How We Get There Matters

Spurred by a Supreme Court ruling this week, environmental activists are stepping up pressure on carmakers to cut down on CO2 emissions. Will Detroit get the message? Backstage at the auto show. Read full Newsweek article by Keith Naughton

The world’s scientists are telling us with increasing confidence that the costs of doing nothing to regulate greenhouse gas emissions will be far greater than the costs of acting now. Read full editorial.

At Virgin, we’re trying to develop a new business model that factors in the complete cycle of energy use and carbon output.

By Sir Richard Branson
Newsweek
Dec. 18, 2006 issue - In 1972, a young scientist named Lames Lovelock was developing a hypothesis of how the planet worked called Gaia theory. Lovelock’s theory, named for the Greek goddess of the earth, was that life has not only adapted to our planet’s conditions but shapes those conditions as well. It was scorned and ignored at first, but now Lovelock’s ideas are the basis of our current understanding of global warming and the need to cut carbon emissions. At Virgin, we have been engaged for some years in trying to create a business model for the 21st century that takes into account the whole cycle of energy consumption and carbon output, in order to change the balance. We call it Gaia Capitalism.

 

This project recently culminated in a $3 billion investment plan for the next 10 years in biofuel production, research and development, and other investments in renewable-energy production. The project will also include investment in new technology to dramatically shrink the carbon footprint of our existing transport operations. Since the transport sector is one of the largest consumers of oil, dramatically reducing the amount of oil used in ships, planes, trains and cars, or even replacing oil with non fossil fuels, is critical to our goals. We think it can happen in our lifetime.

The project began in 1997, when we had the opportunity to buy new trains for the long-distance rail network in the United Kingdom. At the time we pledged to pull out of domestic aviation in the U.K., where rail is capable of competing, and develop trains to be more efficient in terms of carbon input/output than any seen before. That project produced the Pendolino, built by Alstom, an all-aluminum electromagnetic tilt train with regenerative brakes, which use brake friction to create electricity. That allows the Pendolino to return 17 percent of the electricity it uses back to the National Grid. From London to Glasgow it uses nine times less CO2 per passenger than the equivalent 737 flight, making it the most efficient long-distance train in Europe.

Read full story.

Denver Post Columnist Bob Ewegen highlights some of the the challenges of solving the transportation funding puzzle in Sunday’s Denver Post.

Years ago, the Denver Post editorial page proposed raising the state’s motor fuel tax of 22 cents a gallon by a dime.

We suggested using half of that revenue to repair the state’s crumbling highway network. The other nickel would have been earmarked to pay off bonds, so the state could borrow money to begin catching up on its mounting backlog of transportation needs.

Then-Gov. Roy Romer was seldom averse to spending money. Nonetheless, he objected to using bonds to accelerate highway construction, telling The Post’s editorial board he preferred “pay-as-you-go” construction.

“Governor,” I snapped back in exasperation, “we’re paying all right. But we’re not going.”

That was 1996. In the decade since, Colorado’s highway construction backlog has only grown worse. It now constitutes one of the two huge fiscal problems that Bill Ritter will face when he’s sworn in as governor next month, the other being how to pay for our starving higher education system.

To read the full article

Increasing numbers of commuters are using buses as a faster and cheaper way to get to work, new figures show. Urban municipalities are expanding bus services — and adding features like wireless Internet access — in an effort to target white-collar and business employees who might otherwise drive their cars.

Listen to the story by Kathleen Schalch on NPR’s,  All Things Considered.

Role of vehicle emissions in global warming take center stage in Supreme Court case:

A dozen states, large cities argue that emissions need to be regulated

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court hears arguments this week in a case that could determine whether the Bush administration must change course in how it deals with the threat of global warming.

A dozen states as well as environmental groups and large cities are trying to convince the court that the Environmental Protection Agency must regulate, as a matter of public health, the amount of carbon dioxide that comes from vehicles.

Carbon dioxide is produced when fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas are burned. It is the principal “greenhouse” gas that many scientists believe is flowing into the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate, leading to a warming of the earth and widespread ecological changes. One way to reduce those emissions is to have cleaner-burning cars.

The Bush administration intends to argue before the court on Wednesday that the EPA lacks the power under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. The agency contends that even if it did have such authority, it would have discretion under the law on how to address the problem without imposing emissions controls.

The states, led by Massachusetts, and more than a dozen environmental groups insist the 1970 law makes clear that carbon dioxide is a pollutant — much like lead and smog-causing chemicals — that is subject to regulation because its poses a threat to public health.

A sharply divided federal appeals court ruled in favor of the government in 2005. But last June, the Supreme Court decided to take up the case, plunging for the first time into the politically charged debate over global warming. The ruling next year is expected to be one of the court’s most important ever involving the environment.

“Global warming is the most pressing environmental issue of our time and the decision by the court on this case will make a deep and lasting impact for generations to come,” says Massachusetts’ attorney general, Thomas Reilly.

David Bookbinder, a lawyer for the Sierra Club, says a legal clarification of the EPA’s authority could determine whether the current administration must regulate carbon dioxide emissions and whether a future one will be able to demand such limits.

At issue for now is pollution from automobiles. But the ruling indirectly may affect how the agency deals with carbon dioxide that comes from electric power plants.

In a separate lawsuit, the EPA says the Clean Air Act also prevents it from regulating such emissions from those plants. That claim would be undercut, Bookbinder says, if the high court rules in the states’ favor in the auto emissions case.

President Bush has rejected calls to regulate carbon dioxide. He favors voluntary steps by industry and development of new technologies to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere.

“We still have very strong reservations about an overarching, one-size-fits-all mandate about carbon,” James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, recently told a group of reporters.

The administration says in court papers the EPA should not be required to “embark on the extraordinarily complex and scientifically uncertain task of addressing the global issue of greenhouse gas emissions” when other ways are available to tackle climate change.

The United States accounts for about one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. The amount of carbon dioxide from U.S. motor vehicles, power plants and other industry has increased on average by about 1 percent a year since 1990.

Now that Democrats will control the House and Senate in January after their election victories this month, there is expected to be increased pressure in Congress for mandatory limits on carbon emissions.

The election results “have signaled a need to change direction” on dealing with global warming, three Democratic senators who will play leading roles on environmental issues recently wrote the president.

But whether there is such a shift actually may depend, in the end, on the Supreme Court.

Plaintiffs in the suit are California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. They were joined by cities such as Baltimore, New York and the District of Columbia; the Pacific island of America Samoa; the Sierra Club; the Union of Concerned Scientists; Greenpeace; and Friends of the Earth.

The case is Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 05-1120.

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15909008/

As a coastal area, San Francisco is sensitive to reports that climate change from greenhouse gases would raise ocean levels and inundate parts of the region.  Since new report, Climate Change and the Bay Area shows that half of all greenhouse gas emmissions come from private automobiles, planners are working on mixed-use, transit oriented development to reduce the need for cars.  As Edward Carpenter writes, 

With the average Bay Area resident spewing about 12 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere a year, the move toward transit-centered development is the only logical choice to cut traffic congestion and tackle global warming, according to transit experts.

Not only could high-density housing development encourage more walking, biking and transit use, it could help the state reach its ambitious goal of reducing greenhouse gases by 25 percent, to 1990 levels by 2020, said Ted Droettboom, regional planning director for a joint committee on smart growth.

“Smart growth is going to play one huge part in reducing greenhouse gases,” Droettboom told members of the Joint Policy Committee on Friday.

And while transit-oriented development is not a silver bullet, convincing drivers to give up their cars addresses, head-on, the largest source of greenhouse gases in the Bay Area and California, James Corless of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission said. An estimated 50 percent of all greenhouses gases in the Bay Area — more than twice that from local industry — comes from personal vehicles, a new study on “Climate Change and the Bay Area” shows.

“We’ve got a really tough task ahead of us,” Droettboom told committee members. He warned of an impending crisis in which wildfires increase 55 percent and ocean levels rise, submerging the San Francisco and Oakland airports by the year 2099.

As a first step to getting a grip on the problem, the Joint Policy Committee voted unanimously Friday to move forward with a comprehensive analysis of what traffic and Bay conservation agencies as well as local governments need to do to begin reducing greenhouse gases. Warning there is no time to lose and adopting the state’s 25 percent reduction model as a goal, the analysis is expected to be complete in six months, Droettboom said.

The world, most notably the developed world, has a very large habit. Canadian Peter Tertzakian thinks the days of the easy fix are over. As Steve Raabe writes in the Denver Post,

North America’s dependence on oil will force higher prices and lifestyle changes in years to come, a leading Canadian energy analyst warned a Denver audience in a recent speech.

“Ultimately we will get to the point where (oil) supply is unable to meet demand in an economically feasible way. That’s the break point - something has to give,” said Peter Tertzakian, chief energy economist for Calgary-based ARC Financial Corp.

What will give, he said, is consumer behavior that until now has been motivated by cheap and plentiful energy. Out of necessity caused by tight supplies and high prices for oil, consumers will gravitate to fuel-efficient vehicles and increasingly embrace working at home in lieu of commuting.

Tertzakian noted that fuel-efficiency gains from new automotive technologies largely have been offset by consumer preference for trucks and sport utility vehicles.

“We’re suffering from vehicle obesity,” he told an audience at the Canadian Consulate General in downtown Denver. “The fleet gets heavier and heavier.”

Gasoline-electric hybrids are just a small part of the solution because they accounted for only about 1 percent of North American auto sales last year, he said.

“If every car buyer bought a hybrid, it would still take 14 to 15 years to replace the fleet,” said Tertzakian.

His new book, “A Thousand Barrels a Second,” refers to the current world rate of oil consumption. The book has been a best seller in Canada.

Tertzakian doesn’t align himself with the “peak oil” theory - the notion that world oil production will peak in coming years, followed by a gradual decline in which prices will keep rising.

However, he acknowledged that production of light, sweet crude oil - the type most favored by oil refiners - probably already has peaked and must be replaced by more expensive and harder-to-extract sources such as Canada’s vast reserves of oil sands, and perhaps in the future, Colorado’s oil shale.

His message of tight supplies, higher prices and the need to conserve and sacrifice used to rankle traditional oil and gas interests, many of whom believed that new discoveries and technologies would maintain strong production. That attitude is changing.

“Nobody in the industry disagrees that we will need development of alternatives and conservation,” said Marc Smith, executive director of the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States.

“We’re not trying to deliver the message that the salad days are here forever,” Smith said. “Price and supply strictures will cause changes in consumer behavior. But it’s a question of whether it will be a hard landing or a soft landing.”

Bill Ritter’s Colorado Promise touts a “New Energy Economy” as part of its platform. With Democrats in the leadership position in the Governor’s mansion, the house and senate a renewed emphasis on energy efficiency and renewables could set a model for Washington to follow. As Steve Raabe and Christine Tatum write in the Denver Post, Colorado energy future is shows promise after the results of the November election:

Conventional political wisdom holds that Democrats will favor alternative and renewable energy, while taking a tougher look at the environmental impact of traditional energy sources - oil, natural gas and coal.

Yet some energy issues such as wind power and more oil and gas drilling have bipartisan support, and Democrats alone may not set the agenda.

“Responsible politicians in both parties recognize that America has been sleepwalking to disaster,” said Colorado energy analyst Randy Udall, “and that a new emphasis on energy efficiency, renewable energy and domestic production is needed.”

Here are a few of the sectors and companies that could see changes under the new political regime.

Biofuels

Colorado already has a strong foothold in the industry of making liquid fuels from crops, with several ethanol and biodiesel plants in operation, more under development and a research hub at the Golden-based National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Clean coal

Democrats are expected to take a strong look at the carbon emissions and pollutants from 153 new coal-burning power plants proposed for the next quarter century.

Oil and gas

Big Oil may be “a big loser” as congressional drilling limits are feared. Industry officials hope changes won’t inhibit extraction.

Industry officials are concerned about possible congressional initiatives to limit drilling on public lands and in coastal waters, as well as to assess windfall-profit taxes on oil and gas production.

Xcel Energy

Xcel, Colorado’s largest gas and electric utility, has recently embraced a carbon-reduction plan that is likely to win it kudos from majority Democrats in Congress and the Colorado legislature.

But Xcel’s support for a proposal that would reduce utilities’ carbon emissions without imposing taxes on utilities - in the form of draft legislation by Republican U.S. Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota - could run into trouble in the new Congress. The proposal will face competition from several Democratic initiatives that would impose caps and taxes on carbon from coal-burning power plants.

Wind power

Despite a growing embrace of the industry, Congress has failed to enact a long-term tax credit that makes wind energy cost-competitive.

Wind energy has enjoyed strong bipartisan support in Washington and Colorado in recent legislative sessions. Xcel Energy is the nation’s largest purchaser of wind power, primarily to serve customers in Colorado and Minnesota.

But Congress, to the dismay of wind-energy producers, has repeatedly failed to enact a long-term tax credit that makes wind energy cost competitive with coal-fired generation.

Read the full article . . .

The City of Boulder and the Town of Carbondale may be on opposite sides of Colorado’s Continental Divide, but they are on the same page when it comes to increasing the use of renewable energy and addressing climate change.
Voters in both communities approved tax and debt questions to implement their respective Community Energy Plans.

In Boulder, voters approved ( 59% to 41%) an “energy use tax” on electricity use by residential and business customers of Xcel Energy.

According to estimates, homeowners will pay an average of $33 a year, businesses $37 a year and industrial customers $2,832. The tax would raise$ 5.5 million over five years and pay for efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Boulder.

The city has voluntarily agreed to meet the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol, which would require cutting the city`s emissions by 24 percent by 2012.

In Carbondale, voters approved the issuance (by a 4 to 1) of up to $1.8 million in Clean Renewable Energy Bonds (CREBs) to construct and operate two large-scale solar systems. The proposed systems would provide about 250 kilowatts (KW) of power. One of the systems would be the largest solar system in western Colorado.

“It’s great to have interest-free money at the municipal level, so we applied,” said Joani Matranga, an architect of the project and the ballot question, which takes advantage of a provision tucked into the federal Energy Policy Act that encourages renewable energy investment by rural electric cooperatives, cities and towns.

The Internal Revenue Service pays the interest with tax credits to buyers of the bonds. Xcel Energy, prodded by requirements of Amendment 37 (passed by Colorado voters in 2004), will help pay the principle on the bonds with incentives and rebates based on energy production.

Read the full article by Marilyn Gleason . . .