Tampa Electric to lower rates, but ...

Tampa Electric announced Friday that it plans to lower electric rates because of cheaper fuel costs.

The Tampa utility said it planned to pass cheaper natural gas costs on to customers, to the tune of about $13 per 1,000 kilowatt hours. The move follows a sharp increase in fuel charges that took effect with January's billing cycle.

Customers, though, may not see that savings in their bills, because Tampa Electric is also seeking to raise base rates by $10 per thousand kilowatt hours. Utilities are not allowed to profit from fuel, which can be half or more of a customer's bill. It's a pass-through to consumers. Base rates, which are another large segment of customers' bills, includes the company's operations, labor, and maintenance costs as well as its profits.

Progress Energy also recently asked to cut fuel charges after a 24 percent increase in January to pay for fuel and its planned nuclear plant. The St. Petersburg utility also cut the nuclear charge. Together, the two reductions will amount to an 11 percent decrease starting in April. The savings might not last. The utility could raise its base rate early next year.

Asjylyn Loder, Times Staff Writer

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Fixing the budget by fixing the climate? Obama puts cap-and-trade in budget

President Obama's proposed budget for 2010 includes a brand-new revenue source, according to the New York Times: selling carbon credits to manufacturers as part of a cap-and-trade plan meant to slow global warming, something he promised to implement in his campaign.

"The White House estimates that the effort, built around a cap-and-trade program to limit greenhouse gas emissions, will produce $150 billion over 10 years beginning in 2012 to finance renewable energy projects and potentially hundreds of billions of dollars more that will be returned to families, communities and businesses that suffer hardship as the result of higher energy prices," the Times is reporting.

Lew Hay, CEO of the FPL Group, which is the state's largest utility as well as the biggest producer of wind and solar energy in the country, hailed the budget proposal as "an encouraging sign that proves the president is serious about enacting legislation to put a price on carbon dioxide. ... The sooner we can establish a price on carbon dioxide, the sooner we can tackle climate change and begin the transition to the clean energy economy of the 21st century.”

Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer

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Obama promise to convert federal fleet to plug-in hybrids aided by stimulus

When he was running for office, President Obama promised to make half of all cars purchased by the federal government plug-in hybrids or all-electric by 2012.The economic stimulus bill passed last week gives him a shot at making some progress on that promise, according to our colleagues at Politifact.

Signed by Obama on Feb. 17, the stimulus package includes $300-million to buy more "high efficiency motor vehicles" for the federal fleet. That includes hybrids, hybrid plug-ins and all-electric cars, such as the Chevrolet Volt (scheduled to debut in 2010).

"Remember, though, Obama's promise is not just to convert half the federal fleet purchases to hybrids, but to the ultra fuel-efficient plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV's) or all-electric cars -- cars that are still largely on the drawing board," notes Times Politifact reporter Rob Farley.

"Given that the cars still aren't commercially available, Obama's promise is still a long road trip away," Farley writes. House and Senate leaders said they "remain hopeful that domestically produced plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles will be commercially available in sufficient quantities before Sept. 30, 2010, such that these funds could be used to acquire this technology for the federal fleet."

And even then, $300-million isn't nearly enough to convert half the federal fleet of more than 20,000 vehicles. "Here's the problem," said David Sedgwick, editor of Automotive News. "The Volt could cost as much as 40 grand. Do the math. You could spend a lot of money on the Chevy Volt and not get to half."

[Chevrolet Volt from GM]

Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer

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Progress Energy postpones new natural gas plant

Progress Energy on Thursday postponed its plans to build a large natural gas plant along the Suwannee River.

The utility called off plans to build a 1,200-megawatt natural gas plant because of slowing customer growth and electricity demand.

The St. Petersburg utility plans to seek a comprehensive plan amendment anyway, so that it can expand its power plant in the future. Environmentalists had voiced concerns about the new plant's water use from the already-strained river.

Asjylyn Loder, Times Staff Writer

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Polar scientists say glaciers melting faster than realized

Antarctic glaciers are melting even faster across a much wider area than scientists anticipated, AP reports today.
That is the finding of a new report prepared for the 2007-2008 International Polar Year, in which scientists from more than 60 countries have been conducting intense Arctic and Antarctic research over the past two southern summer seasons.
The glaciers are losing a total of around 114 billion tons per year because the discharge is much greater than the new snowfall, according to Colin Summerhayes, executive director of the Britain-based Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research.
"That's equivalent to the current mass loss from the whole of the Greenland ice sheet," Summerhayes said, adding that the glaciers' discharge was making a significant contribution to the rise in sea levels.
"There's some people who fear that this is the first signs of an incipient collapse of the west Antarctic ice sheet.
Summerhayes said sea levels will rise faster than predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group set up by the United Nations.

- David Adams

Public counsel: Progress Energy owes customers $61M

The lawyer for Florida’s utility customers said Tuesday that Progress Energy Florida owes customers a refund of $61 million because the St. Petersburg utility bought overpriced coal.

Progress Energy Florida could have bought cheaper coal if it had secured a permit to burn it, but the utility failed to do that, said Joseph McGlothlin, associate public counsel for the Office of Public Counsel, a state office that represents the interests of Florida’s utility customers.

The counsel’s office has asked the Florida Public Service Commission, which regulates Florida’s utilities, to order the utility to refund the money to its customers. A hearing will be held in April.

Progress Energy did not immediately return calls for comment. State law prohibits utilities from profiting on fuel. It is a pass-through to consumers.

Asjylyn Loder, Times Staff Writer

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NASA's CO2 tracking satellite crashes in ocean.

NASA's first ever CO2 tracking satellite crashed shortly after it was launched today.(Watch launch and "disappointed" NASA team briefing here)

Apparently there was a rocket malfunction and the spacecraft crashed in the ocean near Antarctica, AP reports.
The $280 million Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) mission was supposed to help scientists detect where CO2 is being emitted on earth and how it travels in the atmosphere.

(For more details on the OCO see yesterday's post here)

- David Adams

New satellite to track CO2 emissions from space.

NASA is due to launch its first satellite equiped to measure carbon dioxide from space.

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) is designed to locate and track CO2 emissions on earth's surface in a an effort to better understand - and predict - global climate change.

Currently, carbon dioxide is regularly sampled at about a hundred sites around the world. The new satellite will be taking roughly 30,000 readings on each orbit, the BBC reports.

"We need to make a measurement that is about three times more precise than has ever been made for a trace gas in the Earth's atmosphere," said Dr David Crisp, OCO's principal investigator.

The OCO will circle the planet once every 98.8 minutes, taking 16 days to pass over the entire globe.

- David Adams

Film on Antarctica featured at Eckerd enviro-film festival

Eckerd College's 11th annual Environmental Film Festival features Werner Herzog's critically acclaimed documentary on Antarctica, titled "Encounters at the End of the World." Here's the trailer:

The Oscar-nominated film will be introduced by the Smithsonian Institution's James Deutsch. Also on tap at the festival, which runs from Feb. 21 to Feb. 28, is John Sayles' ode to Florida's mixed-up approach to its own landscape, "Sunshine State, which features the immortal scene where a developer played by Alan King refers to a golf course as "nature on a leash."

All screenings are at 7 p.m. in The Dan and Mary Miller Auditorium at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, except Sunday, February 22 at 2 p.m. Each program will be preceded by a short reception with the presenter and will feature an opportunity for audience questions immediately after the program.

--Craig Pittman

Obama looks to cut climate deal with biggest source of imported oil -- Canada

President Obama and his energy adviser, Carol Browner, traveled to Canada today to meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. On their agenda: talking about forming some sort of partnership on fighting global warming, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

"Sources from both countries say they expect Harper and Obama to announce an agreement that would serve as a building block towards a continental cap-and-trade system," the CBC said.

Canada is the largest supplier of foreign oil to the U.S., ahead of Saudi Arabia. The problem is where it gets much of its supply: the oil sands of Alberta. "About 75 percent of Canada's oil sands output are shipped to the U.S. market, and American refineries in the Midwest and Gulf Coast are being reconfigured to handle those supplies," notes Reuters.

"Environmental groups want Obama to get tough with Canada about its massive oil sands operation," notes the Associated Press, because "the extraction process produces a high amount of the greenhouse gases blamed for climate change."

""What we know is that oil sands creates a big carbon footprint," Obama said in a CBC interview prior to his visit."The more that we can develop technologies that tap alternative sources of energy but also contain the environmental damage of fossil fuels, the better off we're going to be."

[Associated Press photo]

--Craig Pittman