Monthly Archives: March 2009

March 27, 2009 | 12:05 PM | By

A Billion People in the Dark?

Where will you be when the hour arrives? Wherever it is, you might want to take a flashlight–LED, of course. In it’s third year, the organizers of Earth Hour are shooting for one billion people to turn out the lights in this global demonstration in support of decarbonization.

It’s being promoted as a kind of switchplate referendum. Begun in Sydney, Australia, in 2007, it’s a simple concept, which may be part of its appeal: Wherever you are, at 8:30 local time tomorrow (Saturday) evening, turn off the lights for one hour.

Last year organizers estimated that 50 million people complied. California icons like the Golden Gate Bridge went dark. This year, about two dozen California cities and counties have signed up to participate, as well as the State of California.

They’re not telling you to turn off your computer or iPhone, however. Electrons we save at the light switch might be made up for on the Internet, which will likely be abuzz with a worldwide conversation documenting the event on blogs and social networks like Twitter (tag your updates with #earthour and #location). Photo sites will be bombarded with picture uploads.

Personally, I’ll be in the high desert of New Mexico, beyond the sight of any town or even neighbors, so the event won’t make for much of a snaphot.

It might also be a bit anticlimactic for the folks who run California’s power grid. I asked Gregg Fishman at the California ISO (Independent System Operator) if they’d be able to see a dip in the load at 8:30 p.m. tomorrow. He’s not counting on it: “It will probably have some impact but it’s really hard to measure,” he told me.

This time of year, the state is usually pulling about 27-28,000 megawatts at that hour on a Saturday evening. In fact, if you look at the ISO’s grid status graph, you can see a little spike around 8 p.m., as people normally start turning lights on. But Fishman says that even though “most of the load is lighting” at that hour, it may be hard, even for grid technicians, to measure the actual effect of Earth Hour.

But of course, that’s kind of beside the point. The event isn’t designed to achieve palpable energy savings for one hour. It’s supposed to be a visual show of support for policies designed to reduce energy consumption and the global carbon footprint. Recent surveys have shown that economic woes have pushed concerns about global warming and the environment to their predictable recessionary lows, at least in this country. Tomorrow night we’ll find out how the rest of the world feels about it.

FILED UNDER: Government & Business, Emissions, Grid, International, Policy, Power
March 26, 2009 | 3:41 PM | By

Letter from Paris: Confessions of a Generalist

eb_blog21Eleanor Beardsley, whose  South Carolina drawl is often heard emanating from Paris on NPR, agreed to take on her first climate policy symposium for us. She’s covered presidential elections, civil riots and the Tour de France. But climate policy wonks–whoa. Now that’s scary. From her notebook:

When I walked into the rather run-down conference room at Paris’ Universite Dauphine at the edge of the city, about 20 people were sitting around a huge circular table discussing climate issues. I have to say that I almost gave up the idea of doing a report at first, because I couldn’t get my head around what they were talking about. They were discussing the minute points of such things as paying for carbon emission reduction schemes, and the fairness of the CMD, or clean development mechanism! It seemed like a lot of blah, blah techno-speak. I jotted down several beyond-me phrases in my notebook, like “sectoral baselines without additionality.”

But I decided to stick it out. I had schlepped out there early in the morning, making two changes on the Paris metro. I might as well stay a while. That’s often the hardest part about being a reporter. You’re not really an expert at anything, and sometimes you have to find a way to quickly understand a complex story. But you just have to keep focused on what you think your general audience would want to hear about. They always tell you, “pretend as if you’re explaining it to your grandmother.”

In the end, all of the officials — both French and Californian — were more than happy to explain the main issues to me and what the stakes were.

I got the feeling these climate experts from the US and Europe have been working together and learning from each other for years, despite America’s seeming non-interest in the topic under the second Bush administration. Everyone seemed to know each other and be familiar with each other’s work. Someone described the advances that had been made over the years as “leap-frog progress.”

Now here was a concept I could grasp. You can see an example with the cap-and-trade policy on emissions the Obama administration wants to put in place. Apparently they are studying the already-existent European scheme to limit carbon emissions. But that European system, in turn, is based on the US’s successful reduction of sulfur dioxide, or acid rain, in the 1990s.

So even though everyone said global warming was already well under way, I came away from the conference with a comforting sense that at least there are some very smart people working passionately on the issue. I think they will find a way for the world to work together on this, rich and poor nations alike. There was also a lot of talk about fairness; making sure the richer, industrialized nations helped the developing countries get their act together.

They might even achieve those sectoral baselines without additionality…whatever that is.

FILED UNDER: Government & Business, International, Policy
March 25, 2009 | 4:03 PM | By

Possible Detour on the “Electron Superhighway”

electwr_blog

It appears that almost 200,000 acres of Mojave Desert will be under federal wilderness protection now that Congress passed the Omnibus Land Management Act of 2009.

Much more was set aside throughout California, as I report in my radio story for The California Report.

Now, Senator Dianne Feinstein is eyeing almost a million additional acres in the Mojave off of old Route 66 between Ludlow and Needles.

There are currently 163 proposed renewable energy projects for federal lands in the Mojave Desert region. Nineteen of them are slated for the land Senator Feinstein wants to set aside. If energy companies can’t build on that land, it follows that they’ll try to build it in the land that’s left.

And that’s got a lot of people who live in the unprotected areas of the Mojave worried. Not only are most of the state’s large-scale renewable energy projects planned for this region, but as I explored in a recent two-part series for Climate Watch, there’s also a transmission corridor in the works to carry that power to Los Angeles.

Use the player below to listen to my conversation with Jim Harvey, who heads the Alliance for Responsible Energy Policy, about what all of this new land protection means for environmentalists like him.

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FILED UNDER: Government & Business, Power, Desert, mojave desert, Policy, wilderness
March 20, 2009 | 1:32 PM | By

Water Allocations Tweaked Slightly Upward

A few drops of good news for farmers and cities this week: a heftier late-spring snowpack means there will be slightly more water headed their way this summer.

Earlier this week, the State Department of Water Resources said it will increase water from state reservoirs from 15% of what cities and farms had hoped for, to 20%.  Today the federal Bureau of Reclamation (Central Valley Project) followed suit and nudged some of its projected allocations up, too.

The five-percentage-point bump is mildly good news for some northern California farmers.  But farmers in the southern San Joaquin Valley are still slated to get zero gallons from federal reservoirs. For that to change would require an April of historically soggy proportions.

The previous nadir for State Water Project deliveries was set in 1991, when urban and industrial customers got 30% of their requested water and farms got zero.

FILED UNDER: Water, Agriculture, Economics, snowpack, Water
March 18, 2009 | 3:33 PM | By

Ag Rules: Heading Off the Heat

Water cooler imprinted with heat safety tips. Photo: Sasha Khokha

Water cooler imprinted with heat safety tips. Photo: Sasha Khokha

It was like a pageant of farmers in plaid shirts; nearly a dozen speakers  in a Fresno County meeting hall, surrounded by vineyards. Farm leaders offered glowing praise of Cal OSHA’s new guidelines and training seminars that will help them comply with the state’s first-in-the nation heat safety rules–passed three years ago.

The love-fest with Cal-OSHA sets a new tone for agriculture. Growers have traditionally been at odds with the agency tasked with protecting the state’s workers. Farmers have challenged fines and complained about inspections. But despite the regulations,  six workers died last summer, including a pregnant teenage farmworker (some of the victims worked in construction or other outdoor jobs).

Part of the problem was that neither Cal-OSHA inspectors nor farmers had a very clear understanding of how to implement the rules. Is it enough to have an umbrella folded up in the back of a pickup in case it got hot? How hot? How much shade and water is enough?

Today, Cal-OSHA chief Len Welsh made it clear: when it’s 85 degrees or hotter, shade tents or umbrellas have to go up. And that shade should be no more than a two-and-a-half-minute walk away, according to the rules, which also require enough shade so that one-in-four employees are protected from the sun at any given time.

That’s still worrisome for leaders of  the United Farmworkers Union, who were conspicuously absent from the press conference. There are times, they say, when the temperature soars well above 100 or spikes suddenly and everybody should get a break. The UFW says the new guidelines are too vague, and Cal-OSHA’s publicity campaign to educate farmers isn’t enough. Union leaders say the state should impose more fines and criminal penalties when workers die in the heat.

FILED UNDER: Agriculture, Health, heat, Temperature
March 17, 2009 | 4:43 PM | By

Oh, No–Another “Superhighway”

Just when we could exhale, assured that the term “Information Superhighway” had faded mercifully into the rear-view mirror–at the signpost up ahead: Your next stop: the “Electron Superhighway.”

That’s the term that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is using to describe the transmission web that will facilitate the nation’s transformation to clean energy. Some random notes from his (and others’) appearance today before the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee:

Salazar:

- 6,000 miles initially identified on BLM lands for new transmission lines on the “Electron Superhighway,” 1,000 on US Forest Service lands.

- Access to land for transmission will be the “Achilles heel” of the plans for a new  clean-power grid.

- Oil & gas need to be part of a “comprehensive energy plan,” along with renewables. The US now imports 70% of its oil.

- Seven major onshore leases already approved, auctioning off another 34 million acres along the Gulf Coast this week.

Ron Wyden (D-OR):

- Let’s use the “backlog of deadly fuels” on the floor of federal forests to generate bio-fuels and reduce fire danger at the same time (Energy Act of 2000 apparently excluded forest slash from its definition of “biomass.”)

- Hydrokinetic (wave & tidal) power should be higher on the priority list for energy development.

John McCain (R-AZ):

- The Obama administration “has effectively killed nuclear power in the foreseeable future, for this country” (by its actions regarding Yucca Mountain and reprocessing of fuel).

Phil Moeller, FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission):

- Wave & tidal power could potentially fill 10% of the nation’s energy portfolio.

Joanna Prukop, NM Secretary of Energy, Minerals & Natural Resources:

- Wind energy is now price-competitive with natural gas (about 5 cents/KW-Hour currently) and could thrive without federal subsidy. Solar, not so much.

Dan Arvizu, Director, Nat’l Renewable Energy Lab:

- Used the term “smart grid” one hour and 38 minutes into the hearing, the first and only time it was mentioned.

You can view the entire webcast at the DOI archive.

By the way,  Salazar will hold a public hearing on energy policy in San Francisco on April 16th. It’ll start at 9 a.m. at UCSF’s Mission Bay Conference Center.

FILED UNDER: Government & Business, Power, Desert, Grid, Oil, Policy, Power, renewable energy
March 17, 2009 | 2:31 PM | By

Planet Forward

planet_forward_logoThe creators of a new PBS program want your opinions about the future of energy and climate change.

Part online interactive discussion, and part television broadcast, Planet Forward is looking for regular folks as well as experts to submit written and video commentaries making a case for how the United States should deal with its current and future energy challenges.

Hosted by Emmy-award winning CNN reporter Frank Sesno, the television broadcast, which airs April 15, will feature the best online submissions and a panel of scientists, policymakers, and business leaders debating the issues they raise.

Planet Forward began accepting submissions on March 6, and they are available for viewing on the program’s website.  Luminaries such as Christine Todd Whitman, Newt Gingrich, and actor Ted Dansen have already submitted videos.  So has UC Berkeley renewable energy professor Dan Kammen.

Register here to join the conversation.

FILED UNDER: Power, PBS, renewable energy
March 16, 2009 | 12:38 PM | By

Robust Discussion of Rising Seas

KQED’s Forum program devoted a full hour this morning to recent projections for sea level rise and the threat it poses to California. Listen to the archived program here.

I joined host Michael Krasny and guests Peter Gleick and Will Travis, to discuss some of the recent findings. Travis heads the Bay Conservation & Development Commission and Gleick’s Pacific Institute issued a new report on the impacts last week.

Travis is just back from a trip to The Netherlands where he was studying some of the engineering techniques that the Dutch have deployed, to keep the North Sea at bay. Gleick has been tracking the issue here in California since 1990.

Gleick’s impact projections were underscored last week when scientists at a climate conference in Copenhagen projected a potential one-meter rise in the mean sea level by the end of this century, depending on how soon and how much we’re able to cut greenhouse gas emissions. That’s a pretty significant adjustment from the 2007 UN report, which had the rise pegged at a foot or two over the same time span. And two months ago, a USGS-led report postulated that a four-foot rise isn’t out of the question.

Some interesting questions and comments that came in from listeners:

- Sewage treatment plants in the Bay Area recently overwhelmed by storms are one glimpse into a future with higher sea levels.

- If pumps that convey water through the giant state and federal water projects in the Central Valley were solar-powered, it would reduce the carbon footprint of moving water around in California (often cited as 20% of our electricity use).

- A barrier at the Golden Gate could help “stem the tide” and potentially be part of a plant generating tidal power (Travis was skeptical).

- The Earth’s rotational bevavior also affects sea level and should be factored in.

In response to a listener who asked about a recent newspaper column that was dismissive of the prevailing climate science, I got the following note from Dave Johnson, a former Silicon Valley lawyer who teaches at Stanford:

“As to the climate-change contrarians, my short-form answer is this: I favor giving the scientifically-credible contrarian point of view some credit, and quite likely more than Al Gore or others would like. Why? Not because they necessarily have the science part right (or closer to right) than the IPCC.  Rather, it’s because the problem itself is a very complex system. Science is just now scoping the boundaries and behaviors of complex systems; to predict their behavior (especially of non-physical systems) will, to paraphrase Edward Witten, require ’22nd century’ knowledge.  As such, we all have to recognize the possibility, if not likelihood, that the global climate system might do things that we cannot fathom, much less predict. One possibility is self-correction to an equilibrium that can hold for another century or two. The other, sadly, is the converse – a spin-out into disequilibrium. Objectively, each has its percentage of possibility; so, objectively, each has to be seriously considered.  In short, whether I agree or disagree with the contrarians is, objectively, of no moment whatsoever.  In science, the strongest advocate of a particular conclusion must embrace the most aggressive testing of that conclusion. “

Hard to disagree with that. It’s always perilous to dismiss contrarian views out of hand. Galileo was a contrarian.

FILED UNDER: Government & Business, BCDC, Coastal, IPCC, Oceans, Policy, Transportation, Urban Planning
March 13, 2009 | 10:41 AM | By

The Other “Earth Day”

Photo by Reed Galin

Photo by Reed Galin

There is another “Earth Day” that’s been around for, oh, about a hundred years longer than the one we mark on April 22. It’s Arbor Day, though few people can tell you when it is. In fact, nowadays few seem to even know what it is.

Julius Sterling Morton would be crestfallen that the tradition he started shortly after the Civil War is so little remembered. The soon-to-be Secretary of Agriculture under President Grover Cleveland was a big believer in the trans formative power of trees. He reckoned that what his Nebraska farm needed were trees, to gird against both the relentless winter wind and intense summer sun. The idea caught on. When the state marked its first official Arbor Day in 1872, Cornhuskers are said to have planted a million trees (I’ve driven through Nebraska and I’m not sure where they all went).

During the Nixon administration, Arbor Day was designated as the last Friday in April, another reason why it languishes in the shadow of Earth Day. Adding to the confusion is that different states celebrate it at different times, depending on the local climate. In Florida, it’s the third Friday in January. Here in California, it’s not even a “day.” It’s a week. The calendar maintained by the Arbor Day Foundation gives the date of California’s Arbor Day as “March 7-14,” which happens to be right now.

The Arbor Day spirit endures at places like the Sacramento Tree Foundation, which has been using funds from the local utility, SMUD, to fill out the urban canopy and reduce the effect of urban heat islands. Over the past 25 years, the Foundation has orchestrated the planting of 1.25 million trees. The goal is five million. That’s a lot of trees but then it takes a lot of trees to cool down a metro area the size of Sacramento. The shade freaks at SMUD have done the math and say that to make any measurable difference in temperature, you have to add about 10% to the urban canopy.

It’s doubtful that Julius Sterling Morton had urban heat islands or carbon sequestration in mind, back in 19th century Nebraska. He was probably just trying to get out of the damn wind. But given the crucial role of trees in storing carbon and recent reports documenting trees dying off at an alarming rate throughout the West, now seems like a terrific time to exhume Arbor Day from the Tomb of the Unknown Occasion.

FILED UNDER: carbon dioxide, Ecosystems, trees
March 11, 2009 | 2:06 PM | By

A Rising Tide Raises All Costs

Pacific Institute. Complete maps at link, below.

Photo: Pacific Institute. Complete maps at link, below.

This has been a week of dire predictions about the rising sea level and its eventual consequences.

On Tuesday, scientists preparing for the Copenhagen climate talks this year said that the current IPCC working model for sea level is out of date and overly cheerful.  German climate researcher Stefan Rahmstorf told the International Scientific Congress on Climate Change that even the most optimistic outlook for carbon emissions now portends at least a one-meter rise, or 3.28 feet by the end of this century. The U.N.’s 2007 report had anticipated a rise of up to two feet over the same time period.

Then today, analysts at Oakland’s Pacific Institute chimed in with a projection of California impacts from rising seas, based on a rise of 1.4 meters by 2100.

The report, which includes maps of projected inundation, projects nearly a half-million people at risk of a “100-year” flood event and loss of 41 square miles of coastal land, due to erosion.

“Critical infrastructure” in harm’s way includes highways, hospitals, schools, power and sewage treatment plants, as well as residential neighborhoods. It also includes several of the state’s busiest airports.

The report estimates that the tab for protecting that infrastructure could easily run to $14 billion. According to co-author Matt Heberger, “Communities really have to decide what it is that they value about the coast, whether that’s habitat, recreation, aesthetics, boating, shipping, all sort of things. We won’t necessarily be able to preserve all of those things at the same time. ”

The Governor has already issued an executive order requiring sea level rise to be factored into urban planning in all vulnerable regions of California. There remains an enormous planning task ahead.

Heberger sums it up thusly: “The evidence is in and we know what the impacts to the state are going to be. Now, what are we going to do about it?”

We’ll get some answers to that question on Monday’s Forum program on KQED and Sirius satellite. Listen to the archived program here.

Oceans Rising
Guests joining our discussion include Will Travis, executive director of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission; Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, a non-partisan research institute on the environment and social equity; and Craig Miller, senior editor of KQED’s Climate Watch.

FILED UNDER: Government & Business, Coastal, Economics, Oceans, Policy, Transportation, Urban Planning