NY Times
Jeff Goodell
June 23, 2006
SARATOGA SPRINGS, New York Not long ago, I stood at the bottom of a strip mine in Wyoming and looked up at a 70-foot- high seam of coal. It had a brownish cast and crumbled when I touched it. I could see bits of woody fiber, the remains of a huge swamp that existed there 50 million years ago. I imagined this great coal seam rolling under the prairie for hundreds of miles. "We're the OPEC of coal," the head of a coal industry trade group told me later.
Now that the need for greater U.S. energy independence has become a universal political slogan, every county commissioner has an idea of how America can break free of its Middle Eastern oil shackles: ethanol, hydrogen, solar panels on the roof of every Hummer! Still, it's hard not to be optimistic when you're standing in front of a huge seam of coal. It's not hype; it's real. Is the bridge to energy independence paved in black?
During World War II, the Nazis, who were desperate to find a way to power their tanks with coal, pursued technology to transform coal into liquid fuels. In South Africa today, one energy company, Sasol, produces about 150,000 barrels a day of diesel from coal.
According to a recent report by the National Coal Council, an advisory board to the Department of Energy that is dominated by coal executives, if America invested $211 billion in coal-to- liquids refineries over the next 20 years, it could make 2.6 million barrels of diesel per day, enhancing the American oil supply by 10 percent. A number of coal- to-liquids plants are on the drawing boards in the United States, and China is eagerly pursuing this technology too. But let's consider the wisdom of substituting one fossil fuel for another. We already burn a billion tons of coal a year - it generates more than half the electricity in the United States. But thanks to ever bigger, more powerful equipment, mining is destroying vast swaths of Appalachia while providing fewer well- paying jobs. If we simply increase consumption, we will be condemning large areas of the country, including eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia, to national sacrifice zones.
Then there's global warming. To avoid dangerous climate change, many scientists argue that we must cut greenhouse- gas emissions by 50 percent to 70 percent by 2050. Coal, the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel, is responsible for nearly 40 percent of American emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. Since 1990, carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel power plants have increased by 27 percent, compared to 19 percent from all sources nationally. Coal-to-liquids plants will only accelerate this trend. Depending on the technology used, refining coal can release 50 percent to 100 percent more carbon dioxide than refining petroleum.
Coal-to-liquids plants might make sense for generating back-up fuel for the military. And there are certainly ways coal can play a role in reducing the demand for oil without destroying the climate. Instead of building coal-to-liquids plants, it would be smarter to push for the development of plug-in hybrid cars, which have larger batteries than conventional hybrids, allowing them to replace gasoline with grid-generated electricity and to emit 65 percent less carbon dioxide than conventional cars. But coal boosters are less interested in promoting this path, which would undercut the industry's goal of becoming "the OPEC of coal." The very phrase suggests the industry's monopolistic impulses.
The biggest problem with America's bounty of coal is not what it does to our mountains or the atmosphere, but what it does to our minds. It preserves the illusion that we don't have to change our lives. Given the profound challenges we face with the end of cheap oil and the arrival of global warming, this is a dangerous fantasy.
If we had less coal, we might replace the 19th-century notion that we can drill and burn our way to prosperity with a more modern view of efficiency and sustainability. Instead of spending billions of dollars each year to subsidize tapping out yet another finite resource, we'd pour that money into solar energy, biofuels and other renewable resources.
We'd be creating jobs in new industries, not protecting them in old ones. And we'd understand that the real fuel of the future is not coal but creativity.
Jeff Goodell is the author of "Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future."
Monday, June 26, 2006
Al Gore's Documentary Wins Special Award
AP
June 21, 2006
LOS ANGELES -- The Al Gore documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" will receive a rare recognition from the Humanitas Prize, which honors screenwriting that helps "liberate, enrich and unify society."
"An Inconvenient Truth," which chronicles Gore's quest to draw attention to global warming, will receive the organization's first Special Award in over 10 years, president Frank Desiderio announced Wednesday.
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"It's a very important film," he said in a statement. "We want to shine a light on it."
The documentary's director, Davis Guggenheim, said he was "thrilled" with the recognition, adding that Humanitas "supports the achievements and sacrifices of filmmakers trying to change the world."
Since 1974, the Humanitas Prize has presented awards and grants to TV and film writers whose fictional work reflects "the positive values of life." Documentaries are occasionally recognized with Special Awards. The last such honors went to Bill Moyers and Judith Davidson Moyers in 1995 for their documentary "What Can We Do About Violence."
June 21, 2006
LOS ANGELES -- The Al Gore documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" will receive a rare recognition from the Humanitas Prize, which honors screenwriting that helps "liberate, enrich and unify society."
"An Inconvenient Truth," which chronicles Gore's quest to draw attention to global warming, will receive the organization's first Special Award in over 10 years, president Frank Desiderio announced Wednesday.
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"It's a very important film," he said in a statement. "We want to shine a light on it."
The documentary's director, Davis Guggenheim, said he was "thrilled" with the recognition, adding that Humanitas "supports the achievements and sacrifices of filmmakers trying to change the world."
Since 1974, the Humanitas Prize has presented awards and grants to TV and film writers whose fictional work reflects "the positive values of life." Documentaries are occasionally recognized with Special Awards. The last such honors went to Bill Moyers and Judith Davidson Moyers in 1995 for their documentary "What Can We Do About Violence."
Study Says Earth's Temp at 400-Year High
AP
JOHN HEILPRIN
06.22.2006
The Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400 years, probably even longer. The National Academy of Sciences, reaching that conclusion in a broad review of scientific work requested by Congress, reported Thursday that the "recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia."
A panel of top climate scientists told lawmakers that the Earth is running a fever and that "human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming." Their 155-page report said average global surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere rose about 1 degree during the 20th century.
The report was requested in November by the chairman of the House Science Committee, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., to address naysayers who question whether global warming is a major threat.
Last year, when the House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, launched an investigation of three climate scientists, Boehlert said Barton should try to learn from scientists, not intimidate them.
The Bush administration also has maintained that the threat is not severe enough to warrant new pollution controls that the White House says would have cost 5 million Americans their jobs.
Climate scientists Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes had concluded the Northern Hemisphere was the warmest it has been in 2,000 years. Their research was known as the "hockey-stick" graphic because it compared the sharp curve of the hockey blade to the recent uptick in temperatures and the stick's long shaft to centuries of previous climate stability.
The National Academy scientists concluded that the Mann-Bradley-Hughes research from the late 1990s was "likely" to be true, said John "Mike" Wallace, an atmospheric sciences professor at the University of Washington and a panel member. The conclusions from the '90s research "are very close to being right" and are supported by even more recent data, Wallace said.
The panel looked at how other scientists reconstructed the Earth's temperatures going back thousands of years, before there was data from modern scientific instruments.
For all but the most recent 150 years, the academy scientists relied on "proxy" evidence from tree rings, corals, glaciers and ice cores, cave deposits, ocean and lake sediments, boreholes and other sources. They also examined indirect records such as paintings of glaciers in the Alps.
Combining that information gave the panel "a high level of confidence that the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable period in the last 400 years," the academy said.
Overall, the panel agreed that the warming in the last few decades of the 20th century was unprecedented over the last 1,000 years, though relatively warm conditions persisted around the year 1000, followed by a "Little Ice Age" from about 1500 to 1850.
The scientists said they had less confidence in the evidence of temperatures before 1600. But they considered it reliable enough to conclude there were sharp spikes in carbon dioxide and methane, the two major "greenhouse" gases blamed for trapping heat in the atmosphere, beginning in the 20th century, after remaining fairly level for 12,000 years.
Between 1 A.D. and 1850, volcanic eruptions and solar fluctuations were the main causes of changes in greenhouse gas levels. But those temperature changes "were much less pronounced than the warming due to greenhouse gas" levels by pollution since the mid-19th century, it said.
The National Academy of Sciences is a private organization chartered by Congress to advise the government of scientific matters.
HEATING UP: The Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400, maybe more.
SCIENTISTS AGREE: The National Academy of Sciences studied tree rings, corals and other natural formations, in part, to conclude that the heat is unprecedented for potentially the last several millennia.
HUMAN FAULT: Human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming, the Academy says.
JOHN HEILPRIN
06.22.2006
The Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400 years, probably even longer. The National Academy of Sciences, reaching that conclusion in a broad review of scientific work requested by Congress, reported Thursday that the "recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia."
A panel of top climate scientists told lawmakers that the Earth is running a fever and that "human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming." Their 155-page report said average global surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere rose about 1 degree during the 20th century.
The report was requested in November by the chairman of the House Science Committee, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., to address naysayers who question whether global warming is a major threat.
Last year, when the House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, launched an investigation of three climate scientists, Boehlert said Barton should try to learn from scientists, not intimidate them.
The Bush administration also has maintained that the threat is not severe enough to warrant new pollution controls that the White House says would have cost 5 million Americans their jobs.
Climate scientists Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes had concluded the Northern Hemisphere was the warmest it has been in 2,000 years. Their research was known as the "hockey-stick" graphic because it compared the sharp curve of the hockey blade to the recent uptick in temperatures and the stick's long shaft to centuries of previous climate stability.
The National Academy scientists concluded that the Mann-Bradley-Hughes research from the late 1990s was "likely" to be true, said John "Mike" Wallace, an atmospheric sciences professor at the University of Washington and a panel member. The conclusions from the '90s research "are very close to being right" and are supported by even more recent data, Wallace said.
The panel looked at how other scientists reconstructed the Earth's temperatures going back thousands of years, before there was data from modern scientific instruments.
For all but the most recent 150 years, the academy scientists relied on "proxy" evidence from tree rings, corals, glaciers and ice cores, cave deposits, ocean and lake sediments, boreholes and other sources. They also examined indirect records such as paintings of glaciers in the Alps.
Combining that information gave the panel "a high level of confidence that the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable period in the last 400 years," the academy said.
Overall, the panel agreed that the warming in the last few decades of the 20th century was unprecedented over the last 1,000 years, though relatively warm conditions persisted around the year 1000, followed by a "Little Ice Age" from about 1500 to 1850.
The scientists said they had less confidence in the evidence of temperatures before 1600. But they considered it reliable enough to conclude there were sharp spikes in carbon dioxide and methane, the two major "greenhouse" gases blamed for trapping heat in the atmosphere, beginning in the 20th century, after remaining fairly level for 12,000 years.
Between 1 A.D. and 1850, volcanic eruptions and solar fluctuations were the main causes of changes in greenhouse gas levels. But those temperature changes "were much less pronounced than the warming due to greenhouse gas" levels by pollution since the mid-19th century, it said.
The National Academy of Sciences is a private organization chartered by Congress to advise the government of scientific matters.
HEATING UP: The Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400, maybe more.
SCIENTISTS AGREE: The National Academy of Sciences studied tree rings, corals and other natural formations, in part, to conclude that the heat is unprecedented for potentially the last several millennia.
HUMAN FAULT: Human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming, the Academy says.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Florida Energy Bill to Diversify Fuel Supply with Renewables
June 22, 2006
Tallahassee, Florida [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] Governor Jeb Bush signed into law a four-year, $100-million plan that will reduce Florida's dependence on imported oil, promote energy conservation and efficiency, spur economic growth and increase Florida's investment in cleaner, alternative energy sources such as solar, hydrogen and biofuels.
Joined by a state and community leaders, the Governor signed Senate Bill 888 in Tampa at the launch of Florida's newest ethanol production facility.
"Reducing barriers and diversifying the state's fuel supply will ensure greater energy and economic security for Florida," said Governor Bush. "Grant programs and targeted investments for emerging technologies will speed up the development of viable, cleaner alternative energy sources and create opportunities for new industries, services and jobs."
Spearheaded by Governor Bush, the Florida Renewable Energy Technologies and Energy Efficiency Act takes the first step toward a diverse, reliable and secure energy future by reducing regulatory barriers to expedite electric generation capacity and providing rebates, grants and tax incentives to drive the development of alternative fuel technologies.
The legislation also creates the Florida Energy Commission, a nine-member panel to be appointed by the President of the Senate and Speaker of the House. The commission will advise the Legislature on state energy policy based on the guiding principles of reliability, efficiency, affordability and diversity.
"Senate Bill 888 is built upon four principles: reliability, efficiency, affordability and diversity of energy sources," said Senator Lee Constantine. "It creates the Florida Energy Commission and gives them the authority to develop recommendations for legislation, alternative fuel incentives, and long-term energy policy. It gives us the ability to change the chart on energy use from dependency on natural gas and oil to more opportunities for alternative, renewable and recyclable fuel sources. It gives Florida an exponential lead over all other states when it comes to energy policy."
Tallahassee, Florida [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] Governor Jeb Bush signed into law a four-year, $100-million plan that will reduce Florida's dependence on imported oil, promote energy conservation and efficiency, spur economic growth and increase Florida's investment in cleaner, alternative energy sources such as solar, hydrogen and biofuels.
Joined by a state and community leaders, the Governor signed Senate Bill 888 in Tampa at the launch of Florida's newest ethanol production facility.
"Reducing barriers and diversifying the state's fuel supply will ensure greater energy and economic security for Florida," said Governor Bush. "Grant programs and targeted investments for emerging technologies will speed up the development of viable, cleaner alternative energy sources and create opportunities for new industries, services and jobs."
Spearheaded by Governor Bush, the Florida Renewable Energy Technologies and Energy Efficiency Act takes the first step toward a diverse, reliable and secure energy future by reducing regulatory barriers to expedite electric generation capacity and providing rebates, grants and tax incentives to drive the development of alternative fuel technologies.
The legislation also creates the Florida Energy Commission, a nine-member panel to be appointed by the President of the Senate and Speaker of the House. The commission will advise the Legislature on state energy policy based on the guiding principles of reliability, efficiency, affordability and diversity.
"Senate Bill 888 is built upon four principles: reliability, efficiency, affordability and diversity of energy sources," said Senator Lee Constantine. "It creates the Florida Energy Commission and gives them the authority to develop recommendations for legislation, alternative fuel incentives, and long-term energy policy. It gives us the ability to change the chart on energy use from dependency on natural gas and oil to more opportunities for alternative, renewable and recyclable fuel sources. It gives Florida an exponential lead over all other states when it comes to energy policy."
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