Supreme arguments, part 2

One of the more entertaining takes on yesterday's global-warming arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court is available today on the Slate website, written by its legal correspondent Dahlia Lithwick. This is the first paragraph:

"If there is anything stranger than writing up your story on global warming in a T-shirt … in late November … in the District of Columbia, I can't quite think what it is. In fact nothing about this morning's oral argument, in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, is normal. The justices are perhaps deciding, after all, the most urgent scientific question facing the planet: They are deciding Bush v. Gore's Movie."

To read the full piece, click on:

http://www.slate.com/id/2154622

--Craig Pittman

Electric cars are back, says GM.

I was in the gym at lunchtime and while channel-surfing during my workout I was fortunate enough to catch CNBC's interview with Rick Wagoner, CEO at General Motors. He was talking at the Los Angeles car show about GM's new plans to build electric vehicles.
For those of you who have seen 'Who Killed the Electric Car' it seems GM has done another about-turn. This will come as too late for former EV1 drivers. But is welcome news anyway.

"Stung by criticism that it conspired to kill the electric car, the world’s largest automaker said it plans to make a plug-in electric hybrid version of the Saturn Vue Green Line, with double the fuel efficiency of any current sport utility vehicle," CNBC reports.
GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner called the plug-in hybrid technology a “top priority” for the automaker. “The technological hurdles are real, but we believe they are also surmountable,” he told reporters at the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show.

The Saturn Vue Green Line is GM’s first hybrid in the U.S. market, running on gasoline and a battery that is charged while it is moving. GM also plans to expand the hybrid system to the Saturn Aura Green Line and Chevrolet Malibu sedans in 2007. The GMC Yukon hybrid will have 25 percent better fuel economy than the gasoline version, GM said.

The effort is part of a GM effort to demonstrate how it is investing some of the $9 billion saved through job cuts and plant closures in hybrid technology. GM says it recognizes that to change consumer attitudes about its brands, it has to address criticism that it has not done enough to drive advances in fuel economy. In an interview with CNBC Wagoner said GM's decision to opt for electric cars was a response to the "future of energy supply" and the need to diversify away from gasoline.

Asked about consumer attitudes, he said; "I think the public is ready for the next generation of automobiles. We need to supply their needs."

Wagoner said improvements in lithium battery technology were "impressive" and were well ahead of hydrogen fuel cell technology.

Wagoner said the company also planned vehicles that run on a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, as well as fuel-cell vehicles, which use hydrogen to create electricity and emit only water. All versions of GM's Hummer SUVs will offer an engine powered by bio-fuels within three years.

Click here for the CNBC report, plus Phil LeBeau's interview with Wagoner.

- David Adams

IDB promotes investment in alternative energy.

The Interamerican Development Bank (IDB) held a two-day conference this week in Washington DC on sustainable energy and climate change in Latin America and the Caribbean.
It's worth listening to what the IDB has to say. It's the largest lending institution dedicated exclusively to this hemisphere, and can bring large amounts of investment capital to bear. The IDB has an impressive track record on renewable energy, and is currently led by a highly energetic president, Luis Alberto Moreno. The IDB has already lent $17 billion to energy projects in the region, including financing parts of Brazil’s pioneering ethanol program.
In his opening speech, Moreno launched a Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Initiative. He highlighted growing concerns in the region regarding the environmental impact of fossil fuels, including air quality and climate change, as well as the balance of payments impact of imported fuels.
Unlike the brief boom in renewable energy in the wake of the 1970s oil crisis, Moreno said he believes this time it is here to stay for the long term. Two new factors had entered the equation this time round: the broad consensus over the urgency of the threat of global warming, and the breakthroughs in important technology for renewable sources of energy.

At the same time, he pointed out, forecasts indicate that energy demand in the region will grow 75 percent by 2030. “Latin America will be hard-pressed to meet its energy needs without a vast expansion of renewable energy sources,” he concluded.

The new initiative will focus on areas such as investments in energy efficiency, development of new biofuels, expansion of carbon finance and comprehensive mitigation and adaptation to the risks of climate change.

Click here to read Moreno's speech.

Supreme arguments

The oral arguments today in the first global-warming case to reach the U.S. Supreme Court signaled a possible divide among the justices over whether the Bush Administration should be doing more to regulate tailpipe emissions.

According to a Bloomberg News report, Chief Justice John Roberts said the 12 states suing the Environmental Protection Agency for its refusal to regulate those emissions were ``spinning out conjecture on conjecture'' to support the argument that they would benefit from EPA rules.

And Justice Samuel Alito pointed out that U.S. motor vehicles account for only 6 percent of the total carbon dioxide emissions worldwide.

``So the reduction that you could achieve under the best of circumstances with these regulations would be a small portion of that, would it not?'' Alito asked.

But Justice David Souter pointed out that even a little improvement would be helpful.

``It will reduce the degree of global warming and reduce the degree of coastal loss,'' Souter said. ``That's their argument -- not all or nothing, but a part.''

Other justices suggested the EPA had relied on impermissible factors in deciding not to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, Bloomberg reported. Justice John Paul Stevens questioned the EPA's reliance on three National Academy of Sciences reports for the notion that scientists are unsure whether so-called greenhouse gases are increasing the earth's temperature.

``They left out the parts that indicated there was far less uncertainty than the agency purported to find,'' Stevens said during the hour-long argument in Washington.

Justice Antonin Scalia, usually no friend to increased government regulation, said the plaintiffs had made a ``persuasive'' point in comparing global warming to acid rain. The EPA does regulate sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain.

``Why isn't it air pollution within the meaning of the statute, when whatever it is that causes acid rain is?'' Scalia asked.

The divide among the Supremes may leave Justice Anthony Kennedy as the deciding vote, as he was in a Clean Water Act-related case in the court's last term. Kennedy didn't tip his hand today, directing a handful of questions to both sides in the hour-long argument, Bloomberg reported.

To read the full Bloomberg report click here:http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aBH9jnZ97EaM&refer=home

Gregory G. Garre, the deputy solicitor general who argued on behalf of the EPA, contended that that forcing the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide emissions would require the agency to venture into an "extraordinarily complex area of science," creating unpredictable results, the Boston Globe reports.

But James R. Milkey, chief of the environmental division at the Massachusetts attorney general's office, told the justices that carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles contributed 6 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, and those emissions threatened Massachusetts's 200 miles of coastline along with shores around the world, the Globe reported.

To read the Globe report on the case, which is Massachusetts v. EPA: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/11/29/supreme_court_takes_up_global_warming_case/

Carbon-offset business takes root.

Here's another great radio report from NPR on the promise of the growing "carbon-offset" business. Reporter Martin Kaste asks if buying a carbon offset for your gas-guzzler really makes it carbon neutral?

Click here to listen to his report.

New report says energy efficiency can make big difference.

Energy consumption could be cut by more than half over the next 15 years through more aggressive energy-efficiency efforts by households and industry, according to a study by the McKinsey Global Institute.

The energy savings can be achieved with current technology and would save money. The McKinsey report offers a long list of suggested steps, including the adoption of compact fluorescent light bulbs, improved insulation on new buildings, reduced standby power requirements, an accelerated push for appliance-efficiency standards and the use of solar water heaters.

This could reduce the yearly growth rate in worldwide energy demand through 2020 by almost three-quarters of current estimates, (to six-tenths of a percent, from a forecast annual rate of 2.2 percent) the report concluded.

The report highlights the need for better public education saying that many steps are not taken because energy users lack information. or do not value efficiency enough to change their buying habits. That helps explain the slow progress made by compact fluorescent light bulbs in the marketplace. Compact fluorescents are only slightly more costly than conventional bulbs, yet they last 10 times as long and consume 75 percent less electricity. The overall financial advantage of using compact fluorescent bulbs is obvious and sizable, even if the initial purchase price is higher.

By easing demand, efficiency programs can help restrain energy prices and help curb global warming.

Click here to read the McKinsey report:
Click here to read more in the New York Times.

- David Adams

Spanish wind giant looks to expand.

The Spanish power company  Iberdrola announced Tuesday that it had agreed to buy  ScottishPower for $22.5 billion, creating one of Europe’s largest utilities.      

Iberdrola is Spain’s second-largest power company behind  Endesa and one of the world’s leading producers of wind power. The deal with ScottishPower would enable it to increase its wind power capacity by as much as 50 percent, analysts say.

Iberdrole. based in Bilbao in northern Spain, has operations in 28 countries with sales of $15.3 billion last year. The new, combined company would be worth $84 billion.

Click here to read more in the New York Times

- David Adams

Listen to a radio broadcast on Brazil's ethanol industry.

If you missed it NPR had a good report on the ethanol boom in Brazil over the Thanksgiving holiday.

The report,titled "Brazil's Sugar Cane-Powered Future" takes you onto a sugar cane plantation as well as inside an ethanol plant. It highlights that ethanol is now a $65 billion industry in Brazil, producing 4 billion gallons a year. It is predicted to double output over the next five years. About 80% of new cars sold in Brazil today are ethanol-adapted 'flex-fuel' vehicles.

However, the report correctly points out that ethanol is only part of a global energy solution. To replace a mere 10% of the world's gasoline consumption would require 10 times Brazil's current sugar cane crop. (Brazil is the world's largest sugar cane grower.)

Click here to listen to the report.

- David Adams

Happy Feet: The Petition

On Tuesday a non-profit conservation organization, the Center for Biological Diversity, petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to add 12 species of penguins worldwide to the list of threatened and endangered species.  Reasons cited included global warming. 

"Abnormally warm ocean temperatures along with diminished sea ice have wrecked havoc on penguin food availability in recent decades," according to a news release from the organization. "Less food has led to population declines in penguin species ranging from the Southern Rockhopper and Humboldt penguins of the islands off South America, and the African Penguin in southern Africa, to the Emperor Penguin in Antarctica.  The ocean conditions causing these declines have been linked by scientists to global warming and are projected to intensify in the coming decades."

Among the Center's supporters quoted in the press release: John Collee, co-writer of “Happy Feet,” the animated movie about a dancing penguin which the top box-office draw in the United States over Thanksgiving weekend.

“The planet is largely covered with water yet we have this bizarre delusion that we can utterly destroy our marine ecosystems and somehow emerge unscathed," Collee said in the Center's news release. "The horrible reality of our war on the environment is so dark that most people don't want to contemplate it.”

--Craig Pittman

Supreme Court case: The states' angle

When the Supreme Court hears oral arguments tomorrow in the landmark global warming case, Massachusetts v. EPA, the case will decide more than just whether the Clean Air Act authorizes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the pollution that causes global warming.

It will also have a direct bearing on the eleven states that have adopted global warming tailpipe emissions standards for cars and trucks.

Under the Clean Air Act, states may decide to adopt the California tailpipe emissions standards in lieu of the federal standards. California has adopted regulations that would reduce fleet-wide global warming emissions from new vehicles by 25 percent in model year 2009, rising to a 30 percent reduction in model year 2016.

The 11 states that followed California's lead are: Oregon, Washington, Connecticut, Illinois, New Mexico, Maine, Vermont, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

The Bush administration is arguing that EPA does not have authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate global warming pollution, even though the act says that effects on "weather...and climate" are two of the criteria used to define a pollutant's negative impact on the public welfare. Among those backing the EPA's position are the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the National Automobile Dealer’s Association and a coalition of electric utilities.

Stay tuned. --Craig Pittman