Shell, US

Shell has partnered with MIT to explore carbon sequestration.

Royal Dutch Shell CEO, Peter Voser affirmed his company’s commitment to AB 32, California’s climate change legislation, and also explained why a carbon trading system is crucial to the development of alternative energy sources.

“We are clearly in favor of cap and trade systems,” he said to an audience of Silicon Valley business people and climate experts Wednesday in Burlingame. “We’d like to have it globally, to level the playing field.”

This statement from Shell, the global oil and gas company headquartered in the Netherlands and one of the world’s largest companies, is notable when you consider the strong opposition to AB 32 from the oil industry at large. In 2010, Proposition 23 attempted to derail the imposition of AB 32 provisions and was largely bankrolled by Tesoro and Valero, two Texas oil companies.

High producers of carbon dioxide, especially oil refineries, will be hard hit when AB 32 goes into force. So what’s the rationale of Shell’s apparent “green” attitude?

Voser explained that the company is not waiting for cap and trade to be commonplace. Several years ago, he said Shell started taking into account a charge for CO2 of $40 per ton to reflect the future price of CO2 in its internal accounting. What he didn’t say is that in Europe, where Shell is headquartered, an emissions trading scheme is already in existence and the implementation of AB 32 would arguably make Shell more globally competitive.

“We are emitting quite a bit of CO2,” Voser acknowledged in his clipped Swiss accent. And he highlighted the company’s investment in carbon sequestration projects, one of which begins construction in Canada shortly.

Shell, US

The Gulf of Mexico accounts for approximately 55% of Shell’s oil and gas production in the USA.

He also drew attention to the GameChanger program at Shell, which invites people to pitch innovative ideas for potential sponsorship from the company. But almost in the same breath, he accepted that the energy industry is resistant to change, citing the innovator’s dilemma.

According to Voser, global energy demand will double between now and 2050, half of which will come from growth in China.  So how can we grow without burning up the planet?

The Shell chief executive says alternative energy, energy efficiency and demand management are all parts of the solution, and he anticipates that Silicon Valley’s greatest contribution will be on the demand side.

He pointed out that shortening the delivery time for innovative technologies is key. Historically, it takes 15- 30 years for new energy technologies to be scaled and delivered. This needs to be cut in half, according to Voser, and he says he views energy policy as an important component to spur innovation and adoption.

“If we really want to have the right technologies developed, not having a CO2 price will mean there is uncertainty and therefore you will not get certain energy efficiency or innovation projects that you need implemented,” he added.

This green talk by Voser is all very well, but Shell’s environmental record, particularly in Africa, is hardly emerald green. One example that’s drawn recent criticism is the company’s legal action against environmental groups that are seeking to block drilling in the Arctic Ocean off Alaska’s North Slope.

Voser’s explanation of the legal action on Wednesday was not convincing. He described the company’s move as “a tactic to bring all parties to the table early,” and begin an open dialogue. The environmental groups argue that the drilling project will adversely affect native communities and that the company’s oil spill contingency plans are grossly inadequate. But Shell has spent over $4 billion on the project to date, and has vowed to spend even more, setting up a David and Goliath battle: deep-pocketed oil company versus feisty but meagerly funded nonprofits.

Note: Voser spoke at a Churchill Club event at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Burlingame on Wednesday March 21^st. The audience included a who’s who of the Bay Area’s climate and clean tech experts, including Facebook’s new green czar Bill Weihl; venture capitalist Ira Ehrenpreis and Dan Geiger of the US Green Building Council.

WWF

One of America’s foremost energy experts says Canada’s controversial oil tar sands are getting a bum rap.

Daniel Yergin, who became a go-to guy for energy wisdom after winning a Pulitzer Prize for his 1990 oil tome, The Prize, appeared on KQED’s Forum program today to promote his latest book, The Quest: Energy, Security and the Remaking of the Modern World.

When host Michael Krasny asked Yergin about the Canadian tar sands boom and a plan to construct a pipeline to bring it into the US for refining, Yergin said the project “has become a huge symbolic target.” Indeed the controversial Keystone XL pipeline proposal has been a lightning rod for demonstrations at the White House and a target of ongoing protests across the country. But Yergin said he thinks the risks of importing tar sands oil from Alberta have been overblown.

cache.daylife.com

Daniel Yergin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and CEO of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

“If you say ‘How much more carbon comes out of a barrel of oil sands,’ and you look at it from the well, all the way to the wheels, it’s about six percent more,” said Yergin, comparing it to the carbon content of an average barrel of crude oil. He called the pipeline plan “a sensible thing to do.”

“If you look at it from a security point of view,” he asked listeners, “Wouldn’t we like to be importing more oil from Canada and less from some of the more volatile parts of the Middle East?”

Environmentalists argue that the nation should be focusing more on renewable energy sources and shedding fossil fuels in general. They’ve taken particular aim at carbon-intensive Canadian tar sand deposits, which are recovered through strip mining and require more energy to refine. But Yergin says of the tar sands, “If the additional supply doesn’t come here, then it will go to China.”

Yergin also sits on a federal Dept. of Energy panel assessing the risks from the natural gas recovery method known as “fracking.” He downplayed concerns about effects on water quality but conceded that potential air quality impacts and the issue of “community impact” need more attention.

Turning to policy options for reducing carbon emissions and slowing global warming, Yergin, whose latest book includes six chapters on climate change, said he doesn’t see a cap-and-trade program being revived at the national level any time soon. California is pressing on with its own cap & trade plan, likely to be formally adopted next week. After his Forum appearance, I asked him if it makes sense for California to more or less go it alone. Yergin said he expected the program to be “pretty tough” going, and cautioned against any policy that would “de-industrialize the state any further.”

My favorite quote: Asked about the potential for gains from energy efficiency, Yergin replied “The trouble with conservation is there’s no photo op.”

The entire one-hour interview is posted at the Forum website.

(Photo: Nancie Battaglia)

Today McKibben dropped by KQED for a discussion on Forum with entrepreneur and fellow environmentalist Paul Hawken about the fight for a coherent national climate policy.  McKibben is the founder of the environmental group 350.org and was among the hundreds of people arrested near the White House last week during a protest over a controversial oil pipeline that has been proposed to run from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

Afterward, I sat down with McKibben and asked him about the role of civil disobedience in the fight against climate change.

Q: So, hundreds of people arrested outside the White House recently. Has it come to this? In your view is this what needs to happen to motivate action?

A: Well, it’s not the only thing we need to do. I think it’s pretty clear that being willing to put your body on the line sometimes is important.  Here’s the problem: we’re up against the richest industry in the history of the world. The fossil fuel industry is the most profitable thing that there ever was, and that means they can bring literally endless amounts of money to any fight. Exxon made more money last year than any company in the history of money. That means that if we try to just match them there, we’re going to lose.   We have to find other currencies in which to work, and for the few weeks in Washington at the end of the summer, it was our bodies. That was the thing we were willing to spend, and it probably shouldn’t have to be that way.

Q: A pipeline is very concrete. Do you find it’s more of a challenge to get people motivated around climate change in general than it is about the specific Keystone XL pipeline?

Yep. It’s very true that when there’s a pipeline or something you can make an easy yes or no decision about, then people are able to visualize it and fight over it. It gets harder when we talk about legislation, say, or the price of carbon. We’ve had a tendency to let these pieces of legislation become so complicated and difficult to understand, that they’re easy for the demagogues on the other side to pick apart and rally opposition against. It’s one of the reasons why going forward, I think legislation needs to be as straightforward as possible. We’ve got to start talking about taxing things we don’t want, like pollution, instead of taxing things we do want, like income.

Q: Here in California, we’re moving ahead with cap and trade.  What are your thoughts on that?  Is it worth it?

I don’t know all the details about California, but I do know there have been some good objections raised from the environmental justice community. It’s pretty important to make sure that communities that have already been badly hurt don’t get badly hurt some more, but the general principle is correct. We need to make carbon pay the price for the damage that it does in the atmosphere. If that price is high enough and steadily applied enough, then we will use less of it. We need to do that in ways that don’t damage particular communities, and we need to do it in ways that don’t bankrupt people, because we don’t have all that much money right now. That’s why nationally, it’s good to see that there are people stepping up to introduce these cap-and-dividend bills that collect money from the oil companies and refund it to human beings.

Q: Do you have hopes for this climate action movement, that it will succeed?

I have given up trying to decide on given day whether I am optimistic or pessimistic. I get up in the morning and do all the things I can to change the odds of this wager some. I don’t know how it’s going to come out. There are scientists who think we’ve waited too long to get started, that the momentum of global warming is irreversible, and there are political scientists who think the odds are simply too high, that there’s too much power on the other side.

But, I know that there are good-hearted people all over the world. I know it because at 350.org we’ve rallied people in literally every country on earth except North Korea. I know that we’re building a movement that can change those odds. I don’t know how it’s going to come out, but I know that for a morally-awake person, when the worst thing that ever happened in the world is happening, your job every day has got to be to change those odds, and to do it without any assurance that its going to be all right.

Among the findings in the report released this week by the non-partisan Public Policy Institute of California is that support for the state’s climate change strategy remains strong, even in the face of a well-financed campaign against the law known as AB 32. Two-thirds (67%) of the respondents support the 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in California–about the same level as when PPIC polled the question last year.

What’s different this year, though, is that opponents of AB 32 are ramping up a statewide campaign to suspend the act’s regulations until the state unemployment rate drops to 5.5% or less and remains there for a year. It’s currently more than 12%. The question will appear on the November ballot as Proposition 23.

The PPIC poll did not ask directly about Prop 23, as the measure was not yet officially titled when the polling began earlier this month. Proponents of Prop 23 have filed suit against the state, claiming that the planned ballot description overstates the measure’s intent. The current language was chosen by Attorney General (and gubernatorial candidate) Jerry Brown, who supports AB 32.

According to PPIC President Mark Baldassare, the state’s climate legislation could become a key issue in the campaign for the statehouse between Brown and Republican Meg Whitman:

“I think there’s no question that the fight over AB 32 will be a major factor,” Baldassare told me in an interview today. “People will be looking at the candidate’s position on climate change because there are major issues at stake, certainly for California and AB32 and its implementation–but also in Congress and what Congress might do next with energy policy or climate change policy.”

Brown opposes Prop 23. Whitman has not declared herself on the measure but still supports a one-year suspension of the law, under a provision of AB 32 itself. For a look at Whitman’s evolving position on AB 32, see the recent blog post by KQED News capitol correspondent John Myers.

In this month’s survey, PPIC found that nearly three in four Californians (73%) consider “global warming” to be either a “serious” (29%) or “very serious” (44%) threat to “the economy and quality of life for California’s future,” though opinion was divided along party lines, with Republicans less convinced. Sixty percent of all adults surveyed think that the effects of global warming have started (54%) or will be seen within the next “few years” (6%).

A large majority surveyed (76%) support government regulation of greenhouse gases, and nearly six in ten (57%) favor California’s state government having its own policies, “separate from the federal government.”

Perhaps the greatest common ground revealed in the poll was when respondents rallied around the state’s requirement to make greater use of renewable energy. Eighty-five percent of respondents said they favored that approach to curb global warming; 92% of Democrats, 69% of Republicans and 87% of independent voters.

“What we know is that California historically has been a state in which voters are, if anything, leaders more than followers on environmental issues compared to the national electorate,” said Baldassare. “They’re deeply concerned about environmental issues…not just in California but worldwide…and I think they will expect their candidates will show equal attention to that.”

The complete report is available at the PPIC website.

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.