Air Resources Board

In this Google Earth view, the height of the "balloon" location markers indicates the volume of greenhouse gas emissions.

Wondering where all the petroleum refineries are located in California? Curious about which industries in your area emit the most greenhouse gases? Or which counties have the most big industrial polluters, and which don’t have any at all?

A new interactive map from the California Air Resources Board taps the versatility of Google Earth software to transform eye-glazing spreadsheet data into a visual, if wonky, feast.

The map shows the locations and greenhouse gas emissions of about 625 facilities — the largest industrial greenhouse gas emitters in the state. The graphical tool can filter by type of facility (cement plant, refinery, electricity generation), by county or air district. You can use the satellite view to see a facility’s physical footprint, then switch over to Google Earth to see how its carbon footprint stacks up against other emitters. The EPA released a similar map earlier this year, but without all the Google Earth bells and whistles.

Say you’re in Santa Clara County. There are 17 sites that pop up on the map. Eight generate electricity. The rest are a grab bag: a sewage treatment plant, a cement factory, a few manufacturing facilities. Toggle over to Google Earth to see how they all compare to each other, and it’s easy to identify the two biggest industrial greenhouse gas emitters in the county: Calpine – Metcalf Energy Center, LLC, a power plant in San Jose that released more than a million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2010; and Lehigh Southwest Cement Company in Cupertino, which released nearly 600,000 metric tons in 2010. But these are far from being the worst in the Bay Area. The Chevron Refinery in Richmond released 4.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2010.

The Air Board requires facilities that emit 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year — comparable to the emissions of about 5,000 cars over the same time period — to report their emissions every year. The information was already public, but as the Air Board’s Stanley Young points out, “Not everybody has a lot of fun playing with an Excel spreadsheet.”

Air Resources Board

More than 600 industrial greenhouse gas emitters are included on the map.

Some out-of-state locations are included: plants in other states that sell power inside of California (check out those big emitters in Wyoming). And there’s one category that doesn’t appear on the map: electricity traders who buy power from out-of-state, then re-sell it in-state. As Young explains it, the traders do report emissions, but there’s no one carbon-emitting spot where it would make sense to locate them on a map.

All of the companies on this map are participating in California’s cap-and-trade program. The first  auction of carbon pollution permits is scheduled for November 14.

Andrea Kissack

The author's EV gets "tanked up."

Just because an electric vehicle (EV) lacks a tail pipe, it doesn’t mean it’s always cleaner than other fuel efficient cars. According to a new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, where you live may determine how clean your electric car is.

The new report, called “State of Charge,” looks at the entire life cycle of EV emissions that includes energy inputs from start to finish, not just during drive time. In other words, what kind of emissions do EVs create from charging on an electric grid and how does the cost of that charging compare to filling up a gasoline-powered vehicle?

The nonprofit group of scientists has found that the greenhouse gases emitted from EVs depends on the sources of electricity. For example, California does not rely on coal fired power plants and the state has aggressive renewable energy goals. According to the report, charging (not driving) an all-electric car in the golden state results in global warming emissions equivalent to a car with a mileage rating of 80 mpg. But in several states, such as the mid-west, plug-in drivers charge their cars from electricity generated by burning coal or natural gas. There, the report has found that charging an EV may result in emissions similar to a car with a mileage rating between 31 and 40 MPG.

Union of Concerned Scientists

UCS map shows imputed GHG emissions of EV's by region. The abbreviations refer to the various part of the electrical grid.

Not surprisingly, the report finds that no matter where one lives in the United States, electric cars are a good choice for reducing global warming emissions and saving money on fueling up. The authors also note that projected increases in solar and wind on the grid will mean that the global warming emissions from electric vehicles in those areas will decrease over time. Also, what time of day you charge matters. Charging at night is not only cheaper, it has less of an impact on the grid. CNET has a condensed version of the UCS map at its site.

Andrea Kissack is a senior editor with KQED’s science unit. Read her entire EV journal on the QUEST site.

Spencer Platt/Getty

Consumer groups say the EPA's proposed fuel economy standard will mean you'll pay less at the pump.

At a public hearing in San Francisco today a diverse group of stakeholders lined up to support the EPA’s proposal to increase the fuel efficiency standard for cars and light trucks to 54.5 miles per gallon. As we’ve reported here, the rule would affect models between 2017 and 2025 and will likely be adopted by the end of the summer.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) worked closely with the EPA to develop the standard and testified that if the rule can be finalized as proposed, California will be willing to accept the national standard. CARB has been taking heat for this collaboration from Orange County Congressional Representative Darrell Issa, who has accused the state of meddling in national regulatory affairs.

“A lot of this work has been led by the state of California,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. “California set the first tailpipe emissions standards more than a decade ago.” Unifying the standards across the country is something that automakers have long wanted.

Several auto makers including Chrysler and Hyundai testified early in the day that they support the proposal. Chrysler’s director of Regulatory Affairs, Reg Modlin, said the mid-term review built into the program will be important for companies that make cars. “We’re looking out a long way in technology terms and also in market acceptance terms,” he explained to me. “So the key thing in the mid-term review is to test, to evaluate if the market is buying the products that we’re looking for.”

Car dealers are worried that customers can’t afford the more expensive technology in fuel-efficient cars. “Part of the concern is that it’s $3,200 [added] to the price of a car and that’s a lot of money for our customers,” Forrest McConnell of the National Association of Automobile Dealers told me. He says he’d prefer the EPA move more slowly to allow customers to get used to the new products.

I asked Gillis, the consumer advocate, about the affordability factor. He said that car prices go up every year and consumers are used to it. In addition, he argued that better fuel standards will mean that the consumer immediately starts seeing returns on that investment when they get to the pump. It’s a timely question amid forecasts this week of $4.50 gas by Memorial Day.

On Thursday, the CARB will meet to accept its own set of emissions standards, dubbed the Advanced Clean Car package, which includes greenhouse gas reductions that match the EPA’s proposed standards. In addition the Air Board will consider proposals to cut California’s greenhouse gas emissions more deeply by increasing the number of zero-emission-vehicles on the road to 15% by 2025 and beefing up the state’s plug-in electric car infrastructure. Check out Lauren Sommer’s recent radio story for QUEST on California’s tougher regulations.

Craig Miller/KQED

Critics say that San Diego's regional transportation plan focuses too much on freeways.

The spotlight is on San Diego to lead the way on regional transportation planning that reduces greenhouse gas emissions. But critics say that the regional planning agency’s proposal is anything but a model for sustainable planning.

San Diego’s regional planning agency, SANDAG, is the first to develop a plan since California passed a law requiring that regions try to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through land use and transit planning. The law, SB 375, went into effect in 2010, and falls under the Air Resources Board’s Sustainable Communities program. The ARB approved SANDAG’s plan when it was submitted in November of 2011, saying it would meet short-term greenhouse gas reduction targets for 2020-2035.

Critics of the SANDAG plan, including the Cleveland National Forest Foundation, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club, say that the plan focuses too much on expanding freeways that extend into the far-reaches of the county and not enough on improving public transportation, bicycle infrastructure and pedestrian walkways in the more urban areas. Today, the State Attorney General’s office put out a statement agreeing that:

“…the plan does not adequately address air pollution and climate concerns and prioritizes expanding freeways while delaying public transit projects.”

The statement also cited the region’s poor air quality and the need to invest in a healthy future for its citizens.

The SANDAG plan has been carefully watched by planners and governments across California because it’s the first plan adopted under SB 375. “This is the first SCS [Sustainable Community Strategy], it’s a 40-year plan and it’s flawed,” claims Rachel Hooper, a managing partner at Shute, Mihaly and Weinberger, the firm representing the environmental groups. “It should not serve as a precedent for other transportation agencies as they adopt their SCSs in the future.”

For its legal clout, the suit draws on the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) which requires an environmental review of government projects, including impacts from air pollution and global warming. According to the Attorney General’s statement, the crux of the legal argument is that SANDAG cut corners with its Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and “did not adequately analyze the public health impacts of the increased air pollution.”

“What we have is a plan that is rooted in the past, in transportation planning that we saw in the 1960s,” said Hooper, who claims SANDAG ignored suggestions for ways in which the plan could be improved to comply with state law. She said that the Attorney General’s decision to join the suit underscores the importance of getting this first plan right, so that it will be a sound model for other transportation agencies to follow.

A representative from SANDAG told Forbes that his agency worked hard to come up with a good plan that he believes is in compliance with CEQA.

US EPA

Detail from EPA's interactive map of greenhouse gas emitters.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has just made tracking greenhouse gases a lot easier. The agency has produced its own map of major GHG producers, with fresh data and customizable features.

Two years ago, when we produced our map of California emitters for Climate Watch, we had to cobble it together with raw data from the state Air Resources Board emissions inventory, numbers that were relatively hard to find and infrequently updated. The EPA’s new map allows you to select your state, zoom into specific regions and view emissions by type and volume.

One thing the original Climate Watch map still provides is a visual connection between California and large coal-fired power plants in neighboring states, from which California imports electricity. The EPA map provides visual evidence that greenhouse gases are still on the radar in Washington. In an appearance at EPA this weekto thank staffers for their perseverance, President Obama gave an eleven-minute speech, mentioning climate change only once, in the context of recently-announced fuel economy standards. Obama didn’t mention greenhouse gases as such, but referred to “pollution that contributes to climate change.”

Craig Miller / KQED

A new study suggests that massive electrification will be required to meet California's 2050 goal for greenhouse has reductions.

Chances are you’ve at least heard about California’s legal requirement to wind back greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. But the state has a longer-term goal to knock another 80% off that by 2050. Is that even possible?

A new study suggests that it is — but not without a wholesale transformation from an “oil economy” to an “electric economy.”

The study, a collaboration of economists and energy forecasters at several institutions, including Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, three fundamental resets will be required to make that goal:

• Continued advances in energy efficiency, at home and at work

• A grid powered with nearly carbon-free electricity

• Massive electrification of — well, most things, including transportation

The study suggests that biofuels (principally ethanol and algae-based biodiesel) could cover the gap where it’s impractical to electrify transport, such as long-haul trucking and airline fleets.

The authors ran the numbers to see how much each measure would have to contribute, concluding that more than half the headway could come from a combination of energy efficiency gains (28%) and replacing fossil fuel power plants with renewable energy (27%). California currently requires utilities to get a third of their power from renewable sources by 2020. Most appear to be on a path to meet that goal.

Other measures would include so-called “smart growth” planning strategies, greater use of rooftop solar panels and biofuels. But 16% of the solution would require the massive conversion to electrical power of things that typically run on other fuels today; motor vehicles, public transit, industrial processes and heating of buildings.

Sciencexpress / sciencexpress.org

Graph shows the roles that various measures could play in meeting California's 2050 target for greenhouse gas emissions.

The article, by James H. Williams and seven co-authors, appears at Sciencexpress.org, a publication of the AAAS. Downloading the full article requires a subscription.

The states' lawsuit was aimed originally at coal-fired power plants.

The silence is deafening since the US Supreme Court ruled this week that states can’t take utilities to court over greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on their own.

NPR’s reporting of the decision calls it “the court’s most important environmental ruling in years.”

But here in California, I’m seeing mainly tepid reaction from officials — and without the usual cavalcade of releases from industry and environmental groups, applauding or condemning. In response to an email inquiry I made after the ruling came out, Mary Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board, replied that the ruling:

“…re-affirms that EPA has the authority and responsibility to regulate greenhouse gas pollution in order to protect the public health and welfare from the urgent threat of climate change. The careful, deliberate approaches developed under the Clean Air Act – including California’s Clean Cars rule – provide a more reasonable and feasible alternative to the uncertainty of court-imposed limits on carbon pollution.”

California was one of six states involved in the case, which dates back to 2004. But that was before the EPA had taken definitive steps to assert its own regulation of greenhouse gases (a role upheld by the Supreme Court in 2007).

Air Board spokesman Stanley Young explained that California’s participation in the suit was “an effort by California to get some kind of national action on the climate front. Now that EPA is fully engaged, that kind of judicial action is no longer necessary.”

Just how “fully engaged” the Environmental Protection Agency is remains a matter of some debate. The federal agency recently postponed release of a draft rule on GHG emissions from power plants.

The full decision is available as a PDF download from the Supreme Court website.

Coming to a showroom near you: a new fuel economy sticker for an electric vehicle. (Photo: Lauren Sommer)

Buy a gas guzzler and you might discover a new form of “sticker shock.”

Cars and trucks sitting on dealership lots will soon have a new fuel economy sticker in the window. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency released newly-designed labels that emphasize environmental performance for conventional and electric cars.

The label might seem familiar to California drivers. In 2008, the state released its own environmental impact sticker for new cars. It rates a car’s smog and greenhouse gas emissions on a scale of one to ten.

The new national label follows California’s lead and incorporates the same rating system. But for the first time, it will also display the annual fuel cost for a vehicle, comparing it to an average vehicle over five years.

EPA regional administrator Jared Blumenfeld announced the new labels in the Silicon Valley showroom of electric car maker Tesla. He says as plug-in hybrid and electric cars started appearing on the market, it became clear that the old sticker wouldn’t cut it. “This label really allows a consumer to compare a gasoline vehicle to an electric vehicle for the first time.”

Blumenfeld says he expects the labels to make a difference in areas populated by early adopters of EVs. “Los Angeles and San Francisco are in the top three of hybrid purchases in the nation. People are already starting to buy these alternative vehicles in large numbers.”

Since electric cars don’t use gas, their energy use is displayed in “miles per gallon equivalent”, which the government calculates by assuming a gallon of gasoline is equal to 33.7 kilowatt-hours of electricity.

For Tesla’s Roadster sports car, that pencils out to 119 miles per “gallon” and a $9,900 fuel savings over five years, compared to an average car.

A new label for a gas guzzler. (Photo: Lauren Sommer)

Of course, when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, electric cars are only as clean as the electricity they use. Electric cars in coal states are responsible for more emissions than in states that generate a lot of renewable power.

To estimate greenhouse gas emissions, the EPA took an average of the energy source mix across the country. But in a press conference, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson emphasized a new tool that consumers could use to “drill down” to their part of the country.

Crunch some numbers and the differences are pretty stark. A Nissan Leaf that’s charged in San Francisco produces 120 grams of CO2 per mile, according to the calculator. That same Nissan Leaf in Indianapolis, Indiana generates 270 grams of CO2 per mile.

One more number to note: in the US, consumers are accustomed to seeing miles per gallon. For the first time, the new labels also include gallons per 100 miles. Research has shown that “gallons per mile” is a much easier to understand when it comes to fuel economy.

One example: You might assume the difference between a 40-mpg and 30-mpg car is about the same as the difference between 30-and-20-mpg. Flip those numbers around to gallons used per 10,000 miles and the picture becomes a little clearer. A 40-mpg ride saves 83 gallons over one that gets 30 mpg. But the difference between 30-and 20-mpg is 167 gallons.

The new stickers will appear on model-year 2013 cars and trucks.

Navajo Generation Station. The place of coal in California's energy diet is shrinking, but that's not necessarily true for the rest of the country. (Photo: Alex E. Proimos via Flickr)

Bit by bit, the US Environmental Protection Agency is moving to limit the gases that scientists say cause global warming. Over five years, the agency is limiting auto emissions and is also requiring new industrial plants to use improved pollution controls

Sooooo, US Justice Department lawyers argue, California, seven other states, New York City and three land trusts should not be suing major utilities, demanding that they reduce global warming emissions.

In papers filed with the US Supreme court this week, Justice Department lawyers argue the authority to curb emissions that cause climate change belongs to the Environmental Protection Agency and to Congress.

Congress isn’t doing anything at present about global warming, but the Obama administration argues the case should be dismissed. As do the power companies.

The suit, AEP v. Connecticut, was filed in 2004, against American Electric Power, Duke Energy, Southern Company and Xcel Energy, (none based in California, though Xcel has customers in Colorado and New Mexico), claiming that climate change has damaged state resources.  The plaintiffs want court orders requiring power companies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by three percent a year for 10 years. A federal judge in New York dismissed the suit but the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last September that the states could try to prove their case.

At the time, federal lawyers say, the judges felt the “EPA does not currently regulate carbon dioxide.” Since then, the lawyers argue, the Obama administration has finalized several regulations in response to the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, which told the agency to decide whether greenhouse gases were pollutants under the Clean Air Act.

In the brief, Acting Solicitor General Neil Katyal writes: “That regulatory approach is preferable to what would result if multiple district courts — acting without the benefit of even the most basic statutory guidance — could use common-law nuisance claims to sit as arbiters of scientific and technology-related disputes and de facto regulators of power plants and other sources of pollution both within their districts and nationwide.”

“It’s hard for me to tell whether this is craven or stupid,” wrote UCLA Law Professor Jonathan Zasloff on the enviro law and policy blog LegalPlanet.  “This represents the administration going above and beyond the call of duty to undermine the chances of a sensible energy policy.  Yes, a comprehensive statute would be better,” wrote Zasloff.  “And you know what?  It ain’t going to happen.”

California’s biggest tie to coal-fired power may be cut without the courts. The (relatively) new head of the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power says he wants to divest its stake in the Navajo Generating Station in Arizona, ahead of schedule – which is to say, sometime before 2019.

Most of California’s targets are based on 1990 levels (also 80% by 2050). On the other hand, The USCAP plan announced last month by a national coalition of business & environmental groups, also aims for an 80% reduction by 2050–but from 2005 levels. That 15 years between 1990 and 2005 is hardly trivial. Much of the explosive development in China and India occurred during this time, as U.S. emissions were also rising.

The number that will matter the most is the one that comes out in the federal legislation, which is still being drafted. In his video address to the Governor’s Climate Summit in November, President (then-elect) Obama appeared to be using California’s aggressive goal as a benchmark when he promised to “set us on a course to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020, and reduce them an additional 80% by 2050.”

We’re hearing more voices saying that California’s 2020 target (about 15% from today’s level) is unobtainable, Stanford researcher Steve Schneider being a recent example (see Gretchen Weber’s post from 1/30). As a practical matter, this would mean cutting California’s per capita carbon footprint from 14 tons per year, down to about ten.

Lately more people seem to be looking toward the 2050 target of an 80% reduction. But for national policy, the question is still sort of hanging out there: 80% of what? It’s one that will have to be answered soon, as congressional leaders press to have a climate bill ready by Memorial Day.

Photo by Reed Galin