Category: Global warming

New book – ‘Energy Poverty: Global Challenges and Local Solutions’

Two years in the making, this 21-chapter book was released by Oxford University Press (OUP) on December 20, 2014. It addresses the importance of energy access in reducing poverty and increasing human welfare, a topic just beginning to receive widespread visibility. A brief description of the book is attached below; a Table of Contents can be found at the following website:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/energy-poverty-9780199682362?cc=dk&lang=en&

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Edited by Antoine Halff, Benjamin K. Sovacool, and Jon Rozhon

A one-stop treatment of energy poverty, an issue whose pivotal role in the fight for human development and against poverty is only now being recognised
A practical guide and reference work for policymakers and practitioners in the field
Provides a fresh perspective on tomorrow’s energy challenges
Brings together diverse viewpoints and includes contributions from experts and practitioners from all over the world, including China, India, Brazil, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East
Includes chapters from authors at the cutting edge of research: Fatih Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Agency, Han Wenke, head of China’s Energy Research Institute, Nigel Bruce of the World Health Organisation, and Jason Bordoff, former senior advisor on energy to President Barack Obama”

I also attach a copy of the chapter I was privileged to write, ‘Energy and Water: A Critical Linkage”, on a topic that is also receiving increasing attention. It is a bit long compared to my usual blog posts, but worth reading. A special gift awaits those who read to the end of the chapter.
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More on the Lighting Revolution

This blog post is stimulated by an OpEd piece in today’s (12 December 2014) Washington Post. I reproduce it here as published before I comment on what it says.

“One of the most boneheaded anti-government policies of the last decade is back”

By Stephen Stromberg

A vintage-style incandescent light bulb (C) is shown with an LED light bulb (L) and a compact florescent (CFL) light bulb on December 27, 2013 in Chicago, Illinois (note: this picture not reproduced in this blog post). These incandescent bulbs, which have been in use for more than 100 years, are being replaced by the more energy efficient compact florescent and LED light bulbs. (Photo Illustration by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
In the trillion-dollar budget deal Congressional leaders revealed Tuesday, Republicans didn’t press to defund the Environmental Protection Agency’s climate change rules. But they did uphold one of the most boneheaded anti-government riders of the last decade.

Some quick background: The United States wastes astounding amounts of electricity on light bulbs. The Energy Department figures that American homes spend about 10 percent of their electricity bills on lighting, and households that use old, Edison-era incandescents convert less than 10 percent of the electricity they buy for their bulbs into light. The rest uselessly dissipates as heat.

Though households quickly save money on energy bills when they buy more expensive bulbs that waste less power and last longer, Americans for years didn’t push the transition forward absent a government nudge. This left hefty national savings on the table, as well as a surprisingly large environmental dividend. The EPA calculates that every incandescent bulb switched for a more efficient compact fluorescent bulb saves about 84 pounds in carbon dioxide emissions every year. The Energy Department figures that a transition to super-efficient LED bulbs by 2027 would save about 44 large power plants’ worth of electricity (h/t Brad Plumer).

So Congress passed some simple light bulb efficiency standards in 2007. Lawmakers didn’t ban incandescent bulbs. Instead they demanded that bulbs produced in or imported into the U.S. use no more than a certain amount of electricity to produce a certain amount of light. If manufacturers could make incandescents less wasteful, they could produce the improved bulbs freely. One result has been a boom in the commercialization of new lighting technologies that could save Americans some $6 billion next year.

Another result was an upsurge in counterproductive ideological fuming from the right: In a different budget compromise passed earlier this year, Republicans added a rider prohibiting the Energy Department from enforcing the bulb standards. The rules are still technically on the books, and major manufacturers have switched over to producing better bulbs. But the government won’t be able to stop anyone from playing to people’s short-term bottom line by producing, importing or selling ancient Edison bulbs. It’s not clear whether that will happen on a large scale, in part because retailers have been selling leftover inventories of old-design incandescent bulbs over the course of this year. But those supplies will run out. Regardless, in the latest budget deal Republicans again tacitly encourage undercutting the efficiency rules, keeping the rider in place.

Among other overblown complaints, critics have argued that the light that new bulb designs put out doesn’t feel the same as that of the old incandescents. In fact, bulb manufacturers have made great strides in adapting bulbs to Americans’ tastes. Even if they hadn’t, avoiding a few drawbacks in otherwise functional bulbs clearly isn’t worth wasting $6 billion and creating tons of extra emissions every year. Any rational government would push this transition along. I’m still not sure what kind of government Republican lightbulb hawks want.”

This is a topic I’ve commented on before (see my earlier blog post entitled ‘Lighting: A Revolution in Progress’) but feel the need to comment on again as some members of Congress are still pushing a policy that acts against the U.S. national interest – i.e., the need to reduce energy unnecessarily wasted in producing light. About one fifth of U.S. generated electricity goes into lighting, a large fraction, much of which can be saved by switching to more efficient and increasingly less costly forms of lighting such as LEDs. In addition to reducing the need for power plants to provide this electricity, associated carbon emissions and consumer electricity costs can be reduced significantly. This transition is inevitable and is picking up speed as LED costs come down as large-scale manufacturing of LEDs takes place.

My point in revisiting this topic is to emphasize some of the important points in the OpEd piece that unfortunately still need emphasizing with some members of Congress and the public: the economic and environmental benefits of switching from traditional incandescent light bulbs to LEDS are abundantly clear and U.S. Government action to impose standards on light bulb performance is not a ban on incandescent bulbs as some people have misrepresented. As the Oped correctly states: “So Congress passed some simple light bulb efficiency standards in 2007. Lawmakers didn’t ban incandescent bulbs. Instead they demanded that bulbs produced in or imported into the U.S. use no more than a certain amount of electricity to produce a certain amount of light. If manufacturers could make incandescents less wasteful, they could produce the improved bulbs freely.” If legislators see this imposition of standards as objectionable, then they must also be opposed to the variety of energy efficiency performance standards other Congress’ have mandated since the 1970s on devices such as refrigerators, air conditioners, and hot water heaters. Let them speak up if that is their position and take their arguments to and their chances with the American public rather than sneaking undiscussed items into must-pass budget legislation.

I would also like to take this opportunity to restate, in a simple example, the clear energy and economic benefits of switching from incandescents to LEDs. In the world of no-brainers this stands at the top of the class. In my earlier blog post I did this calculation for a CFL (compact fluorescent light bulb) which is now losing out to LEDs. The LED example is even more compelling.

In this example I compare a 60 Watt incandescent bulb (Sylvania A19 Soft White Dimmable) with an LED replacement (CREE 60W Soft White A19 Dimmable LED). The former are available at Lowe’s for $4.49 for a package of 8, and the 11 Watt LED is available at Home Depot for $7.97. The Sylvania bulb is advertised to have a 2,000 hour life while the identically shaped LED bulb is advertised to have a lifetime of “22.8 years (Based on 3hrs/day)”.

For purposes of calculation let me round the numbers off to 55 cents per bulb for the incandescents and $8 per bulb for the LED. Electricity is assumed to cost 10 cents/kWh. The LED lifetime is (3hours/day)x(365days/year)x(22.8years)=24,966 hours. In this amount of time you would replace the 55 cent incandescent light bulb 12.5 times.

Thus, after 24,966 hours the cost of using the incandescent bulb would be (0.06kW)x(24,966hours)x($0.10/kWh) = $149.8 + (12.5bulbs)x(0.55cents/bulb) = $156.7 (Note: this does not take into account any costs associated with replacing the bulb at least 12 times). The cost of using the LED to provide an equivalent amount and quality of light would be (0.011kW)x(24,966hours)x($0.10/kWh) = $27.5 + (1bulb)x($8/bulb) = $35.5.

This simple comparison demonstrates why a switch from incandescents to LEDs is inevitable and is already underway as initially high LED costs come steadily down. Even at $8/LED bulb the economic comparison ($36 vs $157) is devastating to incandescents, even improved incandescents that have been developed in response to the new efficiency standards. The economic argument for consumers is only buttressed by the benefits to electric utilities that need fewer power plants to meet lighting needs, and by the associated environmental benefits. Given that lighting needs consume about 19% of global generated electricity the benefits of this lighting revolution in combatting global warming and climate change are obvious.

While there can be debatable policy differences on how to generate the electricity we need, there should be no argument about proceeding down the LED path. This really is a no-brainer that even ‘Republican lightbulb hawks’ should understand.

What Might the 2014 Elections Mean for U.S. Energy and Environmental Policy?

The simple answer is that at this point we don’t know. Lots of different paths are possible, depending on how Republicans interpret their enhanced power in the U.S. Congress, how the President approaches his final two years in office, and how Congressional Democrats react to their minority party role. Nevertheless, I will offer my current thoughts and speculations, subject of course to significant change as we proceed in Congress’ 2014 lame duck session and the start of a new Congress in January with Republicans in charge of both Houses for the first time in eight years.

One major consideration that dominates my thinking is that Republicans, facing inevitable demographic realities in future elections (older white people as a declining percentage of the voting population, more non-white voters/mostly Latino and Asian, and a growing number of young voters generally more progressive than their parents and grandparents), must demonstrate that they can govern effectively if they are to win national elections in the future. Remembering the Gingrich era in the 1990’s, when Republicans took over the Congress, it proved much easier to be in the minority and sling arrows than to govern effectively when finally in power. The modern House of Representatives, under John Boehner as Speaker, has proved to be one of the least effective in American history, but with control of both Houses in Republican hands after January, Boehner and McConnell (the presumed Majority Leaders in the new Congress) have the opportunity to do more than just oppose Obama Administration initiatives. What Boehner and McConnell want to do and are able to do will determine their places in history.

The issues as I see them are as follows: policy for fossil fuel supply – coal, oil, natural gas, fossil fuel exports, Keystone XL pipeline, global warming and climate change, support for clean energy, water issues. Each will be discussed briefly below.

– Fossil fuel supply: with Kentucky’s senior Senator setting the agenda for the Senate it is likely that anti-coal activists will be unsuccessful in accelerating the pace of closure of coal-fired power plants in the near future. These decisions, made on economic grounds by power plant operators, will be self-interested decisions based on the legislative environment they are facing. With Republicans in charge I anticipate every effort will be made to slow down or repeal the EPA’s proposed rules on carbon emissions. While there are Republicans who understand the need to replace coal combustion with natural gas and eventually with renewable energy, the political reality that they may be challenged in reelection primaries by climate change minimalizers or deniers tends to keep them in line with status-quo positions. Coal’s role in power generation in the U.S. is clearly diminishing, faster than most people probably anticipated just a few years ago, but low-cost coal exports to other countries are picking up. As the UK experienced several decades ago, closing coal mines and losing the associated jobs is difficult politics, as this year’s Senate election in Kentucky demonstrated. Keeping one’s job is priority #1 for most if not all people, and the political system needs to keep this firmly in mind. Balancing this against the needs of environmental protection is what we pay our politicians to do.

The issues with oil and natural gas largely relate to fracking and its associated environmental threats, and with their export to other countries. Both are critical issues that can no longer be avoided and require careful policy prescriptions that Republicans are now in a better place to affect. Fracking of oil and natural gas from extensive shale deposits has expanded rapidly in the U.S. in recent years, and the U.S. Is rapidly becoming the world’s #1 oil producer (when shale oil adds to our declining but still large traditional domestic oil production) and a major souce of natural gas supplies. As discussed in two previous posts on this blog web site, I see no way to stop fracking in the U.S. because of the large associated economic returns, and therefore we must regulate it carefully to avoid the real possibility of water supply contamination and minimize accidental releases of methane, a powerful global climate change gas. Republicans can have their cake and eat it too if they support this needed regulation, gaining brownie points for their environmentalism and still allow the fracking industry to proceed on their profitable path. Substituting fracking gas for coal in power generation is in most people’s interest, and while I would prefer to replace coal with wind, solar and other renewable generation sources, we are not in a position to do that yet. Nevertheless, the U.S. public largely understands the need for this inevitable transition and Republicans would be politically wise to take a long-range view on facilitating this transition. We shall see.

A related issue is what to do about U.S. producers who want to export oil and natural gas. Large and remunerative potential markets await in Europe and Asia but since the 1970’s it has been illegal for companies to export crude oil in all but a few circumstances. The goal of the 1970’s legislation was to conserve domestic oil reserves and discourage foreign imports, but in reality, the export ban did not help accomplish either objective.

The Natural Gas Act of 1938, as amended, requires that anyone who wants to import or export natural gas, including liquefied natural gas (LNG), from or to a foreign country must first obtain an authorization from the Department of Energy. This is less of a barrier than the ban on oil exports, but until recently the U.S. was anticipating importing LNG, not exporting it. The fracking revolution has changed all this, and LNG import terminals are now being constructed as export terminals.

An argument against such exports is less fossil fuel and potentially higher energy costs for U.S. consumers. Foreign policy as well as economic considerations come into this discussion as we try to loosen other country’s dependence on Russian and Middle East producers. I anticipate that export controls will be loosened on a bipartisan basis and the U.S. will emerge as a major energy exporter in the decades to come.

Approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline by the President will be a key issue in the upcoming lame duck session of Congress and may carry over to the new Congress in January. My own view, expressed in an earlier blog post, is that stopping construction of the pipeline will not slow Canadian development of its tar sands oil resources and that I’d rather have the oil coming to the U.S. rather than going elsewhere. I also believe that transport of oil by pipeline is safer than transport by rail car, the obvious and unstoppable alternative. With regard to this issue, which many environmentalists have identified as a litmus test for President Obama’s environmental bona fides, I see the pipeline, which has strong Republican support as well as some Democratic support, as a done deal, perhaps as part of a tradeoff with other Democratic priorities such as immigration reform.

The issue of global warming and climate change is a difficult partisan issue but shouldn’t be. The science of understanding global warming is advancing steadily, its risks are clear to most people, and the largely negative impacts of climate change are increasingly being documented. The problem in the U.S. Is the political clout of industries dependent on sales of fossil fuels. In addition, Republican control of the Senate means that chairmanship of the Environment and Public Works Committee will fall to Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), a climate change denier. This is clearly bad news for environmentalists and others who are concerned about climate change, but also for Republicans and Democrats who will eventually have to deal with this global crisis. Inhofe can slow things down and probably will, at least for the next two years before another Senate election is scheduled. It will be up to members and leaders of both parties to limit the damage that Inhofe can do.

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Support for clean energy (efficiency, renewables) should also not be a partisan issue, but unfortunately is. Vested interests in the traditional energy industries still have too much power with a Congress highly dependent on campaign funds. My views on the need to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy are clearly stated in quite a few of my blog posts, reflecting my view that such a transition is inevitable and clearly in the national interest. Unfortunately, I expect the next few years, under Republican control of Congress, to be a repeat of the years under President George W. Bush (‘Bush 43’) when lip service was paid to clean energy but budget support didn’t follow. As I was taught on my first days in Washington, DC in 1974, budget is policy. I hope President Obama will take a strong stand on these issues, despite Republican electoral gains, since he no longer has to protect vulnerable Democratic candidates.

I bring water into this discussion because water and energy issues are ‘inextricably linked’. Energy production requires water and provision of clean water supplies requires energy. Republicans as well as Democrats must recognize the need to consider these two issues together, and I think they will. This issue needs visibility and increased understanding on the part of politicians and the public, and is a natural for bipartisan cooperation. I hope I am right.

Obviously, I have only touched lightly on the many energy and environmental issues facing the U.S., and encourage others to join me in this discussion. These next few years should be interesting indeed!

Looking Back at Energy Policy in the 1970’s

Recently I have spent some time cleaning up some boxes in my basement, as ‘requested’ by my wife. Three of the boxes contained personal files from my several years as Staff Scientist with the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee in the mid 1970’s. This was the period following the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973-4 when the U.S. first began to think seriously about energy policy. The history of this period is still largely to be written, and it promises to be a rich history. It also represents a unique period in recent American political history in that Democrats and Republicans occasionally cooperated to pass legislation that was deemed to be in the national interest.

Reviewing the files in the boxes took me several days because I.found the contents much more interesting than anticipated after 35 years of non-attention. I also will donate the files to the Senate Archives after I have absorbed more of and thought more about the contents.

The Oil Embargo focused U.S. attention on the country’s significant and increasing dependence on imported oil from unstable and often unfriendly parts of the globe. While only about a quarter of total oil consumption was affected at the time, the Embargo was a rude shock to Americans when they had to endure higher prices and long lines at gas stations and even alternate day access to the pumps based on their license plate numbers.

Suddenly, energy became a dominating issue and the Ford Administration and the Congress were struggling to reassure the American public and devise policies that addressed this increasing import dependence. Lots of disagreements ensued, particularly on oil pricing, but attention also began to be focused on limiting energy demand and indigenous energy resources. Thus was born a large push for greater use of America’s large resources of coal and for increased use of nuclear power. Most economists talked of the one-to-one relationship between gross national product and energy consumption (not true, as has subsequently been demonstrated) and a favorite theme of nuclear supporters at the time was to call for a “doubling every decade”, meaning that we should double the number of nuclear power plants every ten years until the turn of the century. It was also a time when domestic oil production had just peaked and natural gas supplies were thought to be in limited supply. This led to restrictions on the use of natural gas, reduced use of oil for power generation, announcements of many new nuclear power plant construction projects, increased attention to reducing energy demand in buildings, industry, and transportation, attention to non-fossil fuel energy resources (read ‘renewables’), and calls for a national energy strategy. In the intervening years we’ve made progress on a number of these issues, some more than others, but we still lack a national energy strategy, a critical missing piece as we penetrate further into the 21st century.

A major step forward was the passage in 1975 of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA – Public Law 94-163), the country’s first comprehensive energy legislation. It passed that summer in the House by more than a 3:1 margin and by 3:1 in the Senate, triggering a 3-month House-Senate Conference to iron out differences. The bill, as finally negotiated, was signed by President Ford just before Christmas that year despite Republican threats of a Presidential veto. It created many features of our current energy scene, which are discussed below. I also want to recognize those I consider the major legislative leaders, both Republican and Democrat, who fought for this legislation across party lines and brought it to the President’s desk. I do not believe that they have yet received the full recognition that they richly deserve.

EPCA’s primary goals were to increase energy supply, reduce demand, put a focus on energy efficiency, and give the President more tools with which to respond to energy supply disruptions. It’s primary actions were to:
– establish the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The need for such a reserve had been recognized for decades, since the 1940’s, but the Oil Embargo underscored the critical need for such a reserve.
– Part B/Title III established the Energy Conservation Program which gave “authority to develop, revise, and implement minimum energy conservation standards for appliances and equipment.” It also authorized an appliance labeling program, to assist consumers in making energy- and cost-wise purchasing decisions.
– Part A/Title III established the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for new automobile fleets. This legislation, which remained unamended for 32 years, is still the nation’s most impactful energy conservation measure.
– other provisions included loan guarantees to encourage domestic coal and oil production by smaller firms, and additional presidential authority to act in times of emergencies.

The principal legislative leaders behind EPCA (see photos below) included Fritz Hollings (D-SC) who was the prime mover in the Senate of the CAFE legislation, Warren Magnuson (D-WA) who chaired the Senate Committee On Commerce, Henry ‘Scoop’ Jackson (D-WA) who chaired the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Ed Muskie (D-ME) who chaired the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Chuck Percy (R-IL), Ted Kennedy (D-MA), and John Tunney (D-CA), all strong Senate supporters of energy conservation, John Dingell (D-MI) who chaired the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Harley Staggers (D-WV) who chaired the House Science and Technology Committee, and Phil Sharp (D-IN) who shepherded the CAFE legislation through the House. One must also give credit to President Gerald ‘Gerry’ Ford of Michigan who signed the bill into law despite severe pressure not to from many of his constituents and advisors. All deserve the thanks of a grateful nation for putting national interest ahead of party politics as we don’t do too often today.

My final thought is the recognition that critical energy issues were clearly identified in the 1970’s, 40 years ago, but that progress since then has been slower than then hoped for. This has hurt the country in terms of preparing for the future (wje still lack a national energy policy codified by the Congress), less job creation and economic growth in clean energy industries, and unnecessary environmental degradation. We have made progress in the years following the scary wake-up call to the nation following the Oil Embargo and the Iran-Iraq War of the late 1970’s when global oil production was curtailed. Nevertheless, we can and must do better in the future if we are to successfully combat global warming and climate change (this became a public issue only after Jim Hansen at NASA began to talk about the issue in 1979) and ensure America’s place in the emerging and inevitable renewable energy society.

In order, left-to-right: Sen. Ernest ‘Fritz’ Hollings, Sen. Warren Magnuson, Sen. Henry ‘Scoop’ Jackson, Sen. Ed Muskie Sen. Ted Kennedy, Sen. John Tunney, Sen. Charles ‘Chuck’ Percy, Rep. John Dingell, Rep. Harley Staggers, Rep. Plil Sharp.

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A Letter to President Obama

This letter, which will be published as a blog post, is a followup to my earlier post entitled ‘A Conversation With S. David Freeman’. In that post I stated:
“….. despite the obvious resistance that Obama faces from Republicans on anything he proposes, and the need to keep a Democratic Senate if at all possible (so that his last two years in office will not be even more difficult than his first six years), should the President think big and propose what he knows the country needs as opposed to what is politically feasible? My heart says yes, and the side of me that claims to be practical, after many years in Washington, DC, tries hard to understand Obama’s strategy and support it. But Dave may be right – we may have an intellectual President whose nature just won’t allow him to stick his neck out. As I said to Dave, the test for me will be after the November elections, when Obama will have no Democratic candidates to protect and nothing to lose by proposing farseeing energy and environmental legislation. He will not succeed in getting it passed by the most dysfunctional Congress I’ve seen in forty years, but as Dave says, we have to start somewhere.”

I’m also aware that a number of my liberal/progressive friends and colleagues, in addition to Dave Freeman, have expressed disappointment with the President for not doing more on energy and environmental issues as they assumed he would when he was elected. I have resisted joining this group and continue to support the President’s analytic and pragmatic approach to dealing with these issues. It has led to some difficult discussions, and despite my long and transparent political history led one long-standing friend to write: “…it is interesting, for sure, to see you moving toward the real Democrats.”

Needless to say, I disagree with this friend’s characterization of what a true Democrat believes, as if there is only one way to address these issues, and we will have to agree to disagree. Nevertheless, these interactions with friends and my own impatience about seeing more done quickly to achieve a clean energy society, leads to this appeal to you as you approach the final two years of your presidency.

Once we are past the elections in the first week of November you will have little reason, in my opinion, to hold back on your vision for this country’s energy future. I believe you have a clear understanding of what that future must be, but that vision has to be translated into a national energy policy that is codified by the U.S. Congress. As a nation we need to set long-term goals for moving away from dependence on fossil fuels and toward an energy system increasingly dependent on increased energy efficiency and renewable energy generating sources, as the European Union has done and even China is doing in its multiple five-year plans. You need to level with the American public about the policy choices we have to make now to ensure we are well on our way to that energy future that other nations have identified more clearly than we. Republicans and some Democrats may not agree but your leadership is needed to point the way forward and put pressure on the Congress to protect our long-term interests.

You have recently taken important steps to do what you feel you can reasonably do within your executive powers to reduce energy-related carbon emissions. You are taking some political heat for that. but that comes with the job and as best I can tell from media reports the majority of Americans agree with your approach. What is less clear is your vision for a long-term clean energy policy and how we can move rapidly to that end, which is part-and-parcel of addressing global warming/climate change and improving national security. Your all-of-the-above energy strategy leaves many of us wanting more clarity from you on the hard choices we have to make to ensure our energy future. This letter is a request for such clarity while you still have a chance to make a significant difference as President. It will undoubtedly lead to further political attacks, but so what? You were overly patient with Republican intransigence in your first Administration, a serious mistake that took you too long to learn from, and you must not repeat that again in setting out your goals for the future. They will huff and puff and perhaps slow down national progress, as they threaten to do on health care, but you must lead in pointing the way. We will get there eventually but the sooner the better. You can make a difference and I await your post-November 4th leadership.