-
Bush Faces a Long Legal Battle With California
Tweet Share on Facebook December 20, 2007 CommentThe concept of the White House throwing out all the bad news at 5 p.m. on a Friday, when it is sure to get minimum press coverage, was immortalized in the great "Take Out the Trash Day" episode in the first season of The West Wing. Well, the Bush administration's decision on California's climate change program wasn't made on a Friday, but it was after business hours the week before Christmas, about eight hours after President Bush signed into law an energy bill that the administration obviously thinks will give it perfect cover for what it has done.
But no matter its timing, the Bush administration has assured itself of a high-profile political and legal battle that will continue through the remainder of this presidency, with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger backed by 17 other governors, both Democratic and Republican. (We covered the details of California's effort to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars here.)
-
Energy Efficiency Comes Cheap But Needs A Push Anyway
Tweet Share on Facebook December 19, 2007 CommentThe big energy bill now signed into law by President Bush addresses one of the biggest quandaries that energy policymakers face. Why don't people save energy when it will save them money?
People don't make the connection between that monthly electric utility bill and the cost of the type of light bulbs they use or the design of their homes. So Congress is going to phase out inefficient light bulbs and force more efficient household appliances onto the market to try to make a difference.
-
Congress Walks Out on Renewable Energy
Tweet Share on Facebook December 14, 2007 CommentWhen Congress abandoned the tax part of its energy bill yesterday under pressure from the White House, lawmakers and the president may have sentenced some of the most ambitious clean-energy projects out there to a grim walk through the "valley of death."
That's how Dan Reicher, who heads up Google.org's climate change initiative, refers to the struggle that alternative energy faces to get financing to turn ideas into reality. I talked to Reicher a few weeks ago for a cover story about all of the Silicon Valley venture capital pouring into ambitious renewable-energy ideas.
-
Oil Prices Blamed on U.S. Crude Reserve Buildup
Tweet Share on Facebook December 13, 2007 Comment (9)Did the Bush administration's move in August to resume filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve—taking off the market a crucial amount of favored light, sweet crude supply—trigger one of the largest oil price run-ups in history? One leading petroleum economist, Philip Verleger, thinks there is no other plausible explanation why oil rocketed from the low $70s to almost $100 per barrel in November.
The Department of Energy has consistently said that the amount of oil it adds to the nation's emergency stockpile is too small to affect world prices. But in Capitol Hill testimony this week, and in a more detailed presentation Wednesday at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, D.C., Verleger argued that the amount is indeed significant because of the extraordinary premium that the market now places on cleaner crude oil—the light, sweet variety.
-
How the Senate Tide Turned Against Wind and Solar
Tweet Share on Facebook December 10, 2007 Comment (2)When the Democrats first took over the Senate early this year, the one energy bill the leadership was confident it could pass was a renewable portfolio standard, or RPS—a requirement that at some time in the future, utilities will generate a higher percentage of their electricity from wind, solar, or other renewable energy sources. After all, 29 states have already adopted such requirements, and the Republican-controlled Senate passed such a bill in 2005; it was thrown out only because the House wouldn't agree.
Fast-forward to the present, and the Senate's defeat of a broad energy bill that handily passed the House. Now, conventional wisdom is that the RPS is the one energy measure the Senate can't possibly pass. Indeed, the vote counters believe the only way to revive the bill is to remove the ambition for 15 percent renewable energy nationwide by 2020.
-
LED Lights Are Looking Even Brighter
Tweet Share on Facebook December 5, 2007 Comment (8)When I extolled the virtues of LED lights for the holidays despite their additional cost, most of the sets I found online were $15 for 100 lights. But sustainability engineer Pablo Paster is a better shopper. In his Ask Pablo blog, he says he found them at Costco for as little as $7.39.
Also, the Electric Power Research Institute, the utility industry's research arm, did testing at their Living Laboratory for Energy Efficiency in Knoxville, Tenn., and documented energy savings much higher than the 80 to 90 percent figure most people use. EPRI says Chevy Chase's Clark Griswold character in the 1989 movie Christmas Vacation, who lit his house with 25,000 bulbs, could have cut his electricity bill from $2,400 to $50 had he used energy-efficient C9 LED bulbs. By the way, his upfront cost, if he could have gotten them at Costco at the same price Paster found, would have been $1,847.50. So Chevy/Clark would have had his payback ($502.50 in savings, actually) in one joyful season.
-
How They Can Squeeze More Miles From the Gallon
Tweet Share on Facebook December 5, 2007 CommentHow can automakers make more fuel-efficient cars, as Congress is aiming to force them to do? The best rundown of the technology, and an analysis of how much it's going to cost you—or more likely, how much it will benefit you—is in a 244-page decision handed down this past September by a federal judge in Vermont.
Judge William K. Sessions was not ruling on the Corporate Average Fuel Economy law that Congress is about to overhaul, but on a parallel development that could become just as significant: California's effort, which could turn out to have the force of law across the country, to force carmakers to limit their greenhouse gas emissions. The easy way carmakers can cut carbon dioxide is by getting more miles per gallon, so the judge's look at the technology is relevant to CAFE.
