Obama to visit Tampa to tout smart grid?

Our colleagues at The Buzz are reporting that President Obama's upcoming visit to Tampa next Tuesday may be to highlight his vision for a revamped national energy network, the so-called smart grid.

Obama's stimulus package contains $4.5 billion in funding for a smart grids, which would tap into wind and solar and other green energy sources and transmit it to large urban areas, such as Tampa and Miami. The New York Times, in a story on Boulder, Colo., becoming the first big test area for the technology, calls smart grids "the most ambitious move the United States could make toward cutting its emissions from burning fossil fuels."

Big corporations are jumping on the bandwagon too. General Electric -- which recently started an experiment in Hawaii that saves energy by turning off household appliances when electricity is expensive and makes better use of wind and solar power -- is joining with Whirlpool and other companies to demonstrate the role of smart grid technologies in battling climate change.

--Craig Pittman

PSC says yes to charging in advance for nukes, staff says no to conservation

Our colleagues over at The Buzz are reporting that the Florida Public Service Commission rejected arguments from environmentalists and clean-energy advocates and voted 3-1 today to approve a request by Progress Energy, and Florida Power & Light to charge customers four new nuclear power plants that wouldn't generate any voltage until 2017.

The lone no vote came from Commissioner Nancy Argenziano, whom FPL on Thursday accused of being biased and unethical.

The decision allows Progress Energy to charge customers customers $213 million, or $5.86 a month per 1,000 kilowatt hour, to upgrate its Crystal River nuclear power plant and build two new nuclear units in Levy County.And FPL gets to raise $63 million and add 67 cents per 1,000 kilowatt hours to customer monthly bills to pay for the pre-construction costs of two nuclear units at its Turkey Point Plant in Miami-Dade County and to add two new units to its St. Lucie County plant

Meanwhile though, the PSC's staff has recommended against adopting strict energy conservation goals for the utilities. The reason, according to the Sun-Sentinel: they think that conserving too much energy would cost customers more.

Last year, at the behest of Gov. Charlie Crist, the Legislature passed a law requiring the commission to adopt efficiency goals that encourage lowering energy use.

However, as the paper notes, "Utilities often oppose lowering energy use because that means less in electricity sales and profit. FPL officials project a rate increase of about $4 billion over the next 10 years if they used aggressive goals recommended by environmentalists."

Environmental activists contend that if the PSC adopts tougher conservation goals, the Sun-Sentinel reports, "customers' bills would decrease over the long-term both because they'd use less electricity and it would eliminate the need for new FPL power plants, which customers pay for through rates."

--Craig Pittman

G-20 ready to pull the plug on fossil fuel subsidies

The Group of 20, meeting in Pittsburgh this week, has a draft agreement ready to phase out government subsidies for oil and other fossil fuels in the "medium term,"reports Reuters today.

Countries such as China, Russia and India subsidize coal and oil to keep prices artificially low, which boosts demand for hydrocarbons.

The G-20 draft says the subsidies "encourage wasteful consumption, distort markets, impede investment in clean energy sources and undermine efforts to deal with climate change.” According to the Wall Street Journal, cutting those subsidies could cut emissions of greenhouse gases by 10% by 2050.

You may recall that President Obama promised to work toward that goal during his speech to the U.N. earlier this week. Reuters says that getting agreement approved by the G-20 meeting is a victory for his administration.

But the WSJ notes that removing those subsidies could have an unintended side effect: "Consumption subsidies distort demand; in the Middle East and Asia, demand for oil kept rising even when crude hit $140, because many consumers didn’t pay market prices." Getting rid of the subsidies would raise prices in those places, and thus cut demand and "smooth out the violent price swings that have characterized the oil markets in recent years—and which helped galvanize public attention and appetite for alternative energy."

--Craig Pittman

EPA, DOT unveils new emissions, fuel economy standards for cars, trucks

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation at last unveiled the government's tough new emissions and fuel economy standards for cars and trucks today.

"The standards would push corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, standards to a fleetwide average of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016, four years ahead of the schedule Congress laid out in a 2007 energy law," the New York Times reports. "The carbon dioxide limit under the plan -- which will apply to passenger cars, light-duty trucks and medium-duty passenger vehicles -- would reach an average of 250 grams per mile per vehicle in 2016."

Notes the Associated Press: "The proposal is expected to increase vehicle fuel efficiency by about 5 percent annually and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 950 million metric tons. The plan would also conserve 1.8 billion barrels of oil."

“American drivers will keep more money in their pockets, put less pollution into the air, and help reduce a dependence on oil that sends billions of dollars out of our economy every year,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said.

President Obama, speaking at a General Motors plant in Ohio, said the new rules were the result of negotiations among groups that in the past would have had a hard time finding any common ground: "Unlikely allies came together -- automakers, the UAW, environmental advocates, Democrats and Republicans, California and more than a dozen other states -- all of them pledging to set aside the quarrels of the past for the sake of the future."

Jackson told USA Today that the next step would be regulating emissions from power plants and other industrial sources -- although she would still prefer Congress pass a new law taking that step.

--Craig Pittman

IBM studying "lithium-air" batteries

IBM is looking into a future generation of energy efficient ''lithium-air" batteries which have much larger potential storage capacity, The New York Times reports.

Lithium-ion batteries have the potential to deliver about 585 watt-hours of electricity per kilogram, while lithium-air batteries might reach targets well above 5,000 watt-hours, the paper reports. They are also much lighter, an important factor for hybrid and all-electric cars.

The technology is still a long way off and there are the usual cost and safety issues that have to be overcome. Here's more about the technology from MIT's Technology Review.

- David Adams, Times staff writer.

One wind-power company got more than half of Recovery Act grants for renewables -- and it's not American

 "One company has received more than half of $500 million in the first round of grants from a Recovery Act program that provides cash assistance to renewable energy production companies in place of earned tax credits," the Environmental News Service is reporting.

And it's not an American company.

Receiving five of the 12 grants totaling $294.9 million for its wind power projects in four states was Iberdrola Renewables of Portland, Ore. As ENS reports, this is the "U.S. branch of Iberdrola, S.A., Spain’s number one energy group and the fourth largest utility company in world."

The grant money marks yet another sign of a turnaround for wind power, which as Fast Company magazine notes had "been in dire straits ever since banks started to fail last fall. Investment money dried up, and as a result turbine manufacturers and developers had to hold back on potential projects."

But now, thanks to big-money support from the Obama Administration, "big banks including Morgan Stanley and Citigroup are underwriting wind farms worth more than $100 million each," the Wall Street Journal noted this week.

[AP photo]

--Craig Pittman

U.S. Chamber of Commerce wants 'Scopes monkey trial' for global warming

The nation's largest business lobby, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, wants the Environmental Protection Agency to hold a rare public hearing on the scientific evidence for man-made climate change, the Los Angeles Times is reporting.

Chamber officials -- who want to halt sweeping emissions regulations -- say it would be "the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century," says the LAT -- "complete with witnesses, cross-examinations and a judge who would rule, essentially, on whether humans are warming the planet to dangerous effect." After all, you can't spell "ape" without EPA, right?

But EPA officials, in no mood to monkey around, called the chamber's proposed trial a "waste of time."  EPA spokesman Brendan Gilfillan said the agency based its findings on global warming "on the soundest peer-reviewed science available, which overwhelmingly indicates that climate change presents a threat to human health and welfare."

Joining the EPA in reaching that conclusion are the National Air and Space Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and even the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. And lest you think they're just aping what the EPA said, those federal agencies have lots of company among scientists worldwide.

"The need for urgent action to address climate change is now indisputable," said a recent letter to world leaders by the heads of the top science agencies in 13 of the world's largest countries, including the head of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

[AP photo]

Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer

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Seven myths about alternative energy (including nukes & biofuels)

Award-winning writer Michael Grunwald has penned a provocative list for the Financial Times called "Seven Myths about Alternative Energy." Among them:

"Nuclear Power Is the Cure for Our Addiction to Coal." Nope, says Grunwald, because of timing and cost. "The West needs major cuts in emissions within a decade, and the first new U.S. reactor is only scheduled for 2017 -- unless it gets delayed, like every U.S. reactor before it...The bigger problem is cost. Nuke plants are supposed to be expensive to build but cheap to operate. Unfortunately, they're turning out to be really, really expensive to build; their cost estimates have quadrupled in less than a decade."

"Renewable Fuels Are the Cure for Our Addiction to Oil." No they aren't, says Grunwald, because the push for more biofuels has led to greater deforestation of the planet and thus greater carbon problems. "In 2007, researchers finally began accounting for deforestation and other land-use changes created by biofuels. One study found that it would take more than 400 years of biodiesel use to 'pay back' the carbon emitted by directly clearing peat for palm oil."

--Craig Pittman

Florida's energy efficiency goals slip slidin' away.

Important elements of local government very often fail to get the proper public attention they deserve.
A good case in point are the recent discussions in Tallahassee about the state's vitally important energy efficiency goals. Until recently, Gov. Crist has actively encourage setting ambitious goals. But Crist is now focused on his senate run and his interest in energy and climate policy seems to have melted as fast as the polar ice cap.

Environmentalists fears that Crist's loss of political will may be opening the door to utilities who had been under pressure to reform their ways.
Witness the meeting last week of the Florida Energy & Climate Commission, which once again delayed acting on energy efficiency standards under the Florida Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act (FEECA). The issue has now been put off to an emergency meeting on August 27, the day before its deadline to report its FEECA recommendations to the Public Service Commission.

Utilities are ambivalent about energy efficiency because they fear it will reduce their profits. It's easy to see why: more efficiency logically means less electricity sold to the consumer.

But proposals currently before the commission presented by FPL are currently 40 per cent below previous efficiency goals. The head of the Governor's Energy Office, Jeremy Susac, seemed in hurry last week to get the commission to accept his proposals (even though they had been given only a couple of days to review them).

Buy a dual-flush toilet - it makes WaterSense

I finally did something I have been meaning to do for months. Yesterday I installed a dual-flush toilet in my main bathroom. I'm delighted with the result.

My leaky old unit with the long, and often faulty, flush is gone. Instead, my new Glacier Bay dual-flush ($128 from Home Depot)  has a short, efficient flush that does the job with far less water. The dual-flush system allows you to select a smaller flush for liquid waste and a longer flush for solids. (1.28 gallons compared to approx 3 gallons for my old toilet.)

I have read complaints about some dual-flush toilets that they clog easily and have poor seats. Mine seems to work fine. Blog reports I have read suggest that proper installation is the key.

Look for the WaterSense Logo when you buy a new toilet, which carries the water-saving approval U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Toilets are by far the main source of water use in the home, accounting for nearly 30 percent of residential indoor water consumption, according to the EPA. "Over the course of your lifetime, you will likely flush the toilet nearly 140,000 times. If you replace older, existing toilets with WaterSense labeled models, you can save 4,000 gallons per year with this simpler, greener choice," the EPA says.