium-based Climate Action Network Europe.
Prospective presidential candidates, including Sens. John McCain, R-Arizona, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York, say federal action is needed to rein in emissions of carbon dioxide and other industrial, automotive and agricultural gases blamed by scientists for global warming.
McCain co-sponsors one Senate proposal to cap U.S. emissions, and a half-dozen similar bills have been introduced in the Senate. Individual states are taking action, meanwhile, led by California, where a month-old law mandates greenhouse-gas reductions expected to cut that state's emissions by 25 percent by 2020.
"There's a huge amount of change going on in Congress at this time, and in the states," said Manik Roy, who monitors Congress for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a Washington research group.
"The thinking is that John McCain has the inside track at this point to get the Republican nomination, and many people view climate change as McCain's signature issue."
A key player in climate diplomacy, the European Union's environment commissioner Stavros Dimas, sees "a very important development" in changing attitudes among some U.S. businesses. Heavyweight companies -- from Shell Oil to Wal-Mart -- have endorsed mandatory emissions reductions.
But Dimas agreed U.S. mandates may have to await a new U.S. chief executive.
"I cannot understand why President Bush will not do what his successor will most probably do, that is, introduce a U.S. cap for carbon," he said in a telephone interview from Brussels. "The earlier the United States moves to exercise leadership, together with us, the earlier we shall have beneficial results for the world and the U.S."
In response, a spokeswoman for the White House's Council on Environmental Quality reiterated the position Bush took in rejecting the Kyoto agreement in 2001.
"President Bush is dedicated to advancing technologies and harnessing the power of the markets to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gases and opposes any program that could hurt the economy or simply shift emissions overseas," said Kristen Hellmer.
The U.S. administration says emission caps would damage the energy-intensive U.S. economy, and says it has devoted $29 billion over five years to research on climate and on clean-energy technology.
"There is no one-size-fits-all approach to climate change," lead U.S. climate negotiator Paula Dobriansky told The Associated Press.
Referring to bilateral deals worked out with China and others, the undersecretary of state said Washington "is committed to collaborative partnerships that advance economic growth and the development and deployment of clean, efficient energy technologies."
The Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 annex to the 189-nation U.N. climate treaty, requires 35 industrialized nations to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by an average 5 percent from 1990 levels by 2012.
At the two-week annual treaty conference, opening Nov. 6 in Nairobi and drawing up to 6,000 participants, the 165 nations that have ratified Kyoto will resume their talks on what regime of quotas and timetables should succeed that agreement after 2012.
On a "second track," meanwhile, all climate-treaty nations, including the United States, are more broadly discussing ways to confront global warming. In both forums, a central subject is when and how to control emissions by such fast-industrializing giants as China and India.
Cutajar, refereeing the post-2012 talks, said the Nairobi meeting won't produce "numbers," that is, a concrete plan.
The Kyoto countries "won't sign up to a new set of numbers until they see what is happening around them, and that includes not just developing countries, but the United States," he said.
For a World of Woes, We Blame Cookie Monsters
NY Times
October 29, 2006
By GINA KOLATA
FIRST we said they were ruining their health with their bad habit, and they should just quit.
Then we said they were repulsive and we didn’t want to be around them. Then we said they were costing us loads of money — maybe they should pay extra taxes. Other Americans, after all, do not share their dissolute ways.
Cigarette smokers? No, the obese.
Last week the list of ills attributable to obesity grew: fat people cause global warming.
This latest contribution to the obesity debate comes in an article by Sheldon H. Jacobson of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and his doctoral student, Laura McLay. Their paper, published in the current issue of The Engineering Economist, calculates how much extra gasoline is used to transport Americans now that they have grown fatter. The answer, they said, is a billion gallons a year.
Their conclusion is in the same vein as a letter published last year in The American Journal of Public Health. Its authors, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, did a sort of back-of-the-envelope calculation of how much extra fuel airlines spend hauling around fatter Americans. The answer, they wrote, based on the extra 10 pounds the average American gained in the 1990’s, is 350 million gallons, which means an extra 3.8 million tons of carbon dioxide.
“People are out scouring the landscape for things that make obese people look bad,” said Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale.
And is that a bad thing? Dr. Jacobson doesn’t think so. “We felt that beyond public health, being overweight has many other socioeconomic implications,” he said, which was why he was drawn to calculating the gasoline costs of added weight.
The idea of using economic incentives to help people shed pounds comes up in the periodic calls for taxes on junk food. Martin B. Schmidt, an economist at the College of William and Mary, suggests a tax on food bought at drive-through windows. Describing his theory in a recent Op-Ed article in The New York Times, Dr. Schmidt said people would expend more calories if they had to get out of their cars to pick up their food.
“We tax cigarettes in part because of their health cost,” he wrote. “Similarly, the individual’s decision to lead a sedentary lifestyle will end up costing taxpayers.”
Eric Oliver, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, said his first instinct was to laugh at the gas and drive-through arguments. But such claims often get wide attention, he says, and take on a life of their own.
“This is like, let’s find another reason to scapegoat fat people,” Dr. Oliver says.
At an annual meeting of the Obesity Society, one talk correlated obesity with deaths in car accidents, and another correlated obesity with suicides. Dr. Oliver, who attended, said no one in the crowd of at least 200 questioned whether the correlations were really cause and effect. “The funny thing was that everyone took it seriously,” he said.
Katherine Flegal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also wryly cautions against being quick to link cause and effect. “Yes, obesity is to blame for all the evils of modern life, except somehow, weirdly, it is not killing people enough,” she said. “In fact that’s why there are all these fat people around. They just won’t die.”
The message in the blame-obesity approach, said James Marone, a political science professor at Brown University, is that it is so important to persuade fat people to lose weight that common sense disappears.
“Anything we can say to persuade you, we will say,” Dr. Marone added.
So is it working?
It doesn’t seem to be. Fat people are more reviled than ever, researchers find, even as more people become fat. When smokers and heavy drinkers turned pariah, rates of smoking and drinking went down. Won’t fat people, in time, follow suit?
Research suggests that the stigma of being fat leads to more eating, not less. And if reducing the stigma suggests a solution, that’s not working either.
“One hypothesis about getting rid of stigma is having more contact with the stigmatized group,” Dr. Brownell says. But with obesity, the stigma seems to be growing along with the national girth.
He cites a famous study in the 1960’s in which children were shown drawings of children with and without disabilities, as well as a drawing of a fat child. Who, they were asked, would you want for your friend? The fat child was picked last.
Now, three researchers have repeated the study, this time with college students. Once again, almost no one, not even fat people, liked the fat person. “Obesity was highly stigmatized,” wrote the researchers, Janet D. Latner of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, Albert J. Stunkard of the University of Pennsylvania and C. Terence Wilson of Rutgers University, in the July 2005 issue of Obesity Research.
One problem with blaming people for being fat, obesity researchers say, is that getting thin is not like quitting smoking. People struggle to stop smoking, but many, in the end, succeed. Obesity is different. It’s not that the obese don’t care. Instead, as science has shown over and over, they have limited personal control over their weight. Genes play a significant role, the science says.
That is not a popular message, Dr. Brownell says. And the notion that anyone can be thin with a little effort has consequences. “Once weight is due to a personal failing, a lot of things follow,” he said. There’s the attitude that if you are fat, you deserve to be stigmatized. Maybe it will motivate you to lose weight. The opposite happens.
In a paper published Oct. 10 in Obesity, Dr. Brownell and his colleagues studied more than 3,000 fat people, asking them about their experiences of stigmatization and discrimination and how they responded.
Almost everyone said they ate more.
October 29, 2006
By GINA KOLATA
FIRST we said they were ruining their health with their bad habit, and they should just quit.
Then we said they were repulsive and we didn’t want to be around them. Then we said they were costing us loads of money — maybe they should pay extra taxes. Other Americans, after all, do not share their dissolute ways.
Cigarette smokers? No, the obese.
Last week the list of ills attributable to obesity grew: fat people cause global warming.
This latest contribution to the obesity debate comes in an article by Sheldon H. Jacobson of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and his doctoral student, Laura McLay. Their paper, published in the current issue of The Engineering Economist, calculates how much extra gasoline is used to transport Americans now that they have grown fatter. The answer, they said, is a billion gallons a year.
Their conclusion is in the same vein as a letter published last year in The American Journal of Public Health. Its authors, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, did a sort of back-of-the-envelope calculation of how much extra fuel airlines spend hauling around fatter Americans. The answer, they wrote, based on the extra 10 pounds the average American gained in the 1990’s, is 350 million gallons, which means an extra 3.8 million tons of carbon dioxide.
“People are out scouring the landscape for things that make obese people look bad,” said Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale.
And is that a bad thing? Dr. Jacobson doesn’t think so. “We felt that beyond public health, being overweight has many other socioeconomic implications,” he said, which was why he was drawn to calculating the gasoline costs of added weight.
The idea of using economic incentives to help people shed pounds comes up in the periodic calls for taxes on junk food. Martin B. Schmidt, an economist at the College of William and Mary, suggests a tax on food bought at drive-through windows. Describing his theory in a recent Op-Ed article in The New York Times, Dr. Schmidt said people would expend more calories if they had to get out of their cars to pick up their food.
“We tax cigarettes in part because of their health cost,” he wrote. “Similarly, the individual’s decision to lead a sedentary lifestyle will end up costing taxpayers.”
Eric Oliver, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, said his first instinct was to laugh at the gas and drive-through arguments. But such claims often get wide attention, he says, and take on a life of their own.
“This is like, let’s find another reason to scapegoat fat people,” Dr. Oliver says.
At an annual meeting of the Obesity Society, one talk correlated obesity with deaths in car accidents, and another correlated obesity with suicides. Dr. Oliver, who attended, said no one in the crowd of at least 200 questioned whether the correlations were really cause and effect. “The funny thing was that everyone took it seriously,” he said.
Katherine Flegal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also wryly cautions against being quick to link cause and effect. “Yes, obesity is to blame for all the evils of modern life, except somehow, weirdly, it is not killing people enough,” she said. “In fact that’s why there are all these fat people around. They just won’t die.”
The message in the blame-obesity approach, said James Marone, a political science professor at Brown University, is that it is so important to persuade fat people to lose weight that common sense disappears.
“Anything we can say to persuade you, we will say,” Dr. Marone added.
So is it working?
It doesn’t seem to be. Fat people are more reviled than ever, researchers find, even as more people become fat. When smokers and heavy drinkers turned pariah, rates of smoking and drinking went down. Won’t fat people, in time, follow suit?
Research suggests that the stigma of being fat leads to more eating, not less. And if reducing the stigma suggests a solution, that’s not working either.
“One hypothesis about getting rid of stigma is having more contact with the stigmatized group,” Dr. Brownell says. But with obesity, the stigma seems to be growing along with the national girth.
He cites a famous study in the 1960’s in which children were shown drawings of children with and without disabilities, as well as a drawing of a fat child. Who, they were asked, would you want for your friend? The fat child was picked last.
Now, three researchers have repeated the study, this time with college students. Once again, almost no one, not even fat people, liked the fat person. “Obesity was highly stigmatized,” wrote the researchers, Janet D. Latner of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, Albert J. Stunkard of the University of Pennsylvania and C. Terence Wilson of Rutgers University, in the July 2005 issue of Obesity Research.
One problem with blaming people for being fat, obesity researchers say, is that getting thin is not like quitting smoking. People struggle to stop smoking, but many, in the end, succeed. Obesity is different. It’s not that the obese don’t care. Instead, as science has shown over and over, they have limited personal control over their weight. Genes play a significant role, the science says.
That is not a popular message, Dr. Brownell says. And the notion that anyone can be thin with a little effort has consequences. “Once weight is due to a personal failing, a lot of things follow,” he said. There’s the attitude that if you are fat, you deserve to be stigmatized. Maybe it will motivate you to lose weight. The opposite happens.
In a paper published Oct. 10 in Obesity, Dr. Brownell and his colleagues studied more than 3,000 fat people, asking them about their experiences of stigmatization and discrimination and how they responded.
Almost everyone said they ate more.
A Study Links Trucks’ Exhaust to Bronx Schoolchildren’s Asthma
NY Times
October 29, 2006
By MANNY FERNANDEZ
In New York City, air pollution levels have typically been monitored by inanimate objects, at more than a dozen locations around town. But in the South Bronx, from 2002 to 2005, air pollution monitors went mobile. They went to the playground, to the gritty sidewalks, even to the movies.
A group of schoolchildren carried the monitors everywhere they went. The instruments, attached to the backpacks of children with asthma, allowed researchers at New York University to measure the pollution the children were exposed to, morning to night.
The South Bronx is home to miles of expressways, more than a dozen waste-transfer stations, a sewage-treatment plant and truck traffic from some of the busiest wholesale produce, meat and fish markets in the world.
It is also home to some of the highest asthma hospitalization rates for children in the city.
The N.Y.U. study found that the students were exposed to high levels of air pollutants in their neighborhoods and that children in the South Bronx were twice as likely to attend a school near a highway as were children in other parts of the city.
The findings paint a bleak picture of the air quality in one of the poorest sections of the city and have focused renewed attention from community groups and elected officials on curbing pollution from truck exhaust.
“The levels did surprise me,” said José E. Serrano, the Bronx representative whose district includes the South Bronx. “They are really telling us that this is a very serious problem.”
Mr. Serrano, who is a Democrat and who helped secure federal money for the study, and the researchers held a news conference this month about the findings.
Ten children from each of four public schools in the South Bronx — P.S. 154, M.S. 302, M.S. 201 and Community School 152 — took part in the study. They were given wheeled black and dark blue backpacks outfitted with a battery-powered pump and an air filter, along with other instruments.
“You rolled it, so it wasn’t really that heavy,” said Derrick Reliford, one of the students.
The children, who were volunteers ages 10 to 12, each took part in the study for a month. They reported to researchers stationed at the schools twice a day and kept diaries on their asthma symptoms and daily activities. Their lung function was tested, and the filters from their backpacks were regularly changed and analyzed. A van parked near the schools served as an air-monitoring lab.
Derrick, 14, took part in the study in 2002, when he was a student at Public School 154 on East 135th Street. The school is across the street from the Major Deegan Expressway.
His great-grandmother Evelyn Reliford, 70, said she never thought much about the air pollution in the Mott Haven neighborhood. “I didn’t really worry about it until they took the study,” said Mrs. Reliford.
Airborne particles like dust, soot and smoke that are less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter are small enough to lodge themselves deep in the lungs. Studies have linked pollution of this sort to respiratory problems, decreased lung function, nonfatal heart attacks and aggravated asthma, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
E.P.A. officials said these fine particles, a significant portion of which are produced by diesel engine emissions, lead to 15,000 premature deaths a year nationwide.
In the South Bronx study, of the 69 days for which measurements were taken over the three-year period, average daily exposure to fine-particle pollution for a group of 10 children exceeded the E.P.A.’s new standard on 18 days. The standard will be 35 micrograms per cubic meter in December.
“I think it’s an indicator that these kids are being exposed to very high fine-particle concentrations on a fairly regular basis,” said George Thurston, associate professor of environmental medicine at the N.Y.U. School of Medicine, who was one of the study’s principal researchers.
Walter Mugdan, director of environmental planning and protection for the E.P.A. region that includes New York, said he had not seen the detailed study, which was financed in large part by an E.P.A. grant. He cautioned that there were differences between the methods used by the agency and by researchers to gather data on air pollution.
Bronx County is one of 10 counties in the state that exceed current federal air quality standards for fine-particle pollution. “We know that this is an area that has air quality that isn’t satisfactory,” he said.
Four Bronx organizations that supported the study — including the Point, a Hunts Point community group — have asked pro bono lawyers to look into their legal options to get the E.P.A. and the state to improve air quality in the South Bronx.
“Hopefully, this will ring the alarm bells a little louder,” said Kellie N. Terry-Sepulveda, executive managing director of the Point.
New York State must submit a plan to the E.P.A. by April 2008 detailing how it will bring its fine-particle pollution levels into compliance. States that fail to submit or implement their plans risk losing federal highway money. All states must bring their levels of fine-particle pollution into compliance by 2010, though they can ask for an exemption seeking more time, E.P.A. officials said.
The State Department of Environmental Conservation said in a statement that the state plan is under development and will be released for public comment late next year. Fine-particle pollution levels are expected to decrease as a result of city, state and federal measures already in place, the statement said.
Gov. George E. Pataki signed a bill in August that requires that all diesel vehicles owned by the state or working on state projects use low-sulfur diesel fuel and be retrofitted with the best available technology to reduce emissions.
Dr. Thurston said the findings of the study, which will be published in a scientific journal next year, showed that only 5 to 10 percent of the fine particle pollution was soot from diesel exhaust, but it was that portion that seemed to be having the worst effect on the children’s asthma. He said their symptoms, like wheezing, doubled on days when pollution from truck traffic was highest.
The study also examined the proximity of expressways to schools. Four expressways — the Cross Bronx, Major Deegan, Bruckner and Sheridan — and the Bronx River Parkway run through or around the South Bronx. About one-fifth of all students from prekindergarten to eighth grade in the area go to schools located within 500 feet, or about two blocks, of major highways, the study showed.
The research was conducted by the Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems at the university’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.
Asthma, which causes wheezing, coughing and shortness of breath, is the most common chronic disease among children. In the Bronx, the borough with the highest percentage of children, the asthma hospitalization rate for boys and girls under 14 is 9.3 per 1,000 children.
Of the 10 neighborhood areas in the city with the highest rates, five are in the Bronx. The highest is East Harlem, according to state health data. At the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center, the Bronx, there were 7,000 admissions last year; of those, 1,200 were asthma related. “It’s definitely a crisis,” Dr. Deepa Rastogi, director of the hospital’s Asthma Center, said of the borough’s asthma rates.
Dr. Rastogi and other Bronx asthma experts said air pollution was only one of the factors contributing to the problem. Asthma attacks can be triggered by secondhand smoke, dust mites, pets and mold, in addition to outdoor air pollution.
Dr. A. Hal Strelnick, a professor of family and social medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, said the borough’s high rates stemmed from a high concentration of traffic in a densely populated area; poorly maintained housing in impoverished neighborhoods; a lack of access to medical care; and a large population of blacks and Hispanics, two groups with high rates of asthma.
He said his own asthma research and the N.Y.U. study showed that the old saying that we all breathe the same air may not necessarily be true in the South Bronx. “We think it’s the same air, but it’s not really the same air,” Dr. Strelnick said.
October 29, 2006
By MANNY FERNANDEZ
In New York City, air pollution levels have typically been monitored by inanimate objects, at more than a dozen locations around town. But in the South Bronx, from 2002 to 2005, air pollution monitors went mobile. They went to the playground, to the gritty sidewalks, even to the movies.
A group of schoolchildren carried the monitors everywhere they went. The instruments, attached to the backpacks of children with asthma, allowed researchers at New York University to measure the pollution the children were exposed to, morning to night.
The South Bronx is home to miles of expressways, more than a dozen waste-transfer stations, a sewage-treatment plant and truck traffic from some of the busiest wholesale produce, meat and fish markets in the world.
It is also home to some of the highest asthma hospitalization rates for children in the city.
The N.Y.U. study found that the students were exposed to high levels of air pollutants in their neighborhoods and that children in the South Bronx were twice as likely to attend a school near a highway as were children in other parts of the city.
The findings paint a bleak picture of the air quality in one of the poorest sections of the city and have focused renewed attention from community groups and elected officials on curbing pollution from truck exhaust.
“The levels did surprise me,” said José E. Serrano, the Bronx representative whose district includes the South Bronx. “They are really telling us that this is a very serious problem.”
Mr. Serrano, who is a Democrat and who helped secure federal money for the study, and the researchers held a news conference this month about the findings.
Ten children from each of four public schools in the South Bronx — P.S. 154, M.S. 302, M.S. 201 and Community School 152 — took part in the study. They were given wheeled black and dark blue backpacks outfitted with a battery-powered pump and an air filter, along with other instruments.
“You rolled it, so it wasn’t really that heavy,” said Derrick Reliford, one of the students.
The children, who were volunteers ages 10 to 12, each took part in the study for a month. They reported to researchers stationed at the schools twice a day and kept diaries on their asthma symptoms and daily activities. Their lung function was tested, and the filters from their backpacks were regularly changed and analyzed. A van parked near the schools served as an air-monitoring lab.
Derrick, 14, took part in the study in 2002, when he was a student at Public School 154 on East 135th Street. The school is across the street from the Major Deegan Expressway.
His great-grandmother Evelyn Reliford, 70, said she never thought much about the air pollution in the Mott Haven neighborhood. “I didn’t really worry about it until they took the study,” said Mrs. Reliford.
Airborne particles like dust, soot and smoke that are less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter are small enough to lodge themselves deep in the lungs. Studies have linked pollution of this sort to respiratory problems, decreased lung function, nonfatal heart attacks and aggravated asthma, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
E.P.A. officials said these fine particles, a significant portion of which are produced by diesel engine emissions, lead to 15,000 premature deaths a year nationwide.
In the South Bronx study, of the 69 days for which measurements were taken over the three-year period, average daily exposure to fine-particle pollution for a group of 10 children exceeded the E.P.A.’s new standard on 18 days. The standard will be 35 micrograms per cubic meter in December.
“I think it’s an indicator that these kids are being exposed to very high fine-particle concentrations on a fairly regular basis,” said George Thurston, associate professor of environmental medicine at the N.Y.U. School of Medicine, who was one of the study’s principal researchers.
Walter Mugdan, director of environmental planning and protection for the E.P.A. region that includes New York, said he had not seen the detailed study, which was financed in large part by an E.P.A. grant. He cautioned that there were differences between the methods used by the agency and by researchers to gather data on air pollution.
Bronx County is one of 10 counties in the state that exceed current federal air quality standards for fine-particle pollution. “We know that this is an area that has air quality that isn’t satisfactory,” he said.
Four Bronx organizations that supported the study — including the Point, a Hunts Point community group — have asked pro bono lawyers to look into their legal options to get the E.P.A. and the state to improve air quality in the South Bronx.
“Hopefully, this will ring the alarm bells a little louder,” said Kellie N. Terry-Sepulveda, executive managing director of the Point.
New York State must submit a plan to the E.P.A. by April 2008 detailing how it will bring its fine-particle pollution levels into compliance. States that fail to submit or implement their plans risk losing federal highway money. All states must bring their levels of fine-particle pollution into compliance by 2010, though they can ask for an exemption seeking more time, E.P.A. officials said.
The State Department of Environmental Conservation said in a statement that the state plan is under development and will be released for public comment late next year. Fine-particle pollution levels are expected to decrease as a result of city, state and federal measures already in place, the statement said.
Gov. George E. Pataki signed a bill in August that requires that all diesel vehicles owned by the state or working on state projects use low-sulfur diesel fuel and be retrofitted with the best available technology to reduce emissions.
Dr. Thurston said the findings of the study, which will be published in a scientific journal next year, showed that only 5 to 10 percent of the fine particle pollution was soot from diesel exhaust, but it was that portion that seemed to be having the worst effect on the children’s asthma. He said their symptoms, like wheezing, doubled on days when pollution from truck traffic was highest.
The study also examined the proximity of expressways to schools. Four expressways — the Cross Bronx, Major Deegan, Bruckner and Sheridan — and the Bronx River Parkway run through or around the South Bronx. About one-fifth of all students from prekindergarten to eighth grade in the area go to schools located within 500 feet, or about two blocks, of major highways, the study showed.
The research was conducted by the Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems at the university’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.
Asthma, which causes wheezing, coughing and shortness of breath, is the most common chronic disease among children. In the Bronx, the borough with the highest percentage of children, the asthma hospitalization rate for boys and girls under 14 is 9.3 per 1,000 children.
Of the 10 neighborhood areas in the city with the highest rates, five are in the Bronx. The highest is East Harlem, according to state health data. At the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center, the Bronx, there were 7,000 admissions last year; of those, 1,200 were asthma related. “It’s definitely a crisis,” Dr. Deepa Rastogi, director of the hospital’s Asthma Center, said of the borough’s asthma rates.
Dr. Rastogi and other Bronx asthma experts said air pollution was only one of the factors contributing to the problem. Asthma attacks can be triggered by secondhand smoke, dust mites, pets and mold, in addition to outdoor air pollution.
Dr. A. Hal Strelnick, a professor of family and social medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, said the borough’s high rates stemmed from a high concentration of traffic in a densely populated area; poorly maintained housing in impoverished neighborhoods; a lack of access to medical care; and a large population of blacks and Hispanics, two groups with high rates of asthma.
He said his own asthma research and the N.Y.U. study showed that the old saying that we all breathe the same air may not necessarily be true in the South Bronx. “We think it’s the same air, but it’s not really the same air,” Dr. Strelnick said.
Budgets Falling in Race to Fight Global Warming
NY Times
October 30, 2006
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
DENVER — Cheers fit for a revival meeting swept a hotel ballroom as 1,800 entrepreneurs and experts watched a PowerPoint presentation of the most promising technologies for limiting global warming: solar power, wind, ethanol and other farmed fuels, energy-efficient buildings and fuel-sipping cars.
“Houston,” Charles F. Kutscher, chairman of the Solar 2006 conference, concluded in a twist on the line from Apollo 13, “we have a solution.”
Hold the applause. For all the enthusiasm about alternatives to coal and oil, the challenge of limiting emissions of carbon dioxide, which traps heat, will be immense in a world likely to add 2.5 billion people by midcentury, a host of other experts say. Moreover, most of those people will live in countries like China and India, which are just beginning to enjoy an electrified, air-conditioned mobile society.
The challenge is all the more daunting because research into energy technologies by both government and industry has not been rising, but rather falling.
In the United States, annual federal spending for all energy research and development — not just the research aimed at climate-friendly technologies — is less than half what it was a quarter-century ago. It has sunk to $3 billion a year in the current budget from an inflation-adjusted peak of $7.7 billion in 1979, according to several different studies.
Britain, for one, has sounded a loud alarm about the need for prompt action on the climate issue, including more research. [A report commissioned by the British government and scheduled to be released today calls for spending to be doubled worldwide on research into low-carbon technologies; without it, the report says, coastal flooding and a shortage of drinking water could turn 200 million people into refugees.]
President Bush has sought an increase to $4.2 billion for 2007, but that would still be a small fraction of what most climate and energy experts say would be needed.
Federal spending on medical research, by contrast, has nearly quadrupled, to $28 billion annually, since 1979. Military research has increased 260 percent, and at more than $75 billion a year is 20 times the amount spent on energy research.
Internationally, government energy research trends are little different from those in the United States. Japan is the only economic power that increased research spending in recent decades, with growth focused on efficiency and solar technology, according to the International Energy Agency.
In the private sector, studies show that energy companies have a long tradition of eschewing long-term technology quests because of the lack of short-term payoffs.
Still, more than four dozen scientists, economists, engineers and entrepreneurs interviewed by The New York Times said that unless the search for abundant non-polluting energy sources and systems became far more aggressive, the world would probably face dangerous warming and international strife as nations with growing energy demands compete for increasingly inadequate resources.
Most of these experts also say existing energy alternatives and improvements in energy efficiency are simply not enough.
“We cannot come close to stabilizing temperatures” unless humans, by the end of the century, stop adding more CO2 to the atmosphere than it can absorb, said W. David Montgomery of Charles River Associates, a consulting group, “and that will be an economic impossibility without a major R.& D. investment.”
A sustained push is needed not just to refine, test and deploy known low-carbon technologies, but also to find “energy technologies that don’t have a name yet,” said James A. Edmonds, a chief scientist at the Joint Global Change Research Institute of the University of Maryland and the Energy Department.
At the same time, many energy experts and economists agree on another daunting point: To make any resulting “alternative” energy options the new norm will require attaching a significant cost to the carbon emissions from coal, oil and gas.
“A price incentive stirs people to look at a thousand different things,’ ” said Henry D. Jacoby, a climate and energy expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
For now, a carbon cap or tax is opposed by President Bush, most American lawmakers and many industries. And there are scant signs of consensus on a long-term successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the first treaty obligating participating industrial countries to cut warming emissions. (The United States has not ratified the pact.)
The next round of talks on Kyoto and an underlying voluntary treaty will take place next month in Nairobi, Kenya.
Environmental campaigners, focused on promptly establishing binding limits on emissions of heat-trapping gases, have tended to play down the need for big investments seeking energy breakthroughs. At the end of “An Inconvenient Truth,” former Vice President Al Gore’s documentary film on climate change, he concluded: “We already know everything we need to know to effectively address this problem.”
While applauding Mr. Gore’s enthusiasm, many energy experts said this stance was counterproductive because there was no way, given global growth in energy demand, that existing technology could avert a doubling or more of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide in this century.
Mr. Gore has since adjusted his stance, saying existing technology is sufficient to start on the path to a stable climate.
Other researchers say the chances of success are so low, unless something breaks the societal impasse, that any technology quest should also include work on increasing the resilience to climate extremes — through actions like developing more drought-tolerant crops — as well as last-ditch climate fixes, like testing ways to block some incoming sunlight to counter warming.
Without big reductions in emissions, the midrange projections of most scenarios envision a rise of 4 degrees or so in this century, four times the warming in the last 100 years. That could, among other effects, produce a disruptive mix of intensified flooding and withering droughts in the world’s prime agricultural regions.
Sir Nicholas Stern, the chief of Britain’s economic service and author of the new government report on climate options, has summarized the cumulative nature of the threat succinctly: “The sting is in the tail.”
The Carbon Dioxide Problem
Many factors intersect to make the prompt addressing of global warming very difficult, experts say.
A central hurdle is that carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere like unpaid credit card debt as long as emissions exceed the rate at which the gas is naturally removed from the atmosphere by the oceans and plants. But the technologies producing the emissions evolve slowly.
A typical new coal-fired power plant, one of the largest sources of emissions, is expected to operate for many decades. About one large coal-burning plant is being commissioned a week, mostly in China.
“We’ve got a $12 trillion capital investment in the world energy economy and a turnover time of 30 to 40 years,” said John P. Holdren, a physicist and climate expert at Harvard University and president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “If you want it to look different in 30 or 40 years, you’d better start now.”
Many experts say this means the only way to affordably speed the transition to low-emissions energy is with advances in technologies at all stages of maturity.
Examples include:
¶ Substantially improving the efficiency and cost of solar panels;
¶ Conducting full-scale tests of systems for capturing carbon dioxide from power plants and pumping it underground;
¶ Seeking efficient ways to generate fuels from crops;
¶ Finding new ways to store vast amounts of energy harvested intermittently from the wind and sun.
Carbon dioxide levels will stabilize only if each generation persists in developing and deploying alternatives to unfettered fossil-fuel emissions, said Robert H. Socolow, a physicist and co-director of a Princeton “carbon mitigation initiative” created with $20 million from BP and Ford Motor.
The most immediate gains could come simply by increasing energy efficiency. If efficiency gains in transportation, buildings, power transmission and other areas were doubled from the longstanding rate of 1 percent per year to 2 percent, Dr. Holdren wrote in the M.I.T. journal Innovations earlier this year, that could hold the amount of new nonpolluting energy required by 2100 to the amount derived from fossil fuels in 2000 —a huge challenge, but not impossible.
Another area requiring immediate intensified work, Dr. Holdren and other experts say, is large-scale demonstration of systems for capturing carbon dioxide from coal burning before too many old-style plants are built.
All of the components for capturing carbon dioxide and disposing of it underground are already in use, particularly in oil fields, where pressurized carbon dioxide is used to drive the last dregs of oil from the ground.
In this area, said David Keith, an energy expert at the University of Calgary, “We just need to build the damn things on a billion-dollar scale.”
In the United States, the biggest effort along these lines is the 285-megawatt Futuregen power plant planned by the Energy Department, along with private and international partners, that was announced in 2003 by President Bush and is scheduled to be built in either Illinois or Texas by 2012. James L. Connaughton, the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the Bush administration was making this a high priority.
“We share the view that a significantly more aggressive agenda on carbon capture and storage and zero-pollution coal is necessary,” he said, adding that the administration has raised annual spending on storage options “from essentially zero to over $70 million.”
Europe is pursuing a suite of such plants, including one in China, but also well behind the necessary pace, several experts said.
Even within the Energy Department, some experts are voicing frustration over the pace of such programs. “What I don’t like about Futuregen,” said Dr. Kutscher, an engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., “is the word ‘future’ in there.”
Beyond a Holding Action
No matter what happens in the next decade or so, many experts say, the second and probably hardest phase of stabilizing the level of carbon dioxide will fall to the generation of engineers and entrepreneurs now in diapers, and the one after that. And those innovators will not have much to build on without greatly increased investment now in basic research.
There is plenty of ferment. Current research ranges from work on algae strains that can turn sunlight into hydrogen fuel to the inkjet-style printing of photovoltaic cells — a technique that could greatly cut solar-energy costs if it worked on a large scale. One company is promoting high-flying kite-like windmills to harvest the boundless energy in the jet stream.
But all of the small-scale experimentation will never move into the energy marketplace without a much bigger push not only for research and development, but for the lesser-known steps known as demonstration and deployment.
In this arena, there is a vital role for government spending, many experts agree, particularly on “enabling technologies” — innovations that would never be pursued by private industry because they mainly amount to a public good, not a potential source of profit, said Christopher Green, an economist at McGill University.
Examples include refining ways to securely handle radioactive waste from nuclear reactors; testing repositories for carbon dioxide captured at power plants; and, perhaps more important, improving the electricity grid so that it can manage large flows from intermittent sources like windmills and solar panels.
“Without storage possibilities on a large scale,” Mr. Green said, “solar and wind will be relegated to niche status.”
While private investors and entrepreneurs are jumping into alternative energy projects, they cannot be counted on to solve such problems, economists say, because even the most aggressive venture capitalists want a big payback within five years.
Many scientists say the only real long-term prospect for significantly substituting for fossil fuels is a breakthrough in harvesting solar power. This has been understood since the days of Thomas Edison. In a conversation with Henry Ford and the tire tycoon Harvey Firestone in 1931, shortly before Edison died, he said: “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”
California, following models set in Japan and Germany, is trying to help solar energy with various incentives.
But such initiatives mainly pull existing technologies into the market, experts say, and do little to propel private research toward the next big advances. Even Vinod Khosla, a leading environment-oriented venture capitalist who invests heavily in ethanol and other alternative energy projects, said in an interview that he was not ready to back solar power because it did not appear able to show a profit without subsidies.
The Role of Leadership
At the federal level, the Bush administration was criticized by Republican and Democratic lawmakers at several recent hearings on climate change.
Mr. Connaughton, the lead White House official on the environment, said most critics are not aware of how much has been done.
“This administration has developed the most sophisticated and carefully considered strategic plan for advancing the technologies that are a necessary part of the climate solution,” he said. He added that the administration must weigh tradeoffs with other pressing demands like health care.
Since 2001, when Mr. Bush abandoned a campaign pledge to limit carbon dioxide from power plants, he has said that too little is known about specific dangers of global warming to justify hard targets or mandatory curbs for the gas.
He has also asserted that any solution will lie less in regulation than in innovation.
“My answer to the energy question also is an answer to how you deal with the greenhouse-gas issue, and that is new technologies will change how we live,” he said in May.
But critics, including some Republican lawmakers, now say that mounting evidence for risks — including findings that administration officials have tried to suppress of late — justifies prompt, more aggressive action to pay for or spur research and speed the movement of climate-friendly energy options into the marketplace.
Martin I. Hoffert, an emeritus professor of physics at New York University, said that what was needed was for a leader to articulate the energy challenge as President John F. Kennedy made his case for the mission to the moon. President Kennedy said they were imperative, “not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
In a report on competitiveness and research released last year, the National Academies, the country’s top science advisory body, urged the government to substantially expand spending on long-term basic research, particularly on energy.
The report, titled “Rising Above the Gathering Storm,” recommended that the Energy Department create a research-financing body similar to the 48-year-old Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, to make grants and attack a variety of energy questions, including climate change.
Darpa, created after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, was set up outside the sway of Congress to provide advances in areas like weapons, surveillance and defensive systems. But it also produced technologies like the Internet and the global positioning system for navigation.
Mr. Connaughton said it would be premature to conclude that a new agency was needed for energy innovation.
But many experts, from oil-industry officials to ecologists, agree that the status quo for energy research will not suffice.
The benefits of an intensified energy quest would go far beyond cutting the risks of dangerous climate change, said Roger H. Bezdek, an economist at Management Information Systems, a consulting group.
The world economy, he said, is facing two simultaneous energy challenges beyond global warming: the end of relatively cheap and easy oil, and the explosive demand for fuel in developing countries.
Advanced research should be diversified like an investment portfolio, he said. “The big payoff comes from a small number of very large winners,” he said. “Unfortunately, we cannot pick the winners in advance.”
Ultimately, a big increase in government spending on basic energy research will happen only if scientists can persuade the public and politicians that it is an essential hedge against potential calamity.
That may be the biggest hurdle of all, given the unfamiliar nature of the slowly building problem — the antithesis of epochal events like Pearl Harbor, Sputnik and 9/11 that triggered sweeping enterprises.
“We’re good at rushing in with white hats,” said Bobi Garrett, associate director of planning and technology management at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “This is not a problem where you can do that.”
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
October 30, 2006
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
DENVER — Cheers fit for a revival meeting swept a hotel ballroom as 1,800 entrepreneurs and experts watched a PowerPoint presentation of the most promising technologies for limiting global warming: solar power, wind, ethanol and other farmed fuels, energy-efficient buildings and fuel-sipping cars.
“Houston,” Charles F. Kutscher, chairman of the Solar 2006 conference, concluded in a twist on the line from Apollo 13, “we have a solution.”
Hold the applause. For all the enthusiasm about alternatives to coal and oil, the challenge of limiting emissions of carbon dioxide, which traps heat, will be immense in a world likely to add 2.5 billion people by midcentury, a host of other experts say. Moreover, most of those people will live in countries like China and India, which are just beginning to enjoy an electrified, air-conditioned mobile society.
The challenge is all the more daunting because research into energy technologies by both government and industry has not been rising, but rather falling.
In the United States, annual federal spending for all energy research and development — not just the research aimed at climate-friendly technologies — is less than half what it was a quarter-century ago. It has sunk to $3 billion a year in the current budget from an inflation-adjusted peak of $7.7 billion in 1979, according to several different studies.
Britain, for one, has sounded a loud alarm about the need for prompt action on the climate issue, including more research. [A report commissioned by the British government and scheduled to be released today calls for spending to be doubled worldwide on research into low-carbon technologies; without it, the report says, coastal flooding and a shortage of drinking water could turn 200 million people into refugees.]
President Bush has sought an increase to $4.2 billion for 2007, but that would still be a small fraction of what most climate and energy experts say would be needed.
Federal spending on medical research, by contrast, has nearly quadrupled, to $28 billion annually, since 1979. Military research has increased 260 percent, and at more than $75 billion a year is 20 times the amount spent on energy research.
Internationally, government energy research trends are little different from those in the United States. Japan is the only economic power that increased research spending in recent decades, with growth focused on efficiency and solar technology, according to the International Energy Agency.
In the private sector, studies show that energy companies have a long tradition of eschewing long-term technology quests because of the lack of short-term payoffs.
Still, more than four dozen scientists, economists, engineers and entrepreneurs interviewed by The New York Times said that unless the search for abundant non-polluting energy sources and systems became far more aggressive, the world would probably face dangerous warming and international strife as nations with growing energy demands compete for increasingly inadequate resources.
Most of these experts also say existing energy alternatives and improvements in energy efficiency are simply not enough.
“We cannot come close to stabilizing temperatures” unless humans, by the end of the century, stop adding more CO2 to the atmosphere than it can absorb, said W. David Montgomery of Charles River Associates, a consulting group, “and that will be an economic impossibility without a major R.& D. investment.”
A sustained push is needed not just to refine, test and deploy known low-carbon technologies, but also to find “energy technologies that don’t have a name yet,” said James A. Edmonds, a chief scientist at the Joint Global Change Research Institute of the University of Maryland and the Energy Department.
At the same time, many energy experts and economists agree on another daunting point: To make any resulting “alternative” energy options the new norm will require attaching a significant cost to the carbon emissions from coal, oil and gas.
“A price incentive stirs people to look at a thousand different things,’ ” said Henry D. Jacoby, a climate and energy expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
For now, a carbon cap or tax is opposed by President Bush, most American lawmakers and many industries. And there are scant signs of consensus on a long-term successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the first treaty obligating participating industrial countries to cut warming emissions. (The United States has not ratified the pact.)
The next round of talks on Kyoto and an underlying voluntary treaty will take place next month in Nairobi, Kenya.
Environmental campaigners, focused on promptly establishing binding limits on emissions of heat-trapping gases, have tended to play down the need for big investments seeking energy breakthroughs. At the end of “An Inconvenient Truth,” former Vice President Al Gore’s documentary film on climate change, he concluded: “We already know everything we need to know to effectively address this problem.”
While applauding Mr. Gore’s enthusiasm, many energy experts said this stance was counterproductive because there was no way, given global growth in energy demand, that existing technology could avert a doubling or more of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide in this century.
Mr. Gore has since adjusted his stance, saying existing technology is sufficient to start on the path to a stable climate.
Other researchers say the chances of success are so low, unless something breaks the societal impasse, that any technology quest should also include work on increasing the resilience to climate extremes — through actions like developing more drought-tolerant crops — as well as last-ditch climate fixes, like testing ways to block some incoming sunlight to counter warming.
Without big reductions in emissions, the midrange projections of most scenarios envision a rise of 4 degrees or so in this century, four times the warming in the last 100 years. That could, among other effects, produce a disruptive mix of intensified flooding and withering droughts in the world’s prime agricultural regions.
Sir Nicholas Stern, the chief of Britain’s economic service and author of the new government report on climate options, has summarized the cumulative nature of the threat succinctly: “The sting is in the tail.”
The Carbon Dioxide Problem
Many factors intersect to make the prompt addressing of global warming very difficult, experts say.
A central hurdle is that carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere like unpaid credit card debt as long as emissions exceed the rate at which the gas is naturally removed from the atmosphere by the oceans and plants. But the technologies producing the emissions evolve slowly.
A typical new coal-fired power plant, one of the largest sources of emissions, is expected to operate for many decades. About one large coal-burning plant is being commissioned a week, mostly in China.
“We’ve got a $12 trillion capital investment in the world energy economy and a turnover time of 30 to 40 years,” said John P. Holdren, a physicist and climate expert at Harvard University and president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “If you want it to look different in 30 or 40 years, you’d better start now.”
Many experts say this means the only way to affordably speed the transition to low-emissions energy is with advances in technologies at all stages of maturity.
Examples include:
¶ Substantially improving the efficiency and cost of solar panels;
¶ Conducting full-scale tests of systems for capturing carbon dioxide from power plants and pumping it underground;
¶ Seeking efficient ways to generate fuels from crops;
¶ Finding new ways to store vast amounts of energy harvested intermittently from the wind and sun.
Carbon dioxide levels will stabilize only if each generation persists in developing and deploying alternatives to unfettered fossil-fuel emissions, said Robert H. Socolow, a physicist and co-director of a Princeton “carbon mitigation initiative” created with $20 million from BP and Ford Motor.
The most immediate gains could come simply by increasing energy efficiency. If efficiency gains in transportation, buildings, power transmission and other areas were doubled from the longstanding rate of 1 percent per year to 2 percent, Dr. Holdren wrote in the M.I.T. journal Innovations earlier this year, that could hold the amount of new nonpolluting energy required by 2100 to the amount derived from fossil fuels in 2000 —a huge challenge, but not impossible.
Another area requiring immediate intensified work, Dr. Holdren and other experts say, is large-scale demonstration of systems for capturing carbon dioxide from coal burning before too many old-style plants are built.
All of the components for capturing carbon dioxide and disposing of it underground are already in use, particularly in oil fields, where pressurized carbon dioxide is used to drive the last dregs of oil from the ground.
In this area, said David Keith, an energy expert at the University of Calgary, “We just need to build the damn things on a billion-dollar scale.”
In the United States, the biggest effort along these lines is the 285-megawatt Futuregen power plant planned by the Energy Department, along with private and international partners, that was announced in 2003 by President Bush and is scheduled to be built in either Illinois or Texas by 2012. James L. Connaughton, the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the Bush administration was making this a high priority.
“We share the view that a significantly more aggressive agenda on carbon capture and storage and zero-pollution coal is necessary,” he said, adding that the administration has raised annual spending on storage options “from essentially zero to over $70 million.”
Europe is pursuing a suite of such plants, including one in China, but also well behind the necessary pace, several experts said.
Even within the Energy Department, some experts are voicing frustration over the pace of such programs. “What I don’t like about Futuregen,” said Dr. Kutscher, an engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., “is the word ‘future’ in there.”
Beyond a Holding Action
No matter what happens in the next decade or so, many experts say, the second and probably hardest phase of stabilizing the level of carbon dioxide will fall to the generation of engineers and entrepreneurs now in diapers, and the one after that. And those innovators will not have much to build on without greatly increased investment now in basic research.
There is plenty of ferment. Current research ranges from work on algae strains that can turn sunlight into hydrogen fuel to the inkjet-style printing of photovoltaic cells — a technique that could greatly cut solar-energy costs if it worked on a large scale. One company is promoting high-flying kite-like windmills to harvest the boundless energy in the jet stream.
But all of the small-scale experimentation will never move into the energy marketplace without a much bigger push not only for research and development, but for the lesser-known steps known as demonstration and deployment.
In this arena, there is a vital role for government spending, many experts agree, particularly on “enabling technologies” — innovations that would never be pursued by private industry because they mainly amount to a public good, not a potential source of profit, said Christopher Green, an economist at McGill University.
Examples include refining ways to securely handle radioactive waste from nuclear reactors; testing repositories for carbon dioxide captured at power plants; and, perhaps more important, improving the electricity grid so that it can manage large flows from intermittent sources like windmills and solar panels.
“Without storage possibilities on a large scale,” Mr. Green said, “solar and wind will be relegated to niche status.”
While private investors and entrepreneurs are jumping into alternative energy projects, they cannot be counted on to solve such problems, economists say, because even the most aggressive venture capitalists want a big payback within five years.
Many scientists say the only real long-term prospect for significantly substituting for fossil fuels is a breakthrough in harvesting solar power. This has been understood since the days of Thomas Edison. In a conversation with Henry Ford and the tire tycoon Harvey Firestone in 1931, shortly before Edison died, he said: “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”
California, following models set in Japan and Germany, is trying to help solar energy with various incentives.
But such initiatives mainly pull existing technologies into the market, experts say, and do little to propel private research toward the next big advances. Even Vinod Khosla, a leading environment-oriented venture capitalist who invests heavily in ethanol and other alternative energy projects, said in an interview that he was not ready to back solar power because it did not appear able to show a profit without subsidies.
The Role of Leadership
At the federal level, the Bush administration was criticized by Republican and Democratic lawmakers at several recent hearings on climate change.
Mr. Connaughton, the lead White House official on the environment, said most critics are not aware of how much has been done.
“This administration has developed the most sophisticated and carefully considered strategic plan for advancing the technologies that are a necessary part of the climate solution,” he said. He added that the administration must weigh tradeoffs with other pressing demands like health care.
Since 2001, when Mr. Bush abandoned a campaign pledge to limit carbon dioxide from power plants, he has said that too little is known about specific dangers of global warming to justify hard targets or mandatory curbs for the gas.
He has also asserted that any solution will lie less in regulation than in innovation.
“My answer to the energy question also is an answer to how you deal with the greenhouse-gas issue, and that is new technologies will change how we live,” he said in May.
But critics, including some Republican lawmakers, now say that mounting evidence for risks — including findings that administration officials have tried to suppress of late — justifies prompt, more aggressive action to pay for or spur research and speed the movement of climate-friendly energy options into the marketplace.
Martin I. Hoffert, an emeritus professor of physics at New York University, said that what was needed was for a leader to articulate the energy challenge as President John F. Kennedy made his case for the mission to the moon. President Kennedy said they were imperative, “not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
In a report on competitiveness and research released last year, the National Academies, the country’s top science advisory body, urged the government to substantially expand spending on long-term basic research, particularly on energy.
The report, titled “Rising Above the Gathering Storm,” recommended that the Energy Department create a research-financing body similar to the 48-year-old Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, to make grants and attack a variety of energy questions, including climate change.
Darpa, created after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, was set up outside the sway of Congress to provide advances in areas like weapons, surveillance and defensive systems. But it also produced technologies like the Internet and the global positioning system for navigation.
Mr. Connaughton said it would be premature to conclude that a new agency was needed for energy innovation.
But many experts, from oil-industry officials to ecologists, agree that the status quo for energy research will not suffice.
The benefits of an intensified energy quest would go far beyond cutting the risks of dangerous climate change, said Roger H. Bezdek, an economist at Management Information Systems, a consulting group.
The world economy, he said, is facing two simultaneous energy challenges beyond global warming: the end of relatively cheap and easy oil, and the explosive demand for fuel in developing countries.
Advanced research should be diversified like an investment portfolio, he said. “The big payoff comes from a small number of very large winners,” he said. “Unfortunately, we cannot pick the winners in advance.”
Ultimately, a big increase in government spending on basic energy research will happen only if scientists can persuade the public and politicians that it is an essential hedge against potential calamity.
That may be the biggest hurdle of all, given the unfamiliar nature of the slowly building problem — the antithesis of epochal events like Pearl Harbor, Sputnik and 9/11 that triggered sweeping enterprises.
“We’re good at rushing in with white hats,” said Bobi Garrett, associate director of planning and technology management at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “This is not a problem where you can do that.”
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
Friday, October 27, 2006
Council delays its decision on MERC contract
Maine Today
October 27, 2006
BIDDEFORD - The City Council voted Thursday to delay a decision on whether to extend its relationship with the trash incinerator that many people believe is stifling downtown redevelopment.
The 5-4 vote was seen as at least a short-term victory for the incinerator's opponents, who worried that a contract would be approved without much public input, and who scurried at the last minute to attract an overflow crowd to Thursday's public hearing at City Hall.
More than 50 people spoke, and many said the city should do what it can to get rid of the Maine Energy Recovery Co. No one spoke in favor of signing a long-term contract with the incinerator's owner.
Thursday's vote means that the City Council will next revisit the proposed contract on Jan. 2. Many who spoke called for more time to better understand the proposed contract's complex terms.
The vote to delay a decision followed an earlier motion -- from Council President Kenneth Farley -- to sign a 5‡-year contract with MERC. That motion was seconded by Councilor John McCurry but then criticized by about a dozen residents.
Farley and McCurry were later joined by Councilors Rick Laverriere and Susan Deschambault in opposing the two-month wait. They were outnumbered by Councilors Phillippe Dumont, Matthew Hight, Albert Grover, Michael Ready and Pete Lamontagne. The slim vote to take more time drew applause from residents who stayed until the end of the 3‡-hour public hearing.
Those who spoke against signing a contract with MERC represented a broad cross-section of the city. They included coastal residents, artists and downtown business owners. Many spoke passionately about the unappealing odor that regularly wafts from MERC, making downtown Biddeford a less desirable place to visit.
"I discourage customers from coming to the city," said Chris Strassner, who owns a downtown business.
Several residents urged the City Council to follow the example set by the neighboring city of Saco, which walked away from contract negotiations with MERC and instead agreed to allow another company to pick up its trash.
"I think we should enter an adversarial relationship with MERC," said former Councilor Kyle Noble.
If the city takes such a stance, it will be walking away from 212 years of negotiations with Casella Waste Systems, the company that owns MERC.
The negotiations initially included an option to buy out the incinerator.
Staff Writer Kevin Wack can be contacted at 282-8226 or at:
kwack@pressherald.com
October 27, 2006
BIDDEFORD - The City Council voted Thursday to delay a decision on whether to extend its relationship with the trash incinerator that many people believe is stifling downtown redevelopment.
The 5-4 vote was seen as at least a short-term victory for the incinerator's opponents, who worried that a contract would be approved without much public input, and who scurried at the last minute to attract an overflow crowd to Thursday's public hearing at City Hall.
More than 50 people spoke, and many said the city should do what it can to get rid of the Maine Energy Recovery Co. No one spoke in favor of signing a long-term contract with the incinerator's owner.
Thursday's vote means that the City Council will next revisit the proposed contract on Jan. 2. Many who spoke called for more time to better understand the proposed contract's complex terms.
The vote to delay a decision followed an earlier motion -- from Council President Kenneth Farley -- to sign a 5‡-year contract with MERC. That motion was seconded by Councilor John McCurry but then criticized by about a dozen residents.
Farley and McCurry were later joined by Councilors Rick Laverriere and Susan Deschambault in opposing the two-month wait. They were outnumbered by Councilors Phillippe Dumont, Matthew Hight, Albert Grover, Michael Ready and Pete Lamontagne. The slim vote to take more time drew applause from residents who stayed until the end of the 3‡-hour public hearing.
Those who spoke against signing a contract with MERC represented a broad cross-section of the city. They included coastal residents, artists and downtown business owners. Many spoke passionately about the unappealing odor that regularly wafts from MERC, making downtown Biddeford a less desirable place to visit.
"I discourage customers from coming to the city," said Chris Strassner, who owns a downtown business.
Several residents urged the City Council to follow the example set by the neighboring city of Saco, which walked away from contract negotiations with MERC and instead agreed to allow another company to pick up its trash.
"I think we should enter an adversarial relationship with MERC," said former Councilor Kyle Noble.
If the city takes such a stance, it will be walking away from 212 years of negotiations with Casella Waste Systems, the company that owns MERC.
The negotiations initially included an option to buy out the incinerator.
Staff Writer Kevin Wack can be contacted at 282-8226 or at:
kwack@pressherald.com
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Make History, Arnold!
NY Times
Thomas Friedman
Oct. 21, 2006
Governors don't often get a chance to make big-time history, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California has that opportunity now - if he's ready to get off the fence. With one move, Governor Schwarzenegger could make California America's hub for developing "green" clean-power technologies - which are going to be the growth industry of the 21st century - and do something that President Bush has only paid lip service to: really help to end America's oil addiction.
Do it, Arnold. C'mon, just do it.
Here's the basic story: This Nov. 7, Californians will be asked to vote yes or no on Proposition 87, a ballot initiative that would impose a higher extraction fee on oil pumped in California. (Up to now, oil companies in California have paid a very low extraction fee compared with those in other states - a rip-off they want to keep.) The new funds raised by Prop 87, explained The San Francisco Chronicle, "would be used to finance research and development of alternative fuels in universities; education campaigns; and subsidies to consumers who buy vehicles that use alternative fuels and businesses that produce and distribute alternative fuels. ... Oil companies would be taxed between 1.5 percent and 6 percent on oil production depending on the price of oil per barrel. The tax would end by 2017 or when the tax generates $4 billion, whichever occurs first."
Passage of Prop 87 would be huge. To begin with, it would be the perfect complement to the carbon reduction law that Arnold just signed. That law requires California to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Prop 87, for its part, sets a goal of a 25 percent reduction in oil consumption in California in 10 years. Today, California consumes about 16 billion gallons of gasoline a year, so a 25 percent reduction, if realized, would put California well on its way to meeting its new carbon emissions goal.
But Prop 87, by also raising a $4 billion energy fund, and devoting most of it to nurturing new fuels and more fuel-efficient vehicles and buildings, would enable California to consistently enhance those companies, communities and schools now pioneering alternative energies. As anyone who has followed the alternative energy movement knows, one of its greatest weaknesses has been that Washington has constantly started and stopped subsidies for things like solar and wind power - so technologies have been innovated here but then turned into marketable products overseas.
By combining renewable-energy targets and a $4 billion fund to consistently support the start-up of companies to reach those targets in a free-market way, California would set a compelling example for other states - and maybe even for Washington.
The reason that Mr. Bush's call a year ago to end our oil addiction has been a total flop has to do with a struggle in his administration between foolish market worshipers led by Dick Cheney - who insist markets will take care of everything - and wiser, nuanced policy makers who understand that government's job is to set broad goals and standards, and then let the market reach them.
The best example of that is the 1999 Texas Renewable Portfolio Standard - a state law signed by whom? Gov. George W. Bush! The law required Texas electricity companies to buy a set amount of renewable power by 2009. This stimulated the Texas utilities marketplace to erect huge wind farms. Today, Texas is a real leader in wind energy and has sharply driven down the cost through innovation.
President Bush, meet Governor Bush.
Naturally, oil companies like Exxon Mobil - which just paid its outgoing chairman, Lee Raymond, $400,000,000 in his final year - are financing misleading ads to try to fool Californians into rejecting Prop 87. Polls show it's too close to call. And that brings us back to Arnold. He's on the fence. Even though he'll be re-elected in a landslide, he's not come out for Prop 87 - because he's against higher taxes, in principle. But he hasn't come out against it either. If he, and wife, Maria, openly support it, Prop 87 passes. It's that simple.
Bill Clinton said it best: "California is being given an opportunity ... to do something remarkable to save the planet, improve our national security and create the next generation of good jobs for the American people. That's what Prop 87 represents."
And Governor Schwarzenegger can determine whether or not that opportunity is seized. C'mon, Arnold, just do it. No one will remember you for sparing Exxon from a tax hike. And no one will forget you for spurring America to realize the dream of a clean, independent energy economy.
Thomas Friedman
Oct. 21, 2006
Governors don't often get a chance to make big-time history, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California has that opportunity now - if he's ready to get off the fence. With one move, Governor Schwarzenegger could make California America's hub for developing "green" clean-power technologies - which are going to be the growth industry of the 21st century - and do something that President Bush has only paid lip service to: really help to end America's oil addiction.
Do it, Arnold. C'mon, just do it.
Here's the basic story: This Nov. 7, Californians will be asked to vote yes or no on Proposition 87, a ballot initiative that would impose a higher extraction fee on oil pumped in California. (Up to now, oil companies in California have paid a very low extraction fee compared with those in other states - a rip-off they want to keep.) The new funds raised by Prop 87, explained The San Francisco Chronicle, "would be used to finance research and development of alternative fuels in universities; education campaigns; and subsidies to consumers who buy vehicles that use alternative fuels and businesses that produce and distribute alternative fuels. ... Oil companies would be taxed between 1.5 percent and 6 percent on oil production depending on the price of oil per barrel. The tax would end by 2017 or when the tax generates $4 billion, whichever occurs first."
Passage of Prop 87 would be huge. To begin with, it would be the perfect complement to the carbon reduction law that Arnold just signed. That law requires California to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Prop 87, for its part, sets a goal of a 25 percent reduction in oil consumption in California in 10 years. Today, California consumes about 16 billion gallons of gasoline a year, so a 25 percent reduction, if realized, would put California well on its way to meeting its new carbon emissions goal.
But Prop 87, by also raising a $4 billion energy fund, and devoting most of it to nurturing new fuels and more fuel-efficient vehicles and buildings, would enable California to consistently enhance those companies, communities and schools now pioneering alternative energies. As anyone who has followed the alternative energy movement knows, one of its greatest weaknesses has been that Washington has constantly started and stopped subsidies for things like solar and wind power - so technologies have been innovated here but then turned into marketable products overseas.
By combining renewable-energy targets and a $4 billion fund to consistently support the start-up of companies to reach those targets in a free-market way, California would set a compelling example for other states - and maybe even for Washington.
The reason that Mr. Bush's call a year ago to end our oil addiction has been a total flop has to do with a struggle in his administration between foolish market worshipers led by Dick Cheney - who insist markets will take care of everything - and wiser, nuanced policy makers who understand that government's job is to set broad goals and standards, and then let the market reach them.
The best example of that is the 1999 Texas Renewable Portfolio Standard - a state law signed by whom? Gov. George W. Bush! The law required Texas electricity companies to buy a set amount of renewable power by 2009. This stimulated the Texas utilities marketplace to erect huge wind farms. Today, Texas is a real leader in wind energy and has sharply driven down the cost through innovation.
President Bush, meet Governor Bush.
Naturally, oil companies like Exxon Mobil - which just paid its outgoing chairman, Lee Raymond, $400,000,000 in his final year - are financing misleading ads to try to fool Californians into rejecting Prop 87. Polls show it's too close to call. And that brings us back to Arnold. He's on the fence. Even though he'll be re-elected in a landslide, he's not come out for Prop 87 - because he's against higher taxes, in principle. But he hasn't come out against it either. If he, and wife, Maria, openly support it, Prop 87 passes. It's that simple.
Bill Clinton said it best: "California is being given an opportunity ... to do something remarkable to save the planet, improve our national security and create the next generation of good jobs for the American people. That's what Prop 87 represents."
And Governor Schwarzenegger can determine whether or not that opportunity is seized. C'mon, Arnold, just do it. No one will remember you for sparing Exxon from a tax hike. And no one will forget you for spurring America to realize the dream of a clean, independent energy economy.
Interface and Subaru Partner to Advance Sustainable Transportation
GreenBiz
ATLANTA, GA, Oct. 26, 2006 - Interface, Inc. and Subaru have joined forces to create "climate neutral" incentives for Interface employees in the U.S. who choose to drive Subaru vehicles.
The initiative is in keeping with Interface's Mission Zero promise, "to eliminate any negative impact that the Interface companies have on the environment by 2020."
"Partnerships like this one have the potential to change the future face of corporate leasing," said Tim Riordan, vice president, supply chain for Interface, Inc. "This arrangement represents a creative and effective effort by an automobile manufacturer to offer climate neutral driving to its customers."
Subaru will sponsor the planting of thousands of trees through American Forests' Global ReLeaf program, making the operation of the vehicles "climate neutral" for the first 60,000 miles, and equating to the sequestration of 21.6 metric tons of carbon per vehicle. American Forests is a world leader in planting for environmental restoration.
Deborah Gangloff, executive director, American Forests said, "We are proud to be part of this important partnership to cool the globe and improve the environment with trees. Slowing the rate of global climate change is one of the most important environmental challenges facing the world today. Happily, companies like Interface and Subaru are taking positive action to address this challenge."
The addition of the Subaru Outback Limited Wagon 2.5i to Interface’s U.S. fleet has also allowed Interface to fulfill its commitment of making its U.S. light duty fleet 100% SmartWay™ certified.
The SmartWay certification, granted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is earned by those light-duty vehicles the EPA considers to be the cleanest and most fuel-efficient vehicles available when evaluating both air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. The Subaru Outback was the highest rated small SUV in the EPA’s Green Vehicle Guide.
"The Subaru Outback provided an ideal match for all of the attributes we were seeking," Riordan said. "We chose the Outback because it is a partial zero emissions vehicle (PZEV) that meets the nation’s most stringent standards for GHG emissions and because it has earned NHTSA’s 5-star crash test rating. Subaru was also able to provide us with an environmentally engineered vehicle with standard all-wheel drive that provides our sales associates with better vehicle control and handling in any kind of weather they might encounter while serving our customers throughout the country. Subaru was also the only manufacturer that would offer Interface PZEV vehicles for guaranteed delivery in any state.
The Subaru Outback is built at Subaru of Indiana Automotive in Lafayette, Indiana. The Subaru plant was the first auto assembly plant to achieve zero landfill status. In fact, nothing from its manufacturing efforts goes into a landfill. Ninety-nine percent of the waste materials generated by plant operations are either recycled or reused, with the remaining 1 percent being sent to a waste-to-energy plant.
"The average household in America sends more to a landfill than our entire Subaru manufacturing plant," said Tom Easterday, senior vice president, Subaru of Indiana Automotive. "The Subaru plant was also designated a Backyard Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation in 2003. Deer, coyotes, beavers, blue herons, geese, rabbits, squirrels, ducks and other animals live on our plant property in harmony with the Subaru manufacturing facility."
Vehicles earning the PZEV emission rating are 90% cleaner running than the average new vehicle, and all of Subaru PZEV vehicles meet California’s SULEV (Super-Ultra-Low-Emission Vehicle) exhaust emission standard for 15 years/150,000 miles, as well as its zero-evaporative emission standard, and have a 15 year/150,000 mile emission defects and performance warranty.
"These vehicles with PZEV emissions rating have extremely tight pollution controls," added Easterday. "And, the burning of fuel is so complete, that in very smoggy urban areas, exhaust out of the tailpipe can actually be cleaner than the air outside."
For more information visit www.driveclean.ca.gov/en/gv/driveclean/vtype_cleaner.asp.
ATLANTA, GA, Oct. 26, 2006 - Interface, Inc. and Subaru have joined forces to create "climate neutral" incentives for Interface employees in the U.S. who choose to drive Subaru vehicles.
The initiative is in keeping with Interface's Mission Zero promise, "to eliminate any negative impact that the Interface companies have on the environment by 2020."
"Partnerships like this one have the potential to change the future face of corporate leasing," said Tim Riordan, vice president, supply chain for Interface, Inc. "This arrangement represents a creative and effective effort by an automobile manufacturer to offer climate neutral driving to its customers."
Subaru will sponsor the planting of thousands of trees through American Forests' Global ReLeaf program, making the operation of the vehicles "climate neutral" for the first 60,000 miles, and equating to the sequestration of 21.6 metric tons of carbon per vehicle. American Forests is a world leader in planting for environmental restoration.
Deborah Gangloff, executive director, American Forests said, "We are proud to be part of this important partnership to cool the globe and improve the environment with trees. Slowing the rate of global climate change is one of the most important environmental challenges facing the world today. Happily, companies like Interface and Subaru are taking positive action to address this challenge."
The addition of the Subaru Outback Limited Wagon 2.5i to Interface’s U.S. fleet has also allowed Interface to fulfill its commitment of making its U.S. light duty fleet 100% SmartWay™ certified.
The SmartWay certification, granted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is earned by those light-duty vehicles the EPA considers to be the cleanest and most fuel-efficient vehicles available when evaluating both air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. The Subaru Outback was the highest rated small SUV in the EPA’s Green Vehicle Guide.
"The Subaru Outback provided an ideal match for all of the attributes we were seeking," Riordan said. "We chose the Outback because it is a partial zero emissions vehicle (PZEV) that meets the nation’s most stringent standards for GHG emissions and because it has earned NHTSA’s 5-star crash test rating. Subaru was also able to provide us with an environmentally engineered vehicle with standard all-wheel drive that provides our sales associates with better vehicle control and handling in any kind of weather they might encounter while serving our customers throughout the country. Subaru was also the only manufacturer that would offer Interface PZEV vehicles for guaranteed delivery in any state.
The Subaru Outback is built at Subaru of Indiana Automotive in Lafayette, Indiana. The Subaru plant was the first auto assembly plant to achieve zero landfill status. In fact, nothing from its manufacturing efforts goes into a landfill. Ninety-nine percent of the waste materials generated by plant operations are either recycled or reused, with the remaining 1 percent being sent to a waste-to-energy plant.
"The average household in America sends more to a landfill than our entire Subaru manufacturing plant," said Tom Easterday, senior vice president, Subaru of Indiana Automotive. "The Subaru plant was also designated a Backyard Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation in 2003. Deer, coyotes, beavers, blue herons, geese, rabbits, squirrels, ducks and other animals live on our plant property in harmony with the Subaru manufacturing facility."
Vehicles earning the PZEV emission rating are 90% cleaner running than the average new vehicle, and all of Subaru PZEV vehicles meet California’s SULEV (Super-Ultra-Low-Emission Vehicle) exhaust emission standard for 15 years/150,000 miles, as well as its zero-evaporative emission standard, and have a 15 year/150,000 mile emission defects and performance warranty.
"These vehicles with PZEV emissions rating have extremely tight pollution controls," added Easterday. "And, the burning of fuel is so complete, that in very smoggy urban areas, exhaust out of the tailpipe can actually be cleaner than the air outside."
For more information visit www.driveclean.ca.gov/en/gv/driveclean/vtype_cleaner.asp.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
New England's Wind Energy Potential to be Evaluated
Waterbury, Vermont [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] Connecticut-based Noble Environmental Power is teaming up with Vermont Environmental Research Associates (VERA) to explore potential windpark locations throughout the region. Noble's preliminary site evaluation will include an evaluation of wind resources and dialogue with local communities to explore attitudes toward wind energy development.
"As our nation moves to create clean and renewable energy sources, New England's excellent wind resources and commitment to the environment make it well-positioned to become a leader," said Noble Environmental's CEO Charles C. Hinckley. "VERA's knowledge of the area and reputation in the region make them a perfect partner. We look forward to working closely with them as we begin our preliminary site analysis."
Noble Environmental already has several windparks totaling more than 1,000 megawatts (MW) of clean, renewable energy under development in New York and Michigan and is now conducting preliminary research to determine if there are suitable sites for windpark development in New England.
VERA has more than two decades of experience with wind resource assessments and wind turbine siting work in New England and has managed the development of the Searsburg, Deerfield and Lowell projects in Vermont and the Hoosac Project in Massachusetts.
Hinckley said he was encouraged by the support for wind energy in the region. "New England has a strong tradition of environmental stewardship and wind power is a natural part of that tradition," he said.
"As our nation moves to create clean and renewable energy sources, New England's excellent wind resources and commitment to the environment make it well-positioned to become a leader," said Noble Environmental's CEO Charles C. Hinckley. "VERA's knowledge of the area and reputation in the region make them a perfect partner. We look forward to working closely with them as we begin our preliminary site analysis."
Noble Environmental already has several windparks totaling more than 1,000 megawatts (MW) of clean, renewable energy under development in New York and Michigan and is now conducting preliminary research to determine if there are suitable sites for windpark development in New England.
VERA has more than two decades of experience with wind resource assessments and wind turbine siting work in New England and has managed the development of the Searsburg, Deerfield and Lowell projects in Vermont and the Hoosac Project in Massachusetts.
Hinckley said he was encouraged by the support for wind energy in the region. "New England has a strong tradition of environmental stewardship and wind power is a natural part of that tradition," he said.
EPA Names 'Best Workplaces for Commuters'
GreenBiz
WASHINGTON, Oct. 23, 2006 - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced its annual list of Best Workplaces for Commuters from the Fortune 500 companies.
This year, 133 companies employing more than 700,000 workers qualify for this list. The top 20 employers are ranked by the percentage of domestic employees who are eligible for commuter benefits, such as subsidized transit passes, telework, carpool programs, and emergency rides home.
Each year, says EPA, the congestion created from commuting to and from work causes 3.7 billion hours of lost productivity, costing employees 92 million work weeks, and the nation $63.1 billion in wasted time and fuel. ?
Winners this year include Intel, Microsoft, Google Inc., Oracle, QUALCOMM, Yahoo!, Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, Texas Instruments, Applied Materials, Safeco Insurance, Reliant Energy, Wyeth, Apple, and IBM.
Among the winners was Nike, which offers a program called TRAC (Traveling Responsibly? Accept the Challenge.) Nike offers monthly prizes and incentives to employees at its World Headquarters and surrounding areas in the Portland, Ore. metropolitan area who can get to work by eliminating the use of a gasoline or diesel- powered vehicle.
TRAC is staffed by a full-time employee transportation coordinator who manages information about the program on the company intranet. The TRAC website offers tips and resources on alternative commuting -- everything from public transportation and biking routes, to how to set up a carpool complete with Nike employees or with others in the area. Employees register on the TRAC website each week for the number of alternative commutes they take the week prior. Prizes, which are done by monthly drawing, are given to an average of 40 employees. Other incentives include annual public transportation passes from TriMet for $20 and a shuttle system that allows employees to take public transportation and have a ride to campus and from off-site locations to campus.
Since the program began in 1992, it has reduced the company's average drive-alone rate from 98% to 84%. In fiscal year 2006 ended May 31, 2006, based on an average round trip of 17.8 miles, Nike employees saved approximately 719,343 vehicle miles traveled by using alternative commute modes. That's a saving of 35,967 gallons of gas. Nike also saved 40,413 vehicle trips in FY'05.
Another winner, Sun, provides an array of benefits that help employees pursue environmentally friendly and cost-effective commuting strategies. Sun's commute programs have eliminated more than 3,000 tons of CO2 emissions and have saved employees hundreds of thousands of hours that otherwise would have been wasted in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Sun's flexible work program for its mobile and distributed workforce, called iWork, consists of leading-edge technologies and forward-thinking work practices that create an innovative, productive work environment where the network is the computer and employees can work anywhere, anytime using any device. The program offers flexible work choices that include the option to work from home or a local drop-in center which allows employees to spend less time and money on commuting. Sun employees also use SMART (Sun Microsystems Alternative Resources for Transportation) programs and services which give up- to-date commuter information, incentives for taking transit, biking and walking to work as well as shuttle rides to better utilize public transportation options near Sun campuses.
To qualify as one of the Best Workplaces for Commuters, employers must provide:
At least one primary commuter benefit, such as a monthly transit/vanpool pass subsidy or a significant telecommuting program;
At least three supporting commuter benefits, such as carpool/vanpool incentives, lockers/showers for bikers or walkers, compressed/flexible work schedules, or on-site daycare;
A central point of contact, who actively informs employees of available commuter benefits; and
Access to a regional or employer-provided Emergency or Guaranteed Ride Home Program.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 23, 2006 - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced its annual list of Best Workplaces for Commuters from the Fortune 500 companies.
This year, 133 companies employing more than 700,000 workers qualify for this list. The top 20 employers are ranked by the percentage of domestic employees who are eligible for commuter benefits, such as subsidized transit passes, telework, carpool programs, and emergency rides home.
Each year, says EPA, the congestion created from commuting to and from work causes 3.7 billion hours of lost productivity, costing employees 92 million work weeks, and the nation $63.1 billion in wasted time and fuel. ?
Winners this year include Intel, Microsoft, Google Inc., Oracle, QUALCOMM, Yahoo!, Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, Texas Instruments, Applied Materials, Safeco Insurance, Reliant Energy, Wyeth, Apple, and IBM.
Among the winners was Nike, which offers a program called TRAC (Traveling Responsibly? Accept the Challenge.) Nike offers monthly prizes and incentives to employees at its World Headquarters and surrounding areas in the Portland, Ore. metropolitan area who can get to work by eliminating the use of a gasoline or diesel- powered vehicle.
TRAC is staffed by a full-time employee transportation coordinator who manages information about the program on the company intranet. The TRAC website offers tips and resources on alternative commuting -- everything from public transportation and biking routes, to how to set up a carpool complete with Nike employees or with others in the area. Employees register on the TRAC website each week for the number of alternative commutes they take the week prior. Prizes, which are done by monthly drawing, are given to an average of 40 employees. Other incentives include annual public transportation passes from TriMet for $20 and a shuttle system that allows employees to take public transportation and have a ride to campus and from off-site locations to campus.
Since the program began in 1992, it has reduced the company's average drive-alone rate from 98% to 84%. In fiscal year 2006 ended May 31, 2006, based on an average round trip of 17.8 miles, Nike employees saved approximately 719,343 vehicle miles traveled by using alternative commute modes. That's a saving of 35,967 gallons of gas. Nike also saved 40,413 vehicle trips in FY'05.
Another winner, Sun, provides an array of benefits that help employees pursue environmentally friendly and cost-effective commuting strategies. Sun's commute programs have eliminated more than 3,000 tons of CO2 emissions and have saved employees hundreds of thousands of hours that otherwise would have been wasted in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Sun's flexible work program for its mobile and distributed workforce, called iWork, consists of leading-edge technologies and forward-thinking work practices that create an innovative, productive work environment where the network is the computer and employees can work anywhere, anytime using any device. The program offers flexible work choices that include the option to work from home or a local drop-in center which allows employees to spend less time and money on commuting. Sun employees also use SMART (Sun Microsystems Alternative Resources for Transportation) programs and services which give up- to-date commuter information, incentives for taking transit, biking and walking to work as well as shuttle rides to better utilize public transportation options near Sun campuses.
To qualify as one of the Best Workplaces for Commuters, employers must provide:
At least one primary commuter benefit, such as a monthly transit/vanpool pass subsidy or a significant telecommuting program;
At least three supporting commuter benefits, such as carpool/vanpool incentives, lockers/showers for bikers or walkers, compressed/flexible work schedules, or on-site daycare;
A central point of contact, who actively informs employees of available commuter benefits; and
Access to a regional or employer-provided Emergency or Guaranteed Ride Home Program.
Pew Offers Guide to Developing Climate-Related Business Strategies
GreenBiz
WASHINGTON, Oct. 23, 2006 - The Pew Center on Global Climate Change has released a guide describing the development and implementation of corporate strategies that take into account climate-related risks and opportunities.
The report, "Getting Ahead of the Curve: Corporate Strategies That Address Climate Change" (Download - PDF), authored by Andrew Hoffman of the University of Michigan, lays out a step-by-step approach for companies to reshape their core business strategies in order to succeed in a future marketplace where greenhouse gases are regulated and carbon-efficiency is in demand. The research shows a growing consensus among corporate leaders that taking action on climate change is a sensible business decision. Many of the companies highlighted in the report are shifting their focus from managing the financial risks of climate change to exploiting new business opportunities for energy efficient and low-carbon products and services.
Relying on six highly detailed, on-site case studies, as well as results from a 100-question survey completed by 31 companies, the report offers a unique and in-depth look at the development and implementation of corporate strategies that address climate change. The featured case studies include Alcoa, Cinergy (now Duke Energy), DuPont, Shell, Swiss Re, and Whirlpool Corporation.
One of the clearest conclusions is that businesses need to engage actively with government in the development of climate policy. Of 31 major corporations polled by the report author, nearly all companies believe that federal greenhouse gas standards are imminent, and 84 percent of these companies believe regulations will take effect before 2015. The report offers policy makers insight into how companies are moving forward on climate change and how they can most effectively engage in the policy discussion.
“If you look at what is happening today at the state level and in the Congress, a proactive approach in the policy arena clearly makes sound business sense,” says the Pew Center's Eileen Claussen. “In the corporate world, inaction is no longer an option.”
Lessons learned at each step of the strategy development process include four overarching themes:
Strategic timing - For some there is a danger of starting too early; others highlight the risks of starting too late.
Establishing an appropriate level of commitment – For many companies, uncertain demands from government, the marketplace, and the financial community–coupled with limited hard data and models to guide aggressive action–make it challenging to support extensive expenditures on GHG reductions.
Influence policy development – Any policy that regulates GHG emissions will certainly constitute a major market shift. Early action is seen as a way for companies to gain credibility and leverage participation in the process of policy.
Creating business opportunities – positioning to capture emerging opportunities and gain competitive advantage.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 23, 2006 - The Pew Center on Global Climate Change has released a guide describing the development and implementation of corporate strategies that take into account climate-related risks and opportunities.
The report, "Getting Ahead of the Curve: Corporate Strategies That Address Climate Change" (Download - PDF), authored by Andrew Hoffman of the University of Michigan, lays out a step-by-step approach for companies to reshape their core business strategies in order to succeed in a future marketplace where greenhouse gases are regulated and carbon-efficiency is in demand. The research shows a growing consensus among corporate leaders that taking action on climate change is a sensible business decision. Many of the companies highlighted in the report are shifting their focus from managing the financial risks of climate change to exploiting new business opportunities for energy efficient and low-carbon products and services.
Relying on six highly detailed, on-site case studies, as well as results from a 100-question survey completed by 31 companies, the report offers a unique and in-depth look at the development and implementation of corporate strategies that address climate change. The featured case studies include Alcoa, Cinergy (now Duke Energy), DuPont, Shell, Swiss Re, and Whirlpool Corporation.
One of the clearest conclusions is that businesses need to engage actively with government in the development of climate policy. Of 31 major corporations polled by the report author, nearly all companies believe that federal greenhouse gas standards are imminent, and 84 percent of these companies believe regulations will take effect before 2015. The report offers policy makers insight into how companies are moving forward on climate change and how they can most effectively engage in the policy discussion.
“If you look at what is happening today at the state level and in the Congress, a proactive approach in the policy arena clearly makes sound business sense,” says the Pew Center's Eileen Claussen. “In the corporate world, inaction is no longer an option.”
Lessons learned at each step of the strategy development process include four overarching themes:
Strategic timing - For some there is a danger of starting too early; others highlight the risks of starting too late.
Establishing an appropriate level of commitment – For many companies, uncertain demands from government, the marketplace, and the financial community–coupled with limited hard data and models to guide aggressive action–make it challenging to support extensive expenditures on GHG reductions.
Influence policy development – Any policy that regulates GHG emissions will certainly constitute a major market shift. Early action is seen as a way for companies to gain credibility and leverage participation in the process of policy.
Creating business opportunities – positioning to capture emerging opportunities and gain competitive advantage.
Yale Journal Identifies Products and Activities with Greatest Environmental Impact
GreenBiz
NEW HAVEN, Conn., Oct 24, 2006 - A special issue of Yale's Journal of Industrial Ecology examines the types of products that cause the most environmental damage through their use of resources such as energy, contribution to global warming, toxic impacts, and production of solid waste.
The journal’s research reveals that automobiles, air travel, food (chiefly meat and dairy), and home and related energy use -- including heating, cooling and other energy-using appliances -- cause up to 80 percent of the total environmental impact in society.
"The research findings reported in the special issue are important because they help pinpoint the most problematic types of consumption, which include activities that are now commonplace in our lives such as air transport," said Gus Speth, dean of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. “That should lead to clearer priorities and better decisions.”
Contributors to the special issue, Priorities for Environmental Product Policy, examined the impacts of products in Cardiff, Wales; in Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands; and in countries in the European Union (EU) as a whole.
The special issue features the most recent and influential studies on the relative impact of consumption activities. The studies, all independently conducted, conclude that a consistent and robust priority list of product groups can serve as a guide for environmental improvement programs undertaken by industry and government.
In many countries, environmental policy that is centered on production, use and disposal of products—rather than just pollution from smokestacks and drainpipes—is gaining acceptance. The European Union and China are banning hazardous substances from electrical and electronic products, for example, and Japan is implementing a green purchasing law.
“This special issue demonstrates the power of industrial ecology,” says Reid Lifset, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Industrial Ecology. “Concepts and tools that lie at the core of this field, such as life-cycle assessment and input-output analysis, help us to gain a much better understanding of the relative importance of specific categories of consumption for the pressures on the environment.”
The Journal of Industrial Ecology is a peer-reviewed international quarterly owned by Yale University, published by MIT Press and headquartered at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. The special issue is based in part on research prepared for the EU-funded project Environmental Impacts of Products (EIPRO). The project was led by Dutch research organizations TNO and CML, and provides an important basis for the EU’s Integrated Product Policy.
Arnold Tukker, manager of the Sustainable Innovation Program at TNO and manager of EIPRO, served as guest editor. The articles in the special issue are available online.
NEW HAVEN, Conn., Oct 24, 2006 - A special issue of Yale's Journal of Industrial Ecology examines the types of products that cause the most environmental damage through their use of resources such as energy, contribution to global warming, toxic impacts, and production of solid waste.
The journal’s research reveals that automobiles, air travel, food (chiefly meat and dairy), and home and related energy use -- including heating, cooling and other energy-using appliances -- cause up to 80 percent of the total environmental impact in society.
"The research findings reported in the special issue are important because they help pinpoint the most problematic types of consumption, which include activities that are now commonplace in our lives such as air transport," said Gus Speth, dean of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. “That should lead to clearer priorities and better decisions.”
Contributors to the special issue, Priorities for Environmental Product Policy, examined the impacts of products in Cardiff, Wales; in Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands; and in countries in the European Union (EU) as a whole.
The special issue features the most recent and influential studies on the relative impact of consumption activities. The studies, all independently conducted, conclude that a consistent and robust priority list of product groups can serve as a guide for environmental improvement programs undertaken by industry and government.
In many countries, environmental policy that is centered on production, use and disposal of products—rather than just pollution from smokestacks and drainpipes—is gaining acceptance. The European Union and China are banning hazardous substances from electrical and electronic products, for example, and Japan is implementing a green purchasing law.
“This special issue demonstrates the power of industrial ecology,” says Reid Lifset, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Industrial Ecology. “Concepts and tools that lie at the core of this field, such as life-cycle assessment and input-output analysis, help us to gain a much better understanding of the relative importance of specific categories of consumption for the pressures on the environment.”
The Journal of Industrial Ecology is a peer-reviewed international quarterly owned by Yale University, published by MIT Press and headquartered at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. The special issue is based in part on research prepared for the EU-funded project Environmental Impacts of Products (EIPRO). The project was led by Dutch research organizations TNO and CML, and provides an important basis for the EU’s Integrated Product Policy.
Arnold Tukker, manager of the Sustainable Innovation Program at TNO and manager of EIPRO, served as guest editor. The articles in the special issue are available online.
Sunny Side Up
NY Times
By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH
General Motors liked the idea of using the sun to power its buildings. But until recently, one immutable economic fact held G.M. back: The upfront costs were simply too high to justify the ultimate payoff.
G.M. is not alone. Even solar energy’s biggest fans concede that the high investment costs have kept companies from pursuing what is arguably the cleanest, most renewable and least politically sensitive energy source around.
But now, G.M. and a small but growing number of other companies and municipalities are getting solar energy from systems installed by others. Even though the installations are right on their own roofs, they buy the electricity much as they would from a utility’s grid. And because the companies that paid for the systems will get a steady income, they can provide power from the sun at competitive electricity rates.
Since June, the roof of G.M.’s parts warehouse in Cucamonga, Calif., has been host to a photovoltaic array with the ability to generate as much as 1.5 million kilowatt hours of electricity a year. The installation, which G.M. expects will provide half of the building’s electricity, cost G.M. nothing.
A solar developer called Developing Energy Efficient Roof Systems — commonly called Deers — bought the equipment with money it raised from private financiers. Deers and its investors own the cells; G.M. signed a long-term contract to purchase the solar-generated electricity from them, at a discount to the prevailing rate for electricity in the region.
These days, that rate is 9 cents to 10 cents a kilowatt hour; G.M. expects that the solar system will reduce its overall electricity costs by 10 percent a year.
“We assume the risk, because we know that companies like G.M. have budgets to buy electricity, not to spend millions of dollars generating it,” said Jack P. DeLiddo, president of Deers.
G.M. is already negotiating with Deers to put a similar solar array on a warehouse in nearby Fontana. “The savings are small, but it’s exciting to create such an environmentally sound project without any need to shell out capital,” said Kamesh Gupta, manager of planning and programs for General Motors Energy and Utility Services, which purchases all the energy used by G.M.
Similar deals are cropping up elsewhere. Some specify that the users pay the solar developers a fixed rate for electricity, while others specify a fixed discount to the going rate.
Other factors are involved as well. The parties generally negotiate who will retain potential credits for reducing carbon emissions. When the developers and their backers keep the carbon abatement credits, they generally plan to sell them to companies that might otherwise have trouble complying with rules planned in California and expected elsewhere aimed at limiting global warming.
The electricity users could do that, too, but some of them might also use the credits to offset emissions from other parts of their operations.
But the same logic underpins all of the deals: The electricity users get a clean, reliable source of energy. The developers and their backers get an equally reliable return on their investment — which can be as high as $6,000 per kilowatt hour of capacity — as well as the tax credits and rebates that California and other states offer for renewable energy projects.
“Corporations like solar energy, but they would rather make sizable investments in their core businesses,” said Craig Hanson, head of the Green Power Market Development Group, a consortium of large companies working under the auspices of the World Resources Institute to promote renewable energy. “But for the financiers, it’s like buying the bond of a triple-A-rated company. It may not offer a 20 percent return, but it’s a stable and secure investment.”
The “solar services model,” as Mr. Hanson calls the solar contracts, is drawing interest from a diverse group of companies and financiers.
Alcoa is negotiating with developers to put solar cells on a manufacturing plant, although it will not specify details. General Electric Energy Financial Services has installed solar roofs that provide half the electricity used by 23 San Diego schools.
Kevin Walsh, the G.E. unit’s manager for renewable energy, said the company was installing another seven. “For a financier like us, it’s a nice, steady stream of revenue with the risk virtually eliminated,” Mr. Walsh said. His unit, he said, is negotiating with a “big box retailer” to install solar roofs on some of its stores.
Retailers, which normally operate with the kind of razor-thin margins that cannot support large capital investments on anything but the core business, have been particularly receptive to the solar services model.
Whole Foods Market, in a deal with SunEdison, a solar project manager financed by a group of investors that includes Goldman Sachs, has solar cells providing about 10 percent of the energy it uses in three stores and one warehouse, and plans many more. “There’s just no downside,” said Jennifer McDonnell, green mission specialist for Whole Foods.
Staples, which has two distribution centers in California that derive about 15 percent of their electricity from 280 kilowatt solar arrays installed by SunEdison, also plans new ones. It recently put a 120 kilowatt system on an office building in Englewood, N.J., and is planning a large solar array for a distribution center in Killingly, Conn.
Mark Buckley, vice president for environmental affairs, said he had identified 140 stores that seemed to be prime candidates for similar installations.
“We are a frugal business with low margins, so we cannot justify the cost of a solar system,” he said. “This way, we’ve got no capital investment, no operating expenses, and we’re lowering our energy costs even as we reduce our carbon emissions. This is a true win-win.”
That does not mean the deals are free of risk. They are not feasible in locations where the sun does not shine consistently through the year, or in states that do not offer tax incentives and rebates.
The economics do not work for the many industrial companies that have negotiated below-market electricity rates. Users must commit to buying a set amount of energy for at least 10 years.
Older buildings often have aged roofs that cannot support conventional photovoltaic cells (although Mr. Walsh of G.E. Energy Financial Services said his group used a technology that embedded the photovoltaic cells in a new, and removable, roof).
Companies must also persuade their own managements — or in the case of leased buildings, their landlords — to allow the installations. And, of course, the economics only make sense to people who think that prices for conventional energy will keep rising.
“We have an incentive to make sure the systems work well, because that’s how we make our money,” said Jigar Shah, who founded SunEdison in 2003 and is generally thought to have pioneered the solar services model. “But let’s face it, we are putting a hole in their roof, so they have to trust we can do it properly. And if you think electricity rates will go down, these long-term contracts don’t look good.”
But few economists are predicting that electricity rates will plummet. And, even if they do, solar energy would still appeal to companies worried about carbon emissions and looking at ways to improve their public image.
“The energy is clean, and the fixed-price agreement doesn’t fluctuate,” Ms. McDonnell of Whole Foods said. “Seeing whether solar would work is now on our check list for every one of our new stores.”
By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH
General Motors liked the idea of using the sun to power its buildings. But until recently, one immutable economic fact held G.M. back: The upfront costs were simply too high to justify the ultimate payoff.
G.M. is not alone. Even solar energy’s biggest fans concede that the high investment costs have kept companies from pursuing what is arguably the cleanest, most renewable and least politically sensitive energy source around.
But now, G.M. and a small but growing number of other companies and municipalities are getting solar energy from systems installed by others. Even though the installations are right on their own roofs, they buy the electricity much as they would from a utility’s grid. And because the companies that paid for the systems will get a steady income, they can provide power from the sun at competitive electricity rates.
Since June, the roof of G.M.’s parts warehouse in Cucamonga, Calif., has been host to a photovoltaic array with the ability to generate as much as 1.5 million kilowatt hours of electricity a year. The installation, which G.M. expects will provide half of the building’s electricity, cost G.M. nothing.
A solar developer called Developing Energy Efficient Roof Systems — commonly called Deers — bought the equipment with money it raised from private financiers. Deers and its investors own the cells; G.M. signed a long-term contract to purchase the solar-generated electricity from them, at a discount to the prevailing rate for electricity in the region.
These days, that rate is 9 cents to 10 cents a kilowatt hour; G.M. expects that the solar system will reduce its overall electricity costs by 10 percent a year.
“We assume the risk, because we know that companies like G.M. have budgets to buy electricity, not to spend millions of dollars generating it,” said Jack P. DeLiddo, president of Deers.
G.M. is already negotiating with Deers to put a similar solar array on a warehouse in nearby Fontana. “The savings are small, but it’s exciting to create such an environmentally sound project without any need to shell out capital,” said Kamesh Gupta, manager of planning and programs for General Motors Energy and Utility Services, which purchases all the energy used by G.M.
Similar deals are cropping up elsewhere. Some specify that the users pay the solar developers a fixed rate for electricity, while others specify a fixed discount to the going rate.
Other factors are involved as well. The parties generally negotiate who will retain potential credits for reducing carbon emissions. When the developers and their backers keep the carbon abatement credits, they generally plan to sell them to companies that might otherwise have trouble complying with rules planned in California and expected elsewhere aimed at limiting global warming.
The electricity users could do that, too, but some of them might also use the credits to offset emissions from other parts of their operations.
But the same logic underpins all of the deals: The electricity users get a clean, reliable source of energy. The developers and their backers get an equally reliable return on their investment — which can be as high as $6,000 per kilowatt hour of capacity — as well as the tax credits and rebates that California and other states offer for renewable energy projects.
“Corporations like solar energy, but they would rather make sizable investments in their core businesses,” said Craig Hanson, head of the Green Power Market Development Group, a consortium of large companies working under the auspices of the World Resources Institute to promote renewable energy. “But for the financiers, it’s like buying the bond of a triple-A-rated company. It may not offer a 20 percent return, but it’s a stable and secure investment.”
The “solar services model,” as Mr. Hanson calls the solar contracts, is drawing interest from a diverse group of companies and financiers.
Alcoa is negotiating with developers to put solar cells on a manufacturing plant, although it will not specify details. General Electric Energy Financial Services has installed solar roofs that provide half the electricity used by 23 San Diego schools.
Kevin Walsh, the G.E. unit’s manager for renewable energy, said the company was installing another seven. “For a financier like us, it’s a nice, steady stream of revenue with the risk virtually eliminated,” Mr. Walsh said. His unit, he said, is negotiating with a “big box retailer” to install solar roofs on some of its stores.
Retailers, which normally operate with the kind of razor-thin margins that cannot support large capital investments on anything but the core business, have been particularly receptive to the solar services model.
Whole Foods Market, in a deal with SunEdison, a solar project manager financed by a group of investors that includes Goldman Sachs, has solar cells providing about 10 percent of the energy it uses in three stores and one warehouse, and plans many more. “There’s just no downside,” said Jennifer McDonnell, green mission specialist for Whole Foods.
Staples, which has two distribution centers in California that derive about 15 percent of their electricity from 280 kilowatt solar arrays installed by SunEdison, also plans new ones. It recently put a 120 kilowatt system on an office building in Englewood, N.J., and is planning a large solar array for a distribution center in Killingly, Conn.
Mark Buckley, vice president for environmental affairs, said he had identified 140 stores that seemed to be prime candidates for similar installations.
“We are a frugal business with low margins, so we cannot justify the cost of a solar system,” he said. “This way, we’ve got no capital investment, no operating expenses, and we’re lowering our energy costs even as we reduce our carbon emissions. This is a true win-win.”
That does not mean the deals are free of risk. They are not feasible in locations where the sun does not shine consistently through the year, or in states that do not offer tax incentives and rebates.
The economics do not work for the many industrial companies that have negotiated below-market electricity rates. Users must commit to buying a set amount of energy for at least 10 years.
Older buildings often have aged roofs that cannot support conventional photovoltaic cells (although Mr. Walsh of G.E. Energy Financial Services said his group used a technology that embedded the photovoltaic cells in a new, and removable, roof).
Companies must also persuade their own managements — or in the case of leased buildings, their landlords — to allow the installations. And, of course, the economics only make sense to people who think that prices for conventional energy will keep rising.
“We have an incentive to make sure the systems work well, because that’s how we make our money,” said Jigar Shah, who founded SunEdison in 2003 and is generally thought to have pioneered the solar services model. “But let’s face it, we are putting a hole in their roof, so they have to trust we can do it properly. And if you think electricity rates will go down, these long-term contracts don’t look good.”
But few economists are predicting that electricity rates will plummet. And, even if they do, solar energy would still appeal to companies worried about carbon emissions and looking at ways to improve their public image.
“The energy is clean, and the fixed-price agreement doesn’t fluctuate,” Ms. McDonnell of Whole Foods said. “Seeing whether solar would work is now on our check list for every one of our new stores.”
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