Government & Business

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May 4, 2012 | 1:47 PM | By

NOAA’s Margaret Davidson: Watching the Coasts, Preparing for Change

Tonight: The latest in our series of TV interviews with climate change thought leaders

As head of NOAA’s Coastal Services Center, Margaret Davidson has her eye firmly on the future of the country’s coasts, and the threats imposed from rising seas and more extreme weather. Davidson is based in South Carolina, but is a close watcher of California, where coast and climate may be on a collision course.

Climate Watch Senior Editor Craig Miller spoke with Davidson about sea level rise and the California coast. Their conversation will air this evening on This Week in Northern California, on KQED Public Television 9.

Here’s a clip that’s not included the TV broadcast.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Government & Business, Water, NOAA, Ocean Beach, sea level rise
May 1, 2012 | 1:30 PM | By

California Winds Up “Wet” Season on the Dry Side

But communities that depend more on rain, less on the snowpack are looking good

Craig Miller

In mid-January, much of the Sierra remained snowless.

Despite what felt like a late-season deluge, this will go down as a dry winter in California’s record books.

The season’s final survey of the Sierra snowpack by California water officials confirms that even heavy spring rains and fresh mountain snow as recently as last week didn’t make up for a late start to the rainy season and one of the driest Decembers on record. Today’s survey finds water content of the mountain snow at just 40% of the long-term average. That puts four out of the last five years on the dry side, though last year was a gullywhumper. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Government & Business, Water, Department of Water Resources, Sierra snowpack
April 26, 2012 | 3:53 PM | By

Brown Says State’s Buildings Must Go Green

An executive order directs state agencies to cut carbon emissions, save water and energy

California Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Sacramento. In 2003, the 25-story tower was given a “Platinum” rating by the U.S. Green Building Council in 2003.

Governor Jerry Brown decreed yesterday that state-owned buildings across California must go green.

The executive order stipulates that state agencies must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 20% using 2010 as a baseline, and half of all new and renovated buildings must be Net Zero Energy by 2020. The order, B-18-12, also continues a previous policy requiring state-owned buildings larger than 10,000 square feet to meet the guidelines of the U.S. Green Building Council’s “Silver” rating.

“This shows that the state is very focused on meeting very ambitious yet achievable goals,” said Evan Westrup, a spokesperson for the governor’s office.

The move is a step toward compliance with AB 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act, which requires that statewide greenhouse gas emissions brought down to 1990 levels by 2020.

According to a release from the governor’s office, the statewide initiative will also save one billion gallons of water and an estimated $45 million in tax dollars each year. Westrup did not have figures on projected job creation, but he pointed out that similar initiatives geared toward efficiency have created 1.5 million jobs across the state since 1978.

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FILED UNDER: Government & Business, Power, Water, Governor Jerry Brown, green building
April 24, 2012 | 4:52 PM | By

California’s Low-Carbon Fuel Standard Back on Track — For Now

But the courts aren’t finished with the next big piece of the state’s AB 32 climate strategy

By Thibault Worth

Craig Miller

California aims to cut the carbon content of fuels by 10%.

First it was go. Then it was stop. Now, it’s go again.

As of Monday, California’s groundbreaking Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) was back on track for implementation after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay of an injunction against an earlier lower court ruling.

In a statement, the state’s Air Resources Board, which is responsible for the regulation, said the court’s decision would allow California to “continue implementation and resume enforcement of this important program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” [full statement PDF] Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Government & Business, AB 32, CARB, Low-Carbon Fuel Standard
April 24, 2012 | 3:15 PM | By

Tesla and SolarCity Collaborate on Clean Energy Storage

The companies’ founders don’t just share business interests: they’re also family

Tesla Motors

Elon Musk is the founder of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, and supported the creation of SolarCity.

Elon Musk is well-known in Silicon Valley as the founder of the luxury electric vehicle company Tesla Motors, and of SpaceX, the private space transport company.

What’s less well-known is Musk’s contribution to SolarCity, the solar installer and energy efficiency auditor. Musk inspired–and helped fund–the creation of the San Mateo-based solar company. And Tesla is working closely with SolarCity on a clean energy storage solution that would combine Tesla’s lithium-ion batteries with SolarCity’s rooftop solar arrays. The collaboration makes sense: not only is Musk the chairman of SolarCity, but the founders of the company, brothers Lyndon and Peter Rive, are his first cousins.

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FILED UNDER: Government & Business, Power, battery, energy storage, solar, SolarCity, tesla motors
April 23, 2012 | 11:18 AM | By

Climate, Corn, and the Coming Market Chaos

Climate change has an outsize effect on corn price volatility

mhall209/Flickr

Climate change -- and the ensuing heat waves -- will create more volatility in the corn price market.

By Michael D. Lemonick

Farmers know all too well that the prices they get for what they grow can fluctuate from one year to the next, sometimes wildly. Drought or heat can reduce crop yields; so can frost and floods. For corn producers, the Renewable Fuel Standard, which mandates the addition of ethanol to gasoline, is yet another source of volatility. It puts extra demands on whatever supply there is, making corn more expensive for consumers even as it puts more money in farmers’ pockets. And overlaid on top of it all is climate change, which exerts its on push on the ups and downs of weather.

Scientists have looked at different pieces of this equation, but researchers from Stanford and Purdue have analyzed the entire equation, in a paper just published in Nature Climate Change, and determined which factor causes the most trouble: it’s climate change, and for Stanford’s Noah Diffenbaugh, that came as a surprise. “I genuinely expected that climate would be a minor player relative to these other influences,” he said in a telephone interview.

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FILED UNDER: Government & Business, The Science, Agriculture, biofuels, markets
April 20, 2012 | 1:20 PM | By

Can Clean-Tech Survive the Coming Funding Drought?

By 2014, federal clean-tech investment may tumble by 75% from its peak in 2009

Craig Miller/KQED

Government policies and subsidies that support clean-tech are phasing out over the next two years. That could be disastrous for the industry, though it doesn’t have to be, according to a new report from the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program. In 2009 when federal support was peaking, the industry received $44.3 billion. But the report, entitled Beyond Boom and Bust: Putting Clean Tech On a Path To Subsidy Independence [PDF], projects that by 2014, federal subsidies will have dropped to $11 billion.

“Undeniably, there’s a massive reset before us,” Mark Muro, a senior fellow at Brookings and one of the report’s authors, said this morning on KQED’s Forum radio program. Muro and the other authors examined 92 programs that provide policy or financial support to the clean-tech industry. Of those, 61 have pre-set expiration dates and, unless extended, will no longer be in place by the end of 2014.

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FILED UNDER: Government & Business, Power, clean-tech, subsidies
April 19, 2012 | 4:21 PM | By

Thinking Long-Term About Power Plants

A new report warns against the folly of over-investing in natural gas

By Thibault Worth

Craig Miller/KQED

As the nation's power plants age, a new report warns against relying too much on natural gas.

The nation’s power plants are aging. An increasing number require replacement parts; others can’t keep up with new environmental regulations.

A report released today [PDF] by the Boston-based think tank Ceres estimates that in the next two decades, up to $100 billion will be invested in the electric utility industry every year – twice the amount invested in recent years.

According to the report, that boom in investment will take place in a shifting regulatory environment. Air pollution and greenhouse gas restrictions will increase, and fossil fuel-burning power plants will have to keep up. Governments are setting requirements for energy from renewable sources. (California, for example, is targeting a 33% renewable energy ratio by 2020.) Smart grids and new consumer technologies are changing how people think about energy production and consumption.

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FILED UNDER: Government & Business, Power, energy, natural gas
April 13, 2012 | 3:49 PM | By

Birds and Blades: Are Condors and Wind Turbines Compatible?

Lawsuits pit an endangered species against renewable energy development

USFWS Pacific Southwest Region

This California condor, flying near the coast, is one of about 200 condors living in the wild.

Wind is a growing industry in the Tehachapi Mountains in Southern California. Kern County welcomes new wind projects, and Google has gotten in on the action. But some environmentalists say that developers and officials are ignoring the elephant — or, in this case, the enormous bird — in the room.

California condors are beginning to return to the Tehachapis after nearly going extinct in the 1980′s, and birds and wind turbines don’t mix. No California condors have yet had a run-in with a turbine. But they are still endangered — it’s illegal to kill them — and three environmental groups say that Kern County and the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) are not properly considering the risks. The Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit against the BLM today, regarding one wind development in particular. (They have previously sued Kern County over the same project).

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FILED UNDER: Government & Business, Power, Birds, California condor, wind
April 11, 2012 | 5:50 PM | By

California Braces for the Complex World of Carbon Markets

In which Air Board chief Mary Nichols performs a dramatic reading of a vintage Jerry Brown speech

California Air Resources Board

As chair of the California Air Resources Board, Mary Nichols is presiding over the nation's first comprehensive cap-and-trade program.

When its nascent cap-and-trade program ramps up later this year, California will be the first state in the nation to reduce greenhouse gases by making a broad spectrum of big polluters buy permits to exceed their allotted emissions.

Other governments, industry and scientists will be watching, but there’s still a lot to sort out. That much has been evident at this week’s carbon market and policy conference in San Francisco, “Navigating the American Carbon World.”

The long and winding road to carbon trading was highlighted by Mary Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board, in a little prank she played on the gathering. Obviously reading from a script, she stumbled over words, looked up at the audience, then back down at the page, plodding through her replies to moderator Diane Wittenberg. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Government & Business, AB 32, cap and trade, Carbon