3p Contributor: BC Upham
Recent Articles
Cap and Trade Dying in the Senate; Utilities-Only Cap Possible
A nationwide cap-and-trade policy is highly unlikely to gain the 60 votes necessary to break a Senate filibuster, recent developments show. But a utilities-only version may be possible.
Pundits and politicians agree that if cap and trade is going pass the recalcitrant Senate it will need the full weight of the presidency behind it. Yet in a major speech June 15, President Obama failed to express support for the controversial policy, and left the door open to alternatives.
According to the energy and environment news service Climatewire, Senate Democrats came out of a party caucus a couple days later with the sinking suspicion that “cap and trade doesn’t have the votes.”
Then, last week, the President abruptly postponed a crucial bipartisan meeting to discuss energy legislation to deal with the General McChrystal imbroglio (the meeting has been rescheduled for next week). All of this as the number of days left before the November elections continues to shrink.
Feds Dangling Green Planning Assistance in Front of State Capitals
Does Boise dream of a neighborhood bike path? Is Little Rock hankering to do something with an unsightly brownfield?
These state capitals, plus the other 48 (and the District of Columbia) can now apply for federal assistance in planning green and sustainable urban improvements, thanks to the Greening America’s Capitals program, a joint project of the EPA, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Department of Transportation.
Tesla’s Planned IPO Rides the Anti-Oil Wave
Electric car maker Tesla Motors probably could not have picked a better time for their initial public offering as interest in alternatives to the internal combustion engine has been growing in tandem with the oil slick off Louisiana.
Even as Tesla CEO Elon Musk traveled around the country this week pitching the start-up’s $100 million IPO, expected June 28, in Washington Congress listened to a chorus of support for legislation that would subsidize the roll-out of EV infrastructure to the tune of $6 billion.
Both House and Senate versions of the pending bill would provide financial assistance for five to 15 communities around the country judged the most likely early adopters of electric vehicles. Those communities would receive federal funds to help finance public charging stations, and an increase in federal tax credits for EVs from $7,500 to $10,000.
Brazil Hesitates on Deepwater Drilling
(courtesy Stratfor)
A planned stock offering to raise money for deepwater drilling by Brazilian state oil firm Petrobas has been delayed until September.
Petrobas said the delay was necessary to allow Brazil’s energy regulator, ANP, more time to assess the value of the oil deposits, according to the Guardian.
But the announcement comes as the BP deepwater spill in the Gulf of Mexico continues to send shudders through the international oil industry – and specifically the deepwater drilling sector. Just last week the CEO of ExxonMobil testified before Congress that the industry is “not well equipped” to handle deepwater spills.
The Brazilian fields are also exactly the type of next-generation oil finds – exploitable only with advanced technologies – that led many in the industry to pooh-pooh concerns over “peak oil.” But if such fields prove either too risky or too expensive to exploit, it might bolster the arguments of those who see a looming oil shortage.
Canadian Firms to Design World’s First Carbon Capture Standard
In an attempt to bring some order to a fractured – and controversial – industry, two Canadian organizations have announced a partnership to develop a set of standards for carbon capture and storage (CCS).
Standards organization CSA Standards and the International Performance Assessment Centre for Geologic Storage of Carbon Dioxide (IPAC-CO2) hope the best practices they develop for the Canadian CCS industry will eventually provide a model for CCS standards internationally.
CCS is the process of pulling CO2 out of emissions from industrial and energy sources and pumping it into geological formations underground, instead of allowing the CO2 into the atmosphere where it contributes to global warming.
“This is a growing industry, and like any industry, you have technology going ahead of the standards,” said Joe Ralko, Manager of Corporate Communications for IPAC-CO2. Ralko predicted the CCS industry will be larger than the natural gas industry within forty years – a trillion dollar industry.
PG&E Creates $100 Million Solar Slush Fund
PG&E Corporation, the parent company of utility Pacific Gas & Electric, announced on Monday a new $100 million tax equity fund to finance residential solar systems with little or no money down.
The fund will bankroll installations by solar installer SunRun, which will own and operate the systems in return for providing customers, who essentially lease their rooftops to the installer, with a guaranteed electricity bill over several years. Investors in the fund receive the 30 percent tax credit that accrues with each installation.
Similar multi-million dollar funds are already in operation, but PG&E Corp’s, which will be managed by PG&E subsidiary Pacific Energy Capital II, is the first set up by a utility holding company, and is also the largest so far, according to PG&E Corp.
SunRun plans to use the $100 million fund to provide over 3,500 customers in California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Arizona, Colorado and possibly elsewhere with rooftop solar systems.
ExxonMobil CEO Says Oil Industry “Not Well Equipped” For Deep Water Spill
The CEO of the world’s largest publicly traded oil company told a Congressional panel last week that the oil industry is “not well equipped” to deal with deep water spills like that now ravaging the Gulf of Mexico.
Rex Tillerson, an engineer who rose to the CEO chair during his 35 years at ExxonMobil, told Democratic Representative Bart Stupak of Michigan, “that’s why the emphasis has always been on preventing these things from occurring: because we’re not well equipped to handle them, and that’s just a fact of the enormity of what we’re dealing with.”
The enormity of what Tillerson is dealing with is the still unfathomed repercussions of the oil spill for his company and the entire oil industry.
This Unbalanced Breakfast: Kellogg’s Agrees to Drop Insane Health Claims
Going by the standards of the breakfast cereal industry, it might be perfectly acceptable to say Froot Loops has helped reduce cancer mortality worldwide.
After all, Froot Loops is food, more or less, and people have been eating food in the last 50 years, and cancer mortality has gone down in that time…see where I’m going with this?
So far we haven’t seen anything quite that outlandish from General Mills, Kellogg’s and the rest. But they’ve gotten close, and the Federal Trade Commission has finally started to act against the worst such claims.
Last week, Kellogg’s agreed to a settlement with the FTC that should put robust restrictions on what health benefits the food giant can claim about its products.
The settlement comes after some serial cereal misbehavior by the company. Kellogg’s first got in trouble with the FTC when the company claimed Frosted Mini-Wheats were “clinically shown to improve kids’ attentiveness by nearly 20 percent.” Talk about coo-coo!
LEED Us Not into Health Problems
Weaknesses in the way LEED certification measures adverse health impacts of building materials gives a false impression of the safety of “environmentally friendly” buildings, according to a new study.
The study, “LEED Certification: Where Energy Efficiency Collides with Human Health,” by non-profit Environment and Human Health, Inc., recommends that LEED certification be measured separately in different categories.
Currently, a building achieves LEED status based on an aggregate score, with some measurements, such as energy efficiency, weighing more towards the final score than others, like air quality.
This makes it possible for a building to achieve the highest LEED certification, Platinum, even if it makes no improvements in indoor air quality, the study warns.
Cape Wind Power Will Cost Twice As Much, But Opens Door to Other Projects
In a sign of the uphill battle offshore wind power has in winning over skeptics, electricity from the nation’s first wind farm off Cape Cod is expected to cost twice as much as that from conventional sources.
But at the same time, approval of the 130 turbine Cape Wind project has upped the prospects of 11 other offshore wind projects around the country, a new report says.
Twice as much, at least to start
National Grid, the first utility to agree to buy electricity from Cape Wind, will pay 20.1 cents per kilowatt hour, about double what utility customers now pay.
That does not mean rates will double. In fact, the utility says that adding Cape Wind’s renewable energy will only add $1.59 to the average customer’s bill. Nonetheless, the stark difference in pricing has handed critics a stick with which to whack away at the 468 megawatt project.
Audra Parker, president of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, which opposes the wind project, told the Boston Globe, “we now know that Cape Wind energy will not be cost effective for National Grid customers.” The Alliance has also hung on news that rates could go even higher if Cape Wind does not received federal renewable energy tax credits.
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