Showdown at the PSC over Progress Energy, FPL nuke plant charges

As our colleague Robert Trigaux notes in his Venture blog, Friday will bring what promises to be the final showdown at the state Public Service Commission over whether Progress Energy and Florida Power & Light can charge customers years in advance for building new nuclear plants.

Estimated cost for the two plants: $35 billion. The one Progress Energy hopes to build in Levy County accounts for half of that -- $17 billion.

Once viewed as a slam-dunk for the utilities, Trigaux points out, now the question of what the PSC will do is definitely up in the air.

"Critics say investors, not consumers, should bear more of the risk of nuclear power plants," he writes. "And economic circumstances have stalled some of the initial momentum for new nuclear power. Enough so to ask: will Progress Energy itself ultimately decide the nuke plants are no longer worth the growing controversy in the state?"

Further complicating the PSC's decision is Gov. Charlie Crist's selection of two new members in the wake of an ongoing scandal that has led to suggestions that it's time to change how the state regulates its utilities.

--Craig Pittman

So much for Gov. Green: Crist postpones 3rd climate change summit (but asks sponsors for campaign cash)

"Gov. Charlie Crist's plans for a third high-profile climate summit have been indefinitely postponed as the Republican weighs the political cost of the event's expensive price tag," the Palm Beach Post is reporting.

Crist made national headlines in 2007 with his first Miami climate-change summit, featuring such speakers as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He was written up in Time and interviewed on the CBS Early Show. Environmental groups sang his praises, and Schwarzenegger called him "another great action hero."  Crist followed it up with a second one last year.

But his global warming initiatives -- including new tailpipe emissions standards for cars modeled on California's new regulations -- ran into strong opposition from the Legislature. Now he's worried about mounting another expensive summit while the economy is in a recession, the Post says.

However, that's not stopping him "from asking the event's sponsors to help pay for his U.S. Senate campaign," the Post says. "Campaign finance reports show Crist has collected $106,500 from individuals and companies tied to previous sponsors of his climate summits."

In fact, the paper noted, "Executives from at least three companies - Walt Disney and Darden Restaurants in Orlando and TECO Energy in Tampa - have donated more to Crist's campaign than their companies gave to the 2008 summit."

[AP: Schwarzenegger and Crist]

--Craig Pittman

McCollum, Sink do not support offshore drilling

Florida's legislative leaders may be pushing hard to allow offshore drilling close to the coast of Florida. But neither major-party candidate for governor supports the move, according to WFSU-FM.

Republican candidate Bill McCollum said he wasn't in favor of it, and Democratic candidate Alex Sink agreed, citing her concern about the impact dirty beaches might have on the state's the $50-billion tourist industry, according to the radio report.

Meanwhile, one of the key arguments for allowing drilling close to Florida -- the attempt by Cuba to drill off its own coast, just south of the Keys -- has suffered a setback.

"Cuba and a consortium of foreign oil companies have once again postponed plans to drill for oil in the island's still-untapped fields in the gulf," Reuters reported recently. A Spanish company drilled a test well 20 miles off Cuba's northern coast in 2004, finding traces of high-quality oil, and there have been repeated promises that a second well would follow shortly -- "but each time the project has been put off without explanation."

[AP photos: Alex Sink, left; Bill McCollum, right]

Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer

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South Fla. drivers to test alternate to gas tax, based on actual use of roads

South Florida has been chosen as a test site for a new way to collect the federal gas tax that pays for building roads, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Right now you pay the tax when you fuel up your car. Under the new system, "you would get a bill every month based on how much you use the roads."

How would they do it? Simple: the government would track how much you drive.

"The University of Iowa is looking for 250 volunteers willing to have tracking devices similar to cell phones and SunPass transponders installed in their cars so researchers can record their mileage for the next 10 months," the Sun-Sentinel reports. "The study won't track individual routes. For their trouble, participants will get $895."

Why change a tax that hasn't changed since 1993? Because higher gas prices has led to a new emphasis on fuel-efficiency and driving less.

As people use less gas, gas tax revenues have declined to the point where the federal highway fund is expected to run $8 billion short by August. So a federal transportation commission has recommended raising the tax temporarily, but also switching to a tax on the number of miles driven.

A mileage tax is fairer and more stable than a gas tax, contend its advocates -- but there are privacy issues to deal with, too, with putting a government monitoring device into people's cars.

The Iowa researchers are launching the $16.5-million study today at Florida International University in Miami. Drivers also are taking part in Chicago, Albuquerque, N.M., Portland, Maine, Wichita, Kan., and Billings, Montana, the Sun-Sentinel says.

[AP photo]

--Craig Pittman

EPA lets California set own auto emission standards; Florida can't because of Legislature

As expected, the Environmental Protection Agency today approved California's longstanding application to set tougher auto emission standards as a tool for combating climate change, reports the Associated Press.

"The California regulation requires automakers to increase the fuel economy of cars and trucks sold in the state by 40 percent over the next seven years, to an average of 35.5 mpg," the AP reports. California had been asking for the waiver since 2005, but the EPA under the Bush Administration had turned it down.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, in an agency news release, said the decision "puts the law and science first." As Reuters notes, it comes just over a month "after Obama on May 19 ordered the struggling auto industry to cut emissions and improve gas mileage."

Two years ago, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist signed an executive order that would set the exact same emissions standards as California, as soon as California got its EPA waiver. It would be one of 17 states following California's lead.

But the following year the Legislature passed a law that said Crist couldn't set those standards without legislative approval. And this spring, a bill to approve the tougher emissions standards were held hostage in the House by lawmakers who wanted to allow offshore drilling within 3 miles of Florida's beaches, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. And it didn't even get out of committee in the Senate.

Automakers had hired super-lobbyist Wade Hopping to press their case in Tallahassee, and he successfully argued that Florida lawmakers should wait until there is a national emissions standard rather than simply following what California does, according to the Miami Herald

"You shouldn't give away your authority to another state,'' Hopping said as the bill sputtered and stalled.

Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer

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Progress Energy chief: Climate change bill to jack up customer rates

Outgoing Progress Energy CEO Jeff Lyash told the Orlando Sentinel that the Waxman-Markey bill, the climate-change legislation scheduled for a House vote today, will drive up customers' rates in the near future.

Lyash and incoming Chief Executive Officer Vincent "Vinnie" Dolan told the paper that "major federal energy legislation that may face a key vote in Congress today could ultimately translate into electric rates 20 percent to 50 percent higher for Progress customers in about 15 years," the Sentinel reported.

Lyash, who's being promoted by the utility to a post in North Carolina, also conceded that Florida's second-largest utility "miscalculated in seeking a controversial rate hike early this year," which then "triggered the biggest consumer protest in state officials' memory," prompting the utility to back off, the Sentinel said.

"Was it objection from our customers? Yeah, you always listen to your customers," Lyash said. "We looked at our financial wherewithal and we decided we could make an adjustment and that would be the right thing."

--Craig Pittman

Energy use rising with mercury across Florida (now watch the bills rise, too)

As the mercury rises, so does energy usage. Crank up the air-conditioner, folks -- and watch your bills go up, too.

Usage levels statewide are up about 4 percent more than average, Cherie Jacobs, a Progress Energy spokeswoman, told the St. Petersburg Times.

The increase in energy usage began several days ago just as the nearly 100-degree heat started to settle in, prompting health advisories from the state. Thermometers in South Florida, for instance, are hitting record high temperatures there, according to the Miami Herald.

The state's biggest utility, Florida Power & Light. saw an almost 4 percent statewide increase in energy usage over what's usually expected this time of year as people try to keep cool, according to the Daytona Beach News Journal.

"Meanwhile, Progress Energy, which serves 35 counties, almost beat its all-time usage high for a single day, which happened in August 2005, coming in at a Monday peak of 22,343 megawatts, according to a company spokeswoman," the News-Journal reports.

On the other hand, if you raise your thermostat to 78 degrees, each raised degree reduces costs by seven to 10 percent.

Kim Wilmath and Craig Pittman

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MiaGreen Expo: innovation and frustration

The green expo, MiaGreen, attracted more than 1,000 people last week hoping to find out the latest energy saving tips and innovations. But those attending expressed frustration about the uncertainty over government policies and funding, according to The Miami Herald.
For example, funding has run out for a state of Florida solar rebate program worth up to $90,000 for commercial solar installations. Applications have exceeded the $5 million that was set aside for the program. The waiting list already exceeds $6 million.
The state has applied for more than $14 million in grants from the federal stimulus package to finance the rebates, but is waiting to hear. Green energy training programs offered by The Green Energy Council and Our Green Value are also over-subscribed.

- David Adams, Times staff writer

Feel-good biofuel not all it's cracked up to be? Questions arising about jatropha tree

Earlier this year, Time magazine ran a story on Florida entrepreneur Paul Dalton's new business growing jatropha trees, and the headline said, "The Next Big Biofuel?"

What made jatropha's biofuel seem promising, the story noted is that "unlike corn and other biofuel sources, the jatropha doesn't have to compete with food crops for arable land. Even in the worst of soils, it grows like weeds."

Well...not exactly, according to the latest issue of the Yale School of Forestry's newsletter "Yale Environment 360," which reports that Robert Bailis, an assistant professor at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, along with Yale Ph.D. candidate Jennifer Baka, recently launched the first detailed “life cycle” environment assessment of jatropha as a biofuel.

"Although their study is in its early stages, Bailis notes that it’s already clear that, while jatropha can indeed grow on lands with minimal water and poor nutrition, 'if you plant trees in a marginal area, and all they do is just not die, it doesn’t mean you’re going to get a lot of oil from them,' " the story reports.

If you grow it in good farmland, though, it does just fine. But that's not good news. “If you grow it in better agricultural conditions, all the alarm bells go off as you get into the same food-versus-fuel debate we’ve seen with [biofuel from] corn," Bailis told the newsletter.

It's no idle concern, either. "According to the Indian environmental group, Navdanya, government foresters have drained rice paddies in order to plant jatropha in the poor and mostly tribal state of Chhattisgarh," the Yale newsletter reports. "As early as mid-2007, protests broke out in the mostly desert state of Rajasthan over a government scheme to reclassify village commons lands — widely used for grazing livestock — as 'wastelands' targeted for biofuel production, primarily jatropha."

Meanwhile, on the Philippine island of Mindanao, "protests erupted in late 2008, with indigenous leaders insisting that jatropha plantations had begun to displace needed crops of rice, corn, bananas, and root vegetables."

This all hits home for the Tampa Bay area, incidentally, because last year a Dallas company called GreenHunter Energy announced it would invest up to $100-million in a biodiesel plant and terminal at Tampa's Port Sutton terminal to produce 50-million gallons a year from biofuel -- including from jatropha plantations in Central and South America.

[Associated Press photo of jatropha tree]

--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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