Tag:

Waxman-Markey

Eyeing the Difficult Path To a Sustainable Future

Environmentalist David Orr says the easy part of helping the United States live within its ecological limits may be passing laws, such as one that puts a price on carbon. The hard part, he maintains in an interview with Yale Environment 360, is changing a culture of consumption that causes extensive environmental damage — and unhappiness.

Long before buzzwords like “carbon footprint” entered the general lexicon, David W. Orr was working on ways to help humanity lighten its impact on the natural world. A professor of environmental studies at Oberlin College and the author of six books, including Ecological Literacy, Orr has focused on how to best educate students about using the Earth’s resources prudently. He also has been a leading proponent of sustainable design on the country’s college campuses, and was the driving force behind building Oberlin’s $7 million Environmental Studies Center, considered a model of green architecture in the U.S.

05/26/2010 1 comment

Renewable Energy

Stepping on the Smart Grid

written by Joe Walsh

So, in case you missed it, there is evidently some kind of climate change conference underway this week. And, its not going well. Still, even if we imagine for a moment that a binding international treaty with hard carbon caps could be salvaged from the wreckage in Copenhagen, there is more news from home in the NYT showing that the US is not up to the climate change challenge at home.

We are developing the technology, but Matthew Wald’s story about a “false start” for smart grids in California and elsewhere provides yet another lens to focus on the policy deficit that is crippling every effort at meaningful energy reform. And, with public will degraded by global recession and climate change skepticism calcifying thanks to Climategate, policymakers cannot afford many more (or, anymore?) false starts.

12/16/2009 1 comment

Energy Efficiency Green Building Renewable Energy

How Will Clean Energy Legislation Affect Electricity Prices?

written by Keith Tanner

As debate heats up around the proposals for clean energy legislation in Congress, one of the main points of contention is the amount of money it will cost. More specifically, everyone wants to know how the average American household will be impacted by the respective energy bills in the House (Waxman-Markey’s American Clean Energy and Security Act) and the Senate (Kerry-Boxer’s Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act). This article will investigate the change in energy prices one can expect from legislation that could be passed within the coming months, and try to sift through the wide discrepancy in figures that are being tossed around. Then some recommendations will be presented as to how energy usage can be reduced, to preempt any anticipated rises in cost.

11/13/2009 9 comments

Renewable Energy

Nuclear Power Debate: 350 Movers, Pragmatic Greens & Fearful Opponents

written by Joe Walsh

First, take a deep breath. It is difficult to do when it is your life and career day-in and day-out, but every once in a while, all of us moving in the clean tech space should stop and reflect on the breakneck pace at which everything around us is moving: technology, regulation, public awareness. Sure, maybe climate change legislation will not be through the Senate in time for Copenhagen (or at all this year, or even this Session), but that was an ambitious (and partly arbitrary) timeline. On the brighter side, today’s public discourse and political will on renewable energy and climate change would have been inconceivable among anyone but the green elite even five years ago.

Still, I cannot help but notice that one not-so-novel technology is getting a lot of renewed attention these days: nuclear power. Sure, in the industry we’ve all bought into the CW that “nukes are back,” but it always been accompanied by a “sort of” at the end. Microreactor technology has been a consistent “yeah, but” in that developing conversation. Then in their NYT Op-ed, Senators John Kerry and Lindsey Graham blew the lid off of things with a commitment to good old-fashioned conventional nukes (alongside a commitment to drilling and clean coal that threatens to turn the Senate bill into little more than a symbolic accopmplishment).

10/27/2009 1 comment

Renewable Energy

War Against Climate Change: There Will Be Some Collateral Damage

written by Joe Walsh

NPR’s Morning Edition recently aired this story, a variation on a theme that I have written about in the past on CleanTechies and in scholarly work: green backlash against renewable power. The Morning Edition piece focused on the land use implications of renewables, noting that it takes a lot more land to generate a terawatt of solar, wind or biofueled electricity than of coal or natural gas power.

True enough. But, for me, it all comes down to the threshold question: do you believe the worst-case climate scenarios? If your answer is yes, and you have the courage of those convictions, then you realize — as I have — that we have no choice, and no time to dawdle. People who answer that question affirmatively know that the paradigm shifts in energy production and consumption that are necessary if we are to have any chance of righting our climatological ship will face knee-jerk opposition and demagoguery from opponents (s, e.g., the spring time bloodbath over the Waxman-Markey bill). A movement that remains — however gallingly — on such tenuous footing cannot afford to endure the additional obstacle of in-fighting over policy nuances. To twist a familiar and over-used metaphor:

09/01/2009 2 comments

Renewable Energy

From Climate Change to Cap-and-trade: Something Rotten in Denmark?

written by Joe Walsh

Earlier this year, everyone in the environmental punditocracy had an opinion on what domestic policy moves the leading economies and emerging nations might make to position themselves in advance of December’s climate change conference in Copenhagen.

The US? President Obama would arrive wearing a badge of victory: the world’s first-ever all-auction cap-and-trade system. China and India? The world’s fastest growing economies would put domestic Potemkin policies in place to demonstrate good faith. Western Europe? With a carbon cap in place and a bona fide legacy of environmental leadership, the Old West would continue to carry the mantle by pushing for significant advancement beyond Kyoto standards.

The global economic meltdown has rendered impossible any determination of how accurate those predictions might have been. Although things are looking up economically, there is no telling what history will be written in Denmark this winter. The signs are not promising.

08/18/2009 4 comments

Renewable Energy

Three Strikes! Why Cap-and-Trade is Dead for 2009

written by Joe Walsh

“No Drama” Obama somehow managed to step in it again last week, plunging himself into the Skip Gates arrest and racial politics when he was meant to be drumming up support for health care reform.

If the measure of how badly the White House narrative veered off course is to observe that many of the Sunday shows spent more time on ObamaGates (I might have to trademark that one) than they did on health care, it is worth noting that Waxman-Markey is barely in the rear view mirror anymore. It does not appear to be on the Senate’s radar either.

07/28/2009 13 comments

Renewable Energy

Waxman-Markey Opposition Threatens US Leadership

written by Matt Macko

HR 2454 or the Waxman-Markey bill, named after its two major supporters Henry A. Waxman and Edward J. Markey of the Energy and Commerce Committee, was passed in the US House of Representatives on June 27. Its major mandate is a cap and trade system though it does have other green practices scattered throughout. There has been a lot of talk recently, because of this bill, of the viability of a cap and trade system in the US. To evaluate the government’s ability to implement this new system we have to first understand it.

The basics of a cap and trade are fairly simple. It is a way to limit emissions through a credit system. Every business acquires a certain amount of credits; depending on the type of system these credits are either auctioned off or given away by the government. These credits represent the amount of carbon that businesses can emit. If the business cannot adhere to the limit of emissions their credits allow, they must buy credits from companies who are below their cap. Thus the companies who are responsible and limit their emissions are rewarded and those who are not as environmentally friendly are punished.

07/28/2009 9 comments

Renewable Energy

Jon Stewart and Steven Chu tell the woeful tale of Cap’n Trade

written by Ian Thomson

I don’t have a TV, and while I’m generally pretty happy with the state of affairs, I definitely miss the Daily Show… thanks to Hulu, I now don’t have to.

If you missed Jon Stewart’s take on the progress of Waxman-Markey here is a recommended Friday afternoon break. Stick through and you’ll get to catch up with Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who doesn’t do a bad job spinning a joke for Nobel Laureate.

Enjoy.

07/24/2009 0 comment

Renewable Energy

Global Warming Activists vs. Clean Tech Capitalists: Are we really on the same side?

written by Dustin Kahler

Most environmental business blogs seem to have glossed right over coverage of Greenpeace’s rather untraditional message to President Obama on Mount Rushmore two weeks ago, though a quarter-page photo in the front section of the New York Times certainly did not. Citing discontent with Obama’s acquiescence to compromises on environmental policy, a group of eleven activists draped a massive banner next to Abraham Lincoln’s face bearing the message “America honors leaders, not politicians: Stop Global Warming.” The action came as the President met with world leaders to discuss climate change at the G8 summit, and brings to light divides among the environmental community that are becoming even more apparent thanks to the debate over the Waxman-Markey bill.

07/22/2009 0 comment

Renewable Energy

Oil, Waxman-Markey & Obama’s Advantage on Climate Change

written by Joe Walsh

It is worth taking a minute to run over to National Journal Online’s Energy-Environment blog to read their ongoing discussion, entitled “Running in Place.” The series reflects on progress made in energy-environment policy in the last thirty years, since President Carter committed that we would never again import as much oil as we did in 1979.

Obviously, Carter could not bring that to reality, and we now import three times as much oil as we did when those words were uttered (from a little over a million barrels a year then to 3.5 M bpy today). “Running in Place” brings together leaders from the energy industry, policymakers and environmental advocates to analyze what has gone right, what has gone wrong, and what needs to happen going forward.

07/16/2009 0 comment

Renewable Energy

Cap & Trade – Obama’s Win Is the States’ Loss

written by Walter Wang

Much of the debate over the formation of a cap & trade system under the Waxman-Markey bill focused on whether initial allowances should be auctioned off or merely given away and how the system would act. There was little discussion about the impact a federal cap & trade system would have on states, which have already established or at the very least have set the wheels in motion regarding a state or regional cap and trade system. Most notably, this refers to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, Western Climate Initiative, and California.

07/07/2009 3 comments

Renewable Energy

Cap-and-Trade or Trade War: Obama Wants Tariff Out of Climate Bill

written by Joe Walsh

Like many of you, I am counting down the days to Copenhagen, even making my own sort of clean energy geek’s version of an Advent calendar and putting up an LED-bedecked tree (sustainably-harvested, of course).

But, I’m beginning to worry that we won’t get there before a trade war erupts over the last-minute amendment inserted into Waxman-Markey before Friday’s 219-212 passage of the bill. According to several sources, President Obama is worried too.

06/30/2009 1 comment

Renewable Energy

A First Test: Climate Change Vote to Test Obama’s Soft Power

written by Joe Walsh

The big day has arrived for the Waxman-Markey climate bill, expected to go to the floor for a vote in the House today. A quick perusal of the Op-Ed pages this morning adds little to the debate.

NYT and The Boston Globe both offer tepid – and somewhat mournful – endorsements of the legislation, citing its symbolic significance while noting the well-publicized giveaways and leaning heavily on CBO and EPA studies out this week that downplay consumer cost increases as a result of carbon charges. A lot of “the costs of inaction, of clinging to a broken energy policy, will dwarf the costs of acting now” kind of palaver in both. Quite frankly, they are so superficial as to be disappointing — kind of like the bill itself in the minds of many.

06/26/2009 0 comment

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