Republicans draft alternative energy bill favoring nuclear and increased oil and gas drilling

House Republicans are drafting their own energy legislation which is in sharp contrast to the Democrat's bill (Waxman-Markey) which is already being discussed in committee.
The Republican alternative relies on nuclear power, setting a goal of building 100 reactors over the next 20 years. Though it does include renewables like wind, solar and biomass, it would also provide incentives for increased oil and gas production, including oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
Unlike the Democrats proposal, it does not include a cap and trade mechanism to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases.

- David Adams, Times staff writer

Climate compromise bill drops renewables target, but attracts big lobbying muscle

Democratic leaders in the U.S. House announced late Tuesday night that they have hammered out a compromise bill on combating climate change, Greenwire reports. The bill calls for a goal of 17 percent, according to Bloomberg.

That exceeds President Obama's target of 14 percent, but falls far short of the 20 percent in the original bill or the 25 percent by 2025 that groups such as the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy had been pushing for.

The original draft also included a separate "energy efficiency resource standard" that would have required electric and natural gas utilities to implement efficiency programs that reduce consumer demand, notes Greenwire. But that is no longer in the measure.

Instead, the utilities would get a big gift from the government.

"Instead of collecting some $624 billion in revenue from the selling of pollution permits to industry, most of those permits would be given away free of charge, in what is called a cap-and-trade system," the Christian Science Monitor noted. "There would be little money to fund clean energy or subsidize the poor for higher costs."

No matter what the House Democratic leaders agree on, though, expect a big fight both in Congress and in the airwaves.

"The number of climate change lobbyists in Washington rose to 2,430 last year – an increase of 300% over the previous five years – which works out to about four lobbyists for every member of the Senate and House of Representatives," the Guardian noted this week. "But since Obama came to the White House in January, the oil, gas and coal industry has increased its lobbying budget by 50%."

--Craig Pittman

Gainesville to get power from wood-burning biomass plant -- not coal

The city of Gainesville, which was once poised to approve a controversial new coal-fired power plant, has now agreed to buy its energy for the next 30 years from a wood-burning biomass power plant.

The move, ratified last week, promises "a future energy supply that is renewable, less subject to the price volatility of fossil fuels and has cleaner emissions," the Gainesville Sun reports.

The 100 megawatt plant, to be built by Boston-based American Renewables, will be the largest biomass plant in Florida.Fuel will come mostly from waste wood in the area's logging industry, but the plant will also burn urban yard and forest waste.

The customers may not be so happy with going green.

"Beginning when the power plant comes on line at the end of 2013, customers will likely see a 4.3 percent increase in monthly utility bills," the Sun notes.

But over the 30-year life of the contract, the city's utility will be spending between $212 million and $492 million less than if the utility bought energy off the open market, city officials say.

--Craig Pittman

Good news: Obama backs biofuels; bad news: EPA says corn ethanol makes warming worse

The Obama Administration unveiled a new plan Tuesday "to shield corn ethanol producers from the credit crisis, work with them to cut their use of natural gas and coal in ethanol production, and nudge the auto industry toward production of vehicles that can use ethanol at concentrations of up to 85 percent," the New York Times is reporting.

"There is over $1.1 billion of opportunity here, created by the Congress, to assist in building biorefineries, in helping existing refineries convert from fossil-fuel power to renewable power," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.

(read White House press release here)

That's the good news for biofuels producers. The bad news: "The Environmental Protection Agency says that corn ethanol — as made today — has a worse impact on climate than gasoline when land use changes are considered," the Associated Press says.

So the EPA has "proposed a new alternative-fuel standard that will likely prohibit some corn-ethanol production processes based on their greenhouse-gas emissions and encourage other advanced biofuels," according to CNN.

Restricting some ethanol-production processes "provides a greater market incentive for advanced biofuel technologies such as sugarcane," CNN noted -- and that's good news for Florida, where companies are experimenting with turning cane into biofuels.

More on emissions rules for ethanol from Matthew Wald of The New York Times.

Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer

[Associated Press photo]

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New report says renewables could supply 25% of power for southeast US

More than 25 percent of the Southeast U.S. electricity could come from renewable energy supplies by 2025, according to a new report released today by the World Resources Institute (WRI), Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE), and Southface.
If the right actions are taken these renewable technologies could also create tens of thousands of high-paying new jobs, the report says, while protecting the environment.

The report is especially timely as the Florida legislature is currently debating the state's Renewable Portfolio Standard, to determine how far far to push power companies down the renewable path. Renewable energy currently only supplies about 5 per cent of power for the southeast (less than 4% in Florida).

Florida Governor Charlie Crist has proposed that utilities produce 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020, but there is debate about how to achieve this goal, and whether nuclear should be included.

Biomass project under scrutiny by grand jury

The company building the controversial Biomass Gasification & Electric Co. energy plant in Tallahassee pulled the plug last week -- and now a grand jury is going to investigate the whole project, according to today's Tallahassee Democrat.

The NAACP complained about the plant's proposed location on the south side of town and its environmental impact on the city's poorer residents, the Democrat reported.

The grand jury is also likely to look into the involvement of former state Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Virginia "Ginger" Wetherell, who owns an interest in the company, and her husband, Florida State University President T.K. Wetherell, the paper noted.

The plant would have been built on FSU land. Wetherell told the paper he would be happy to share information with prosecutors.

"There's nothing there, but anyone who wants to look at it, they're more than welcome," he said.

--Craig Pittman

BP's biofuels bet at Berkeley

NPR's Morning Edition had a good item today on a new Energy Biosciences Institute at the University of California-Berkeley, which is working on creating more efficient "cellulosic" biofuels, using nonfood crops.

The institute is one of many efforts around the country to crack the cellulosic ethanol route to biofuels. But Berkeley is perhaps the best-endowed research center, thanks to a $500-million grant by British Petroleum (BP).

"If biofuels are going to become a big part of our company in the long run, then our view is the only way that can be the case is if biofuels are done in a sustainable way that is clearly good for the environment and land use," BP vice president Paul Willems tells NPR. "We don't want to be building a big part of our company on a shaky foundation."

David Adams. Times Staff Writer

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Florida sugar company pushes renewables debate

There's an emerging player in the renewable energy debate in Florida, according to an article today in the St. Petersburg Times. The sugar company, Florida Crystals, is mounting an offensive to get rules changed in the state to encourage greater renewable energy.

That's because the company operates a large biomass power plant next to its Okeelanta sugar mill that produces energy for the mill and sells excess power to the grid. The company says it wants to expand its renewable energy business.

The company is also looking into using the sugar cane waste (bagasse) to make ethanol, rather than burn it. Using its sugar cane for ethanol wouldn’t make sense, the company says, because of the price it gets for refined sugar under a federal program.

Crist endorses building ethanol plant at U.S. Sugar mill being bought for Everglades restoration

Gov. Charlie Crist has endorsed a plan to build an ethanol plant on land that the state is trying to buy from U.S. Sugar for Everglades restoration.

Because he’s concerned about the fate of the 1,800 U.S. Sugar employees who depend on the company to survive, converting that land to ethanol production “is one of the things I’d like to see,” Crist said Wednesday in an interview with the St. Petersburg Times.

Although Crist did not endorse a project by a specific company, an ethanol manufacturer backed by General Motors has already spent several months negotiating with U.S. Sugar to build a plant on its land.

Negotiations with the ethanol company, Coskata, have been on hold while talks about the buyout proceed, said Robert Coker of U.S. Sugar, “but depending on what happens in the next month or so, we’ll probably be sitting back down with them.”

Most ethanol manufacturing plants are built to produce 50 million gallons a year, Coker said. “We were talking about a facility that was substantially larger,” the sugar executive said.

Coskata, an Illinois-based firm, is backed not only by GM but also by Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla, who was one of the keynote speakers at Crist's 2007 climate change summit in Miami. The company specializes in turning waste products such as sugar cane leaves into ethanol, and its executives boast that when their demonstration plant in Madison, Penn., opens next year they will be able to produce ethanol for about $1 a gallon.

[AP photo of U.S. Sugar's mill in Clewiston]

--Craig Pittman and Steve Bousquet

New power plant fueled by sugar cane waste in Brazil

Paris-based Areva announced Friday it has been awarded a contract to design and build a power plant fuelled by sugar cane bagasse by Brazil's largest private power generator, Tractebel Energia.

The $42 million plant with a 33 MW capacity is being built at an existing ethanol plant in the state of Sao Paulo. Areva is already building two smaller biomass plants in Brazil running on saw dust, bark and waste byproducts from woodworking and furniture factories. Tractebel Energia generates 8 per cent of Brazil's total power, mostly from renewable energy sources.

The world's largest biomass power plant (70 MW installed capacity) is the Okeelanta sugar mill in Palm Beach county owned by Florida Crystals, which also runs on bagasse and other woody biomass, including hurricane debris and municipal waste (see photo). I visited the plant last week and an article will shortly be appearing in the St Petersburg Times looking at biomass power generation. The biomass generator is the large facility in the background of the photo. In the foreground can be observed the bagasse and woody yard waste which feeds the furnaces.)

- David Adams