Monthly Archives: March 2010

March 10, 2010 | 5:30 PM | By

California Behind in Weatherizing Homes

87567720Touted as a “shovel-ready” project that would create jobs immediately by leveraging existing infrastructure, the Department of Energy’s Weatherization Assistance Program has so far fallen far short of its goals.  The program received almost $5 billion under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) to improve the energy efficiency of nearly 590,000 residences of low-income citizens — more than a tenfold increase over the $450 million approved in FY 2009.

But a Special Report released last month from the Inspector General of the Office of Audit Services at the DOE found that as of December, just $368 million (8%) of the $4.73 billion allocation had been spent, and 5% of the nearly 600,000 units nationwide slated for weatherization with funding from the Recovery Act were actually completed.

That includes completion of just 12 of 43,400 planned units in California, which has been allotted more than $185.8 million in Recovery Act funding for its Weatherization Assistance Program.

So much for shovel-ready.

The report outlines reasons for the hold-up. Among them was a lengthy delay while the Department of Labor conducted wage surveys to determine appropriate compensation for weatherization work, so that the program would be in compliance with regulations.  Many states did not want to begin work until the wage rates were in place, the report stated, so much weatherization work throughout the country did not begin until late in 2009.

The report also found that, “Ironically, given the anticipated stimulus effect of the program, economic programs in many states adversely impacted their ability to ensure that weatherization activities were performed.”

Effects like hiring freezes, and, in California in particular, furloughs created significant staffing challenges in implementing the Weatherization Program, the report said.

In a a press release responding to the DOE report, the National Association for State Community Services Programs  (state officials implementing the DOE program), said that, “While it is accurate to assert that the ramp-up of expenditures and production has been slower than anticipated, this has been due largely to variables outside of the control of network providers.”

T. Maria Caudill, a spokesperson for the California State Department of Community Services and Development, the “network provider” in that state, said that as of December 2009, state administrators were still waiting for “specificity” from the federal government with regard to wage requirements.  In the last two months, California has aggressively worked to get contracts in place and units weatherized, she said.

According to Caudill, as of the end of February, 849 units had been completed across the state and 1,047 were in the process of being weatherized.

“We are on target to meet our first milestone,” said Caudill, referring to the goal of 12,900 units weatherized with ARRA funds by September 30.

She said that currently, eight service areas including Los Angeles, San Francisco, and El Dorado County are still without contracts for the ARRA weatherization work.

In a speech at Stanford yesterday, Energy Secretary Steven Chu told students and faculty that the number one priority of the DOE is “to get America employed using clean energy as the tool.”  Repeating a favorite metaphor of his, Chu called energy efficiency the “low-hanging fruit” for creating jobs, saving money, and reducing emissions.

As of December 2009, 520 jobs had been created or saved in California by the DOE’s use of recovery funds, according to a recent report from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. That number will grow as California plays catch up, weatherizing more than 40,000 units between now and March 2012, which is the deadline for spending Recovery Act funds.

FILED UNDER: Government & Business, DOE, Economics, Policy, Recovery Act, weatherization
March 10, 2010 | 12:17 PM | By

The Backlash Against “SmartMeters”

A "SmartMeter" mounted on a Fresno home. (Photo: Sasha Khokha)

A "SmartMeter" mounted on a Fresno home. (Photo: Sasha Khokha)

The California Public Utilities Commission says it will name a consultant sometime this week to start testing PG&E digital “SmartMeters,” which customers have blamed for spikes in their utility bills.

The announcement came after state Senator Dean Florez (D-Shafter) held a press conference in Bakersfield to question why the CPUC hadn’t taken action. Last October, the Commission agreed to quickly hire an independent contractor to test the meters.
Florez got involved in the flap last year after some of his Central Valley constituents saw their bills triple with the new meters, even if customers bought energy saving appliances, or in some cases, when no one was living at the home. “The biggest savings recognized so far has been to PG&E, who were able to lay off numerous meter readers,” said Florez in a press release.

PG&E has blamed the higher bills on rate increases and hot weather (not a new phenomenon in the Central Valley, where people coddle their air conditioners as if they were household pets).

The Bakersfield Californian reported last month that the backlash here in the Central Valley is catching the attention of industry analysts and utilities nationwide, who want to avoid a spreading backlash against the new technology.

One of the groups sounding a warning is the Division of Ratepayer Advocates, an independent consumer advocacy division of the CPUC. Last week, it advised the Commission to reject a Southern California Gas application to fund its own $1 billion smart meter program. DRA argued not that utility bills would spike with new digital meters, but that money could be better spent on energy efficiency measures and appliances. DRA says SoCalGas is overestimating how much customers will reduce their usage if they can see a digital display of how much energy they’re paying for.

Part of the concept behind smart meters is to help utilities with “demand response” strategies; providing timely feedback to customers, who can use their home computers to see exactly how and when they’re using power, customers might then alter their consumption patterns to avoid peak demand periods, and cut utility bills.

But some of that strategy has already backfired. The San Francisco Chronicle recently reported that a document PG&E filed with the CPUC says the advanced digital smart meters will let the company shut off power to more customers who fall behind on their bills, since they can do so without having to send a crew to a customer’s home. The meters may be smart but consumer advocates say it’s a dumb strategy that will make it easier for the utility giant to leave customers out in the cold.

FILED UNDER: Power, CPUC, Economics, Electricity, PG&E, Smart Grid, SmartMeter, Technology, utilities
March 9, 2010 | 5:38 PM | By

Governor Rejects LAO Jobs Report on AB-32

calculator

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said today that he’s “absolutely convinced” that California’s climate law “will create jobs more than kill jobs.”

“Unlike others that only have theoretical opinions,” he said, “I travel up and down the state and see first-hand.”  By “theoretical opinions,” the Governor appeared to be dismissing last week’s analysis by the non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office of the likely economic impact of the climate mitigation law, usually known by it’s legislative shorthand, AB-32.

But the report was hardly an unqualified downer. While the LAO concedes that “certain individual businesses and households…would be seriously affected,” the ten-page analysis presents a mixed bag of pluses and minuses, costing jobs in the near term but with potential long-term benefits. According to the report:

“The effects of the SP (Air Board Scoping Plan) on California jobs are difficult to accurately predict but would be mixed, with gains in some occupations and industries (including so-called” green” jobs) and losses in others (primarily involving fossil fuel-related energy production). On balance, however, we believe that the aggregate net jobs impact in the near term is likely to be negative, even after recognizing that many of the SP’s programs phase in over time.”

The report, issued in response to a request from state Senator Dave Cogdill (R-Fresno), is an assessment of California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, passed in 2006 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and set for full implementation in 2012. The law is under attack as a potent job killer, by a gubernatorial hopeful and a nascent ballot measure. Business groups are divided on AB-32′s overall effects.

The LAO report concludes that the law’s cap-and-trade program of carbon pricing “would almost certainly raise the near-term prices of electricity, gasoline, and certain other energy sources,” but at the same time, tighter energy efficiency standards for buildings would lower utility bills. Another measure, the low-carbon fuel standard, would raise the price of new cards but also reduce their operating costs.

Netting out the opposing effects of all these components is tricky business, involving a “complex model with hundreds of equations,” as described in the report. The LAO concludes that farther out on the time horizon, economic effects of AB-32 become fuzzier:

“In the longer term, its net effect on jobs-potentially either positive or negative-is unknown and will depend on a variety of factors. In a relative sense, however, its effect on jobs in both the near term and longer term will probably be modest in comparison to the overall size of the state’s economy.”

The Air Resources Board, California’s lead agency in implementing AB-32, initially projected the law would produce a net gain of 120,000 jobs in California by 2020. “They could be exactly correct,” LAO staff economist James Nachbauer told me, though his office isn’t putting its own number on the jobs effect. In it’s report, the LAO “questions the reliability” of the estimate in the scoping plan and concludes that the Air Board’s models “are not able to provide reliable estimates of the jobs impacts” in 2020. To meet it’s goals, AB-32 requires cutting emissions by about 15% from current levels, by 202o.

The Air Board has promised to provide a revised analysis, which LAO staffers say they expect to receive later this month. But as Nachbauer sums it up, “These weren’t created as jobs programs.”

FILED UNDER: Government & Business, Power, Assembly Bill 32, Economics, Policy
March 9, 2010 | 1:10 PM | By

Chu: Time to End “Paralysis”

Gretchen Weber

Photo: Gretchen Weber

Energy Secretary Steven Chu returned to his old stomping grounds at Stanford University yesterday with a broad outline for jump-starting “a clean energy industrial revolution.”  Speaking to a packed auditorium of students and faculty, Chu advocated the passage of a comprehensive energy bill, saying that increased innovation and investment in “clean tech” is essential for American competitiveness, as well as for reducing dependence on foreign oil and mitigating climate change:

“We are right now in a state of paralysis. There are many businesses who say ‘No, no, we can’t do this, this country was founded on cheap energy, that’s what I want.’  That’s just holding off the inevitable.  So if we hold off the inevitable for another 5 or 10 years, I think we will lose.  Because the other countries are moving.  And then we play catch up.  And then we import their stuff.  That’s what’s at risk.  The future of the prosperity of the US is at risk.  Energy touches everything.”

Chu said the United States is “not doing so well” in terms of clean energy innovation and cited the drop in US market share in photovoltaics  from 44% in 1996 to less than 10% today.

“The US innovation machine is the best in the world,” he said, and then recited a dismal laundry list of fields in which the US is no longer leading the way, including auto fuel efficiency, hybrid car batteries, energy transmission, energy transmission equipment, and nuclear technology.

When asked by an audience member why the US doesn’t commit to a Manhattan Project-style endeavor to solve the energy issue, Chu explained that a project at that scale would have an annual cost in the tens of billions.  In comparison, the current base budget of the DOE is $3 billion per year.

“I agree.  We should do that,” he said. “Tell people in Congress how important it is.”

Key to America’s success, he said is an energy bill that sends signals to the private sector that clean energy is a profitable venture, through incentives and tax breaks.  He said that the federal government plays a role in grants and loan guarantees, but to scale technologies from the idea stage to the factory floor, private investors must play a role.

“America has an opportunity to seize the day and to lead in what has to be a new industrial revolution,” said Chu.  “It’s our choice. Do we want to be leaders or followers?”

As if on cue, it looks like Los Angeles is about to crush one plan that might have helped put southern California at the forefront of clean energy generation and transmission. The Riverside Press-Enterprise reports today that Los Angeles officials will likely announce tomorrow that they’re pulling the plug on the contentious project known as Green Path North.   The project would have installed 80 miles of high-voltage lines and towers to carry geothermal, wind and solar energy from Imperial County to Los Angeles and some Inland cities.  The plans have met with opposition from environmental groups and communities along the proposed corridors.

The project was featured last year in a radio series for Climate Watch by KQED’s Rob Schmitz, on plans to get clean energy from southern California’s deserts to its cities.

FILED UNDER: Government & Business, Power, Chu, Clean energy, Policy, Stanford
March 5, 2010 | 5:40 PM | By

Climate Scientists Respond to IPCC Critics

Snowstorm at Donner Pass, January 2010 (Photo: Gretchen Weber)

Snowstorm at Donner Pass, January 2010 (Photo: Gretchen Weber)

As we all know, climate scientists have been on the hot seat lately. Among other recent incidents, they’ve drawn fire for the leaked East Anglia emails and for the now-retracted assertion in a 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that Himalayan glaciers might be gone by 2035.  In both cases, researchers admitted missteps and expressed regret. But they say neither incident invalidates the mass of evidence that the Earth is warming and that human activity is a likely cause.

On a call with journalists this week, three leading scientists defended the IPCC, its processes, and climate science in general.  Fielding questions were Penn State glaciologist Richard Alley, Scripps Institute climate scientist Richard Somerville, and Chris Field, director of the Carnegie Institute Department of Global Ecology at Stanford.

“There are errors, and you can find errors on both sides,” said Alley, referring to the fact that previous IPCC reports had underestimated sea-level rise.  “It’s done by humans. It’s not perfect.  But these errors in no way impact our fundamental understanding that we’re adding CO2 to the air, that this is turning up the Earth’s thermostat,” he said.

Somerville made a similar point about the false Himalayan prediction in the 2007 report.

“I liken what’s happened here to the occasional error that happens a bank statement or a phone book,” he said, noting that the 2007 report was 3,000 pages long.

Just because a bank makes a mistake on your statement, he argued, “That’s not a reason to distrust banks.”

The scientists defended the IPCC standards and review process, but supported the IPCC’s recent announcement that it will seek an outside review for future studies in efforts to avoid mistakes in the future.  It’s not clear yet what the independent review process will look like.

“The best thing we can do to push errors to the minimum is to have more eyes looking and to have more expertise and more transparency,” said Field.

There’s no question that errors such as the one about the Himalayan glaciers have provided fodder for critics of climate science and may have contributed to a recent decline in public concern about (and belief in) global warming. During their call this week, the climate researchers bemoaned the fact the urgency of their findings isn’t getting through.

“The fact is that we don’t have forever to decide to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases,” Somerville said. “That’s not something you can procrastinate for ever. Mother Nature imposes a time scale and it’s measured in a few years, not a century.”

Scientists are being forced to defend their work against attacks that are based on policy, not science, Somerville said. The IPCC has a mandate to be policy-neutral, and its goal is to provide information that is policy-relevant but not policy-prescriptive, he said.

“And yet, when you take apart the criticisms that have been made of IPCC and climate science in general, you’ll find, I believe, that in many cases they are motivated by policy concerns rather than scientific concerns,” he said.  “And so I think you’ll find individuals and organizations who have strong views on carbon taxes or government participation in free markets or ceding sovereignty of one country by signing international agreements – all kinds of things like that that are disguised as concerns about the science.”

There’s an interesting conversation happening at Yale Environment 360 about the future of the IPCC.  Robert T. Watson, chair of the IPCC from 1997 to 2002, argues in an essay that while there’s room for improvement in terms of implementation, the IPCC’s procedures are sound.   On the other side, University of Colorado Environmental Studies Professor Roger A. Pielke argues for sweeping reform, citing, among other criteria, a need for a mechanism for resolving allegations of error and a policy pertaining to real and perceived conflicts of interest.

FILED UNDER: Government & Business, IPCC, Policy, Views, Yale 360
March 4, 2010 | 7:41 PM | By

(Some) Pika Persist at Low Elevations

Photo courtesy of the Forest Service.

Photo: US Forest Service

American Pika are living at lower elevations and surviving warmer temperatures than previously thought, according to a paper in the journal Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research (available for download at the US Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station’s site).

One of the authors, Connie Millar, said she saw pika far more often and in a broader elevation range than she had expected she would. Millar, a Forest Service ecologist, found all those pika using a method she developed to quickly determine if pika are living in places where one would expect to find them.

Pika, cute little rabbit relatives that live in high elevations throughout the West, have been in the news lately. The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) petitioned for the pika to be listed under the federal Endangered Species Act in 2007, citing climate change as a threat to survival of the cold-adapted species. Last month, under a new administration, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided not to protect the pika, explaining that though some populations do seem to be in trouble, most are doing fine so far. (Climate Watch has followed the pika story; see previous posts here, here, and here).

This newest study would seem to support the federal decision. But Shaye Wolf, staff biologist with the CBD, says that though the study “provides a snapshot of where pika are now, long-term in-depth studies have found that pika populations are declining.”

The majority of those declining populations are in Nevada’s Great Basin, at relatively low elevations for pika colonies. One paper Wolf cites was recently published in Ecological Applications. Authors Erik Beever and Chris Ray concluded that shrinking pika populations in the Great Basin could be partially attributed to climate change. Pika have an extremely narrow band of temperature tolerance and can suffer heat stroke in temperatures comfortable to humans.

Wolf and Millar are both members of the California Pika Consortium, a newly formed research group. Millar plans to distribute her pika survey to colleagues in the consortium in order to continue gathering data on locations of pika colonies.

Meanwhile, even though the Fish and Wildlife Service has denied federal protection to the pika, CBD is still working on gaining state-level protection in California. CBD biologists consider the pika to be a bellwether species for climate change.

FILED UNDER: The Science, Alpine, Conservation, Ecosystems, Pika, Sierra Nevada, USFS, Wildlife
March 4, 2010 | 7:13 PM | By

DOI Setting Up Regional Climate Centers

Rachel Cohen is serving an internship at Climate Watch. She has written for the Oakland Tribune and San Mateo County Times.

AK_87676111_blogBy Rachel Cohen

The federal Deptartment of the Interior has selected the University of Alaska to host the first in a network of eight “regional climate centers” around the country.

In making the selection, Interior secretary Ken Salazar called Alaska “ground zero for climate change,” citing “rapidly melting Arctic-sea ice and permafrost, and threats to the survival of Native Alaskan coastal communities.” The center will be located in Anchorage.

Salazar said that in the weeks to come, DOI will be screening proposals for the next four centers, targeted for the Northwest, Southeast, Southwest and North Central regions.

The first center follows quickly the announcement in February that NOAA is establishing a National Climate Service. Modeled on its century-old National Weather Service, the NCS will also have a regional emphasis.

“The new service will give more structure and visibility to NOAA, changing the way money moves around, and resources can be brought to bear,” said Kelly Redmond, a climatologist with NOAA’s Western Regional Climate Center in Reno.

Redmond, who has been involved with the creation of the Climate Service for the past couple years, said the new service aims to provide decision makers, including state and local planners and policymakers, with the kinds of information they’ve been asking for.

That ranges from answers to “backyard questions,” such as looking up the climate of a new home’s location or whether to fodder for major business investment decisions.

Officials say the new federal service will work within the existing budget and appoint a director to each of six regions.  The Western Regional Climate Center, in Reno, where Redmond is based, is affiliated with the University of Nevada’s Desert Research Institute.

Roughly half of the total land area in the western US is federally managed. Much of it is arid and mountainous, with its own set of climate issues.  NOAA works with a matrix of state and federal agencies, some with overlapping jurisdictions.  The Climate Service will pull research from diverse sources under one umbrella.

Redmond says coordination of climate information is evolving along a path similar to that which led to the  creation of NOAA in the 1970s.  While national and local weather systems are well connected, climate programs remain fragmented. By creating a single conduit for climate information, Redmond says NOAA may be better able to prioritize research efforts.

Likewise, Salazar says his department’s Regional Climate Science Centers “will provide science about climate change impacts, help land managers adapt to the impacts, and engage the public through education initiatives.”

“In short,” said Salazar in his statement, “Climate Science Centers will better connect our scientists with land managers and the public.”

FILED UNDER: Government & Business, DOI, interior, NOAA, Policy
March 3, 2010 | 2:39 PM | By

Latest Snow Survey Offers Hope

Frank Gehrke, left, weighs snow near Echo Summit, to measure water content. Photo: Molly Samuel

Frank Gehrke, left, weighs snow near Echo Summit, to measure water content. Photo: Molly Samuel

His clipboard doesn’t have quite same gravitas as a pair of stone tablets. Nonetheless, Frank Gehrke is sort of the Moses of California water. Once a month he comes down from the mountaintop with a pronouncement on the state of the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada. Today’s message: Whew.

The Department of Water Resources announced today that on average, the water content of California’s Sierra snowpack stands at 107% of “normal” for this date. The figure is derived from a combination of electronic sensors and manual surveys, including Gehrke’s, taken at various points along Highway 50. It’s the first time this season that the statewide average has clocked in above normal.

In the monthly DWR news release, Director Mark Cowin expressed some relief, while warning that the state is still struggling to overcome three abnormally dry winters prior to this one. DWR reports that Lake Oroville, the primary reservoir for the State Water Project, still stands at just 55% of it’s long-term average level for this date. Shasta Lake, however, the biggest reservoir on the federal Central Valley Project, is now above its normal level.

Cowin says the latest readings offer hope that water managers will be able to increase projected allocations to state water customers, currently set at 15% of requested amounts. DWR estimates that final allocations will be “in the range of 35-45%.” Over the past ten years, customers have averaged about two thirds of requested water. Farms often make up for shortfalls by pumping costlier groundwater.

Our interactive map shows the current status of California’s key reservoirs. We also have a short video that takes you into the field with Frank Gehrke, to see how he does his manual surveys.

FILED UNDER: Water, Agriculture, Alpine, Department of Water Resources, sierra, snow survey, snowpack, Water
March 2, 2010 | 11:56 AM | By

When Green Ain’t Necessarily Green

San Francisco's Franklin Square Park (Photo: Gretchen Weber)

San Francisco's Franklin Square Park in late February. Photo: Gretchen Weber

One of my favorite things about living in San Francisco is that springtime starts in February.  A month, which, when I was growing up in New England, was the grayest, worst month of all.

But here, walking down the street outside KQED last week, I could smell the blossoms on the budding trees. Sometimes you can even hear the birds chirping over the sounds of buses pulling in and out of the MUNI yard across the street.

One block away from the station, there’s a public park.  The turf grass there has been pretty green all year (something that was certainly not true of the parks from my childhood.)   Walking by the park and its lush green lawn the other day, I was reminded of an argument I’ve been having with my mother for about 20 years: Just because its green, and it’s grass, that doesn’t mean it’s good, Mom.  Okay, maybe it’s visually good, if you go for a certain aesthetic, but a perfectly manicured lawn, green as it may be, isn’t necessarily good for the planet.  And I’m not just talking about the visits that ChemLawn paid to my childhood home every summer.

Yes, there’s the water issue.  In California, we could still be staring into our fourth year of drought (mostly from cumulative effects of the past three years), and there’s been a lot of talk about how much water traditional lawns eat up.  There are advocates for growing native plants in front of your house instead of turf grass for that very reason.

But a recent report takes the lawn debate beyond water. In the study, researchers from UC Irvine found that ornamental turf grass actually produces more greenhouse gases than it absorbs, once you factor in emissions from irrigation, fertilization, and mowing.  Plants naturally remove CO2 from the air as part of photosynthesis, and so lawns and parks have often been thought of as carbon “sinks,” that is having a net negative effect on atmospheric CO2 levels.  But that may be because most studies haven’t factored “lawn care” into the equation.

Read more about the study in the LA Times.

FILED UNDER: The Science, Emissions, lawns, UC Irvine, Urban Planning