[ChilPhil1986]

Who am I kidding, we aren't going to reduce our emissions to sustainable levels before peaks in various sources hit us anyway. It's just that while I ask for the impossible, I might as well ask IN WHAT ORDER I would like the impossible done. Oil emissions ban first, starting with autos and gasoline, then onto petrochemical based products such as plastics and fertilizer. Then ban the nat gas, and THEN work on the coal.

The only permissible emissions would be for the manufacture of the devices necessary to test for emissions.

Get me a golden toilet seat and a popsicle too.

[KaiserJeep]

All you are asking Americans to do is give up plentiful food, medicine, electricity, heated and cooled living spaces, personal powered transportation, and then live like third world citizens.

Yeah, that'll happen. I'll start tomorrow. No, wait, next month would be even better.

[dohboi]

CP, actually, coal is the easiest to 'go after,' since it is mostly used in this country to generate electricity, which is exactly what most of what the alternatives generate.

I do think that an aggressive ride sharing campaign could reduce car use by about 3/4 fairly rapidly in most cities, especially if combined with other initiatives.

We do have to put an end to over-air-conditioning everything, though. IIRC, the US uses more AC than the rest of the world combined, even though most of the population lives in a fairly temperate climate. The bad thing is that so many buildings are constructed now with very little or no ability to open window, forcing people to us AC.

Ultimately, though, history shows that the only times modern societies have rapidly seen anything like the rapid reductions in energy use that we need, it was during a major recession/depression. An economic slowdown could be managed so as not to be quite so disruptive to people's lives, but any administration that overtly stated that this was a goal would likely get booted out fairly quickly, unless they could convince enough people that this is the existential, war-like threat that it is.

[Graeme]

The Yoga Theorem

With the recent’s historical release of the EPA’s new carbon emissions policy, I took some extra time to comb through and digest the news.

I have organized my intermediate microeconomics class around something called the “Yoga Theorem.” This almost universal truth states that the less flexible you are, the more you will suffer. It holds in a very large number of settings (e.g., tax incidence, market power). Yesterday, the Obama administration – barred from implementing a national price based (=very yogaesque) policy like a carbon tax or cap and trade – turned up the heat on existing coal fired power plants. This is big news. Almost 40% of energy related US CO2 emissions come from power generation and the new rule will cut these emissions by 30%. This means that this rule will result in a 12% overall reduction in emissions by 2030 relative to 2005 baseline emissions. I hear cheering from the left and jeering from the right.

As far as standards are concerned, there is a lot to like about the new rule. Each state has a target spelled out in terms of pounds of CO2 per MWH.

Instead of prescribing what states have to do to meet these standards, there are a number of flexibility mechanisms designed to help states meet their targets. For example, states can upgrade older plants, switch from coal to natural gas, ramp up their energy efficiency efforts or they can increase renewable generation off site. The goal behind this strategy is designed to help states tailor approaches to their local economies and fuel mixes. States can even meet the targets by implementing their own carbon taxes or joining existing cap and trade schemes. This is conceptually very similar to a global climate regulation architecture, which allows countries to choose how to meet a pre-specified target. Only that in this context there is an enforcer with a big stick, which we do not have globally.

Let’s take a brief step back and look at the broader picture.

theenergycollective

The Climate Domino

Maybe it’s me, but the predictable right-wing cries of outrage over the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rules on carbon seem oddly muted and unfocused. I mean, these are the people who managed to create national outrage over nonexistent death panels. Now the Obama administration is doing something that really will impose at least some pain on some people. Where are the eye-catching fake horror stories?

For what it’s worth, however, the attacks on the new rules mainly involve the three C’s: conspiracy, cost and China. That is, right-wingers claim that there isn’t any global warming, that it’s all a hoax promulgated by thousands of scientists around the world; that taking action to limit greenhouse gas emissions would devastate the economy; and that, anyway, U.S. policy can’t accomplish anything because China will just go on spewing stuff into the atmosphere.

I don’t want to say much about the conspiracy theorizing, except to point out that any attempt to make sense of current American politics must take into account this particular indicator of the Republican Party’s descent into madness. There is, however, a lot to say about both the cost and China issues.

On cost: It’s reasonable to argue that new rules aimed at limiting emissions would have some negative effect on G.D.P. and family incomes. Even that isn’t necessarily true, especially in a depressed economy, where regulations that require new investment could end up creating jobs. Still, the odds are that the E.P.A.’s action, if it goes into effect, will hurt at least a little.

nytimes

[Graeme]

Energy Efficiency Critical To Achieving EPA Carbon Standards, Boosting the Economy

"Critics claim your energy bills will skyrocket. They’re wrong." -June 2 Remarks by EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy

There is overwhelming evidence that saving energy lowers electric bills while increasing comfort, supporting a growing workforce, and reducing harmful carbon pollution. And that’s why the Environmental Protection Agency and others are betting energy efficiency will play a major role in meeting EPA’s proposed carbon pollution standards, which allow states flexibility in reaching their emissions reduction targets.

This week’s groundbreaking proposal to establish the U.S.’s first national limits on power plant carbon pollution includes key recommendations to end energy waste in America’s homes, businesses and industries. In fact, efficiency – doing more with less electricity – is specifically mentioned 328 times in the 645-page document.

theenergycollective

[Graeme]

US Climate Action “Costs” Illuminated

Indeed, RMI’s own rigorous analysis, Reinventing Fire, found the U.S. could transition to a 2050 economy energized by tripled efficiency and 75% renewables for a $5 trillion net-present-value savings—not net cost—while supporting a 158% bigger U.S. economy and slashing carbon emissions to 82–86%below 2000 levels. (This conservatively values climate change and all other hidden or “external” costs at zero.) That economically robust, climate-friendly future for the United States includes building a new electricity system powered 80% by renewables, half of them distributed on places like homeowners’ rooftops, and highly resilient against cascading blackouts—for essentially the same cost as simply maintaining the dirty, insecure, fossil-fuel-burning electricity system we have today.

Equally importantly, it positions the U.S. economy much better for a new reality where competitiveness does not come from burning coal, oil, or gas with a multitude of health, resilience, and environmental downsides, but instead from building on the rapidly increasing competitiveness of solar, wind, battery, and efficiency technologies that all create jobs and prosperity. In this energy revolution that is already well on its way, the U.S. stands much to gain from being at the leading edge, rather than denying or thwarting it.

With the EPA’s new carbon emissions regulations, the U.S. at last takes meaningful action to tackle the root causes of climate change. Let’s not get distracted by those who’d have us believe this move will harm Americans’ wallets and pocketbooks. The question we should be debating is: who will seize the biggest piece of this tremendous opportunity? As Rocky Mountain Institute co-founder and chief scientist Amory Lovins wrote in a 1997 paper on climate change economics, “What costs? The interesting thing is who should get the profits!”

cleantechnica

[Graeme]

Interests, Ideology And Climate

There are three things we know about man-made global warming. First, the consequences will be terrible if we don’t take quick action to limit carbon emissions. Second, in pure economic terms the required action shouldn’t be hard to take: emission controls, done right, would probably slow economic growth, but not by much. Third, the politics of action are nonetheless very difficult.

But why is it so hard to act? Is it the power of vested interests?

I’ve been looking into that issue and have come to the somewhat surprising conclusion that it’s not mainly about the vested interests. They do, of course, exist and play an important role; funding from fossil-fuel interests has played a crucial role in sustaining the illusion that climate science is less settled than it is. But the monetary stakes aren’t nearly as big as you might think. What makes rational action on climate so hard is something else — a toxic mix of ideology and anti-intellectualism.

Before I get to that, however, an aside on the economics.

nytimes

[dohboi]

Great links, G (as always). Now no less than Kevin Anderson has chimed in on the issue (I didn't even know he had a blog!):

http://kevinanderson.info/blog/category/quick-comment/

http://kevinanderson.info/blog/an-incon ... -too-late/
An inconvenient truth: US proposed emission cuts too little too late

A response to the US draft mandate to cut carbon emissions from its power sector by 30% by 2030

_________
The maths accompanying obligations to “avoid dangerous climate change” demand fundamental change rather than rousing rhetoric and incremental action.

The announcement from the Obama administration that the United State’s power sector would deliver a 30% reduction in emissions by 2030 was hailed by many as a breakthrough in meaningful action. John Kerry suggests the “US is setting an example to the world on climate change” whilst Reuters lead on how the “U.S. unveils sweeping plan to slash power plant pollution” and the president of the World Resources Institute declares the proposals to be a “momentous development”. Dig a little deeper and there is recognition that more still needs to be done. Bryony Worthington tweets “US creeps towards comprehensive climate action plan. Level of cuts too low over too long a time period. Will need tightening. Just like EU” whilst Connie Hedegaard (European Commissioner for Climate Action) notes how “for Paris to deliver what is needed to stay below a 2°C increase in global temperature, all countries, including the United States, must do even more than what this reduction trajectory indicates.”

But how much more is needed from the US and international community to meet their repeated commitment “to hold the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius”? And is the US proposal part of the solution or part of the problem?

The United States’ plan to reduce power sector emissions by 30% by 2030 (c.f. 2005) is the jewel in the crown of US mitigation policies. Under current proposals economy-wide reductions in total emissions will be much less than 30%; Climate Action Tracker (CAT) estimates emissions will be just 10% below their 2005 level. Yet even if total emissions were to follow the example of the power sector, they would still fall far short of the country’s 2°C commitments enshrined in agreements from the Copenhagen Accord to the Camp David Declaration.

[dohboi]

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/clea ... -co2-17537


Clean Power Plan Follows Uneven CO2 Emissions Trend

EIA data on electric power sector emissions show several things: Coal is the largest contributor of CO2 emissions, followed by natural gas; and coal was responsible for 1.984 billion metric tons of CO2 emissions in 2005, far more than natural gas, which was responsible for 319 million metric tons that year.

Total 2005 power sector CO2 emissions were 2.42 billion metric tons, and after a series of ups and downs, emissions totaled 2.05 billion metric tons in 2013.

Carbon emissions from coal-burning power plants have followed a similar pattern over the years, totaling 1.575 billion metric tons last year, down from 1.98 billion in 2005.

It’s unclear exactly what effect the Clean Power Plan will ultimately have on nationwide CO2 emissions because its emissions goals could change over the next year until the plan is finalized.

But whatever the plan’s final form, the slashing of CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants has already begun and is likely to continue.

[Graeme]

U.S. Supreme Court Narrows Greenhouse Gas Rules: What It Means for the U.S. Climate Agenda

In Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a portion of the United States’ first regulations for greenhouse gas emissions from industrial sources. The Court held that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) may not apply its “Prevention of Significant Deterioration” (PSD) program to new industrial sources on the basis of their greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, EPA can only regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new sources that are already subject to the PSD program because they emit other pollutants.

This is the first Supreme Court decision on EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases from industrial sources, so it has important implications for EPA’s future climate agenda—including its recently proposed rule for the electricity sector. And the varied opinions offered by the Supreme Court justices offer hints about how courts will approach the inevitable legal challenges to those regulations.

EPA’s PSD program has two basic requirements:

1) You need a permit before you build a new major industrial source of air pollution.

2) And to get a PSD permit, you must show that you are using the “best available control technology” for the air pollutants that you emit.

theenergycollective

[dohboi]

GRAEME IS BACK!!!

[Keith_McClary]

Like AGW itself, the sulfur cooling is an unproven theory when it comes to actual temperature change.

In any case, SO2 only stays in the atmosphere for a couple of weeks, while CO2 stays for several decades, so the effect of CO2 is cumulative while that of SO2 is transitory.

[dohboi]

"CO2 stays for several decades"

Shouldn't that be "centuries to millennia"?

[AgentR11]

Will it survive legal challenges? Will it be implemented? What will be the costs, benefits...? Is this the beginning of other and even bolder initiatives, or is this it? Will there be strong enough push back from industry and Repugs to make it a political liability?

1. probably.
2. higher rates
3. might make us look nifty'er on paper
4. this initiative is not bold, at all. Nor is it the beginning of anything.

There will be pushback from the losers.
There will be cheering from the winners.

Party won't determine the pushback, but local district demographics and economics will. Poor folks will resent the higher rates, coal industry people will resent the additional regulatory disincentive for their product.

[Graeme]

D, Thanks for the welcome. Much better than the alternative. Absence means I'm working.

Cleaner Air Gave Americans a $4,300 Pay Raise

Spend too much time with economists, and you’ll be convinced that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Life is full of tradeoffs.

Take the Clean Air Act of 1970, for which benefits consistently trump costs to the tune of thirty to one: $30 in benefits for every dollar spent on protecting the air we breathe. This past decade alone, benefits for the average major clean air rule trumped costs to the tune of 10 to one.

This is worth remembering as opponents of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan to reduce carbon pollution from power plants are ramping up claims that it will gut our nation’s economy.

Ten and 30 to 1 are benefit-cost slam dunks, but they still aren’t free lunches. There are costs. They are small, and dwarfed by the benefits, but they are real. We can’t – and shouldn’t – hide that fact.

Enter the latest study courtesy of the National Bureau of Economic Research, which details the benefits and costs of the Clean Air Act of 1970.

Cleaner air, added income

In this study, Adam Isen, Maya Rossin-Slater and Reed Walker focus on total suspended particulates: smoke, soot, and dust.

That’s by far not everything the Clean Air Act has helped remove from our air. But even that narrow focus comes up with a striking conclusion: by removing these particulates from the air our children breathe, the law increases each affected child’s lifetime income by $4,300.

That’s better than a free lunch. It’s a lifetime of additional income, and it doesn’t even value the fact that reducing childhood asthma and other illnesses is good in and of itself.

theenergycollective

[Graeme]

Supreme Court Says EPA Can Regulate Greenhouse Gas Emissions

In the latest decision on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to regulate carbon pollution, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, but voted 5-4 to limit permitting requirements. The ruling does not directly affect the EPA’s latest proposed rule to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants, and generally reaffirmed the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

The court narrowly defined the question to decide in the case, limiting its review to the EPA’s authority to require permits for greenhouse gas emissions from new and modified sources. EPA interpreted the Clean Air Act to require permits for all such sources of greenhouse gas emissions, but initially limited permitting requirements to large sources out of administrative necessity. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, concluded that the Clean Air Act does not permit EPA’s interpretation—the EPA cannot opt only to regulate the large sources because it is easier. But Justice Scalia read the Clean Air Act differently from the EPA in a way that arrived at a similar end point. According to the court, greenhouse gas emissions do not trigger permitting requirements, but the EPA can require sources to minimize greenhouse gas pollution when they are required to obtain permits for other pollutants. Because almost all new and modified large sources could trigger permitting requirements via emissions of traditional pollutants, the court’s decision left the EPA largely with what it desired—the authority to forego enforcement against small sources but permit greenhouse gas emissions from large sources.

nationalgeographic

[Graeme]

New Report on EPA's Carbon Rule: States Have the Power to Contain Costs, Maximize Benefits

In June 2014, the EPA released its proposed carbon emissions rules to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from existing fossil fuel power plants. This so-called ‘Clean Power Plan’ proposed a regulatory framework that mandates US power plants reduce GHG emissions 30 per cent by 2030 relative to their 2005 baseline. Taking center stage in this proposal are individual states, which are given the flexibility to determine their preferred way of complying with the new regulatory requirements – i.e. meeting the set carbon emission targets. The states are required to submit a plan by 2016 that reduces GHG emissions by 30 per cent in 2030. In this respect, the Clean Power Plan also lays out “Building Blocks for the Best System of Emission Reduction” that individual states can use to cut down on carbon pollution.

Now, a new report by The Analysis Group recently released at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) conference in Dallas, Texas shows that states seem to already possess the tools needed to cut down on carbon emissions, boost the economy and protect consumers financially. The report titled “EPA’s Clean Power Plan: States’ Tools for Reducing Costs and Increasing Benefits to Consumers” studied 25 states already cutting carbon pollution and found that “the impacts on electricity rates from well-designed CO2-pollution control programs will be modest in the near term, and can be accompanied by long-term benefits in the form of lower electricity bills and positive economic value to state and regional economies.”

theenergycollective

[Graeme]

EPA Hearings Show Just How Much Polluting Energy Companies Are Desperate And In Denial

In early June, the Environmental Protection Agency issued the latest piece in the Obama Administration’s Climate Action Plan: a proposed rule to dramatically cut carbon pollution from America’s coal-fired power plants in the coming decades. The rule is an essential step for public health and for slowing the effects of climate change.

Today marks the next formal phase in the rule-making process: public hearings on the rule are taking place today and tomorrow in four cities around the country, with up to 1,600 people slated to offer their comments. These individuals include some of the foremost proponents and opponents of the rule — and the activity surrounding these hearings encapsulates just how desperate and out of touch polluters and their allies who oppose the rule are.

Take Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA). In remarks at an event at the Heritage Foundation, Kelly likened the new EPA rule to terrorism. “You talk about terrorism — you can do it in a lot of different ways,” he said. “But you terrorize the people who supply everything this country needs to be great — and you keep them on the sidelines — my goodness, what have we become?”

This isn’t the first time climate deniers and opponents of renewable energy solutions have made this outrageous comparison. In fact, Rep. Kelly is really just drawing from the talking points of polluters. The polluter-front group Environmental Policy Alliance ran a print ad in Washington, D.C. media last month making similar comparisons, and the Koch-backed Heartland Institute lost funding after running billboards that equated people who believe in global warming to the Unibomber in 2012.

Here’s another: At the public hearing on the EPA rule in Washington, D.C., the Vice President of coal mining giant Peabody Energy referred to the climate science of which 97 percent of scientists agree as “climate theory.”

On the other side, Center for American Progress Vice President of Energy Policy Greg Dotson also testified at the hearing, urging the EPA to stay committed to reducing emissions: “protecting our children from carbon pollution is your legal duty. And it’s everyone’s moral obligation.”

thinkprogress

[Subjectivist]

Peabody Energy, the largest coal company in the U.S., is leading the fight in court to nullify the administration’s Clean Power Plan that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants. Oral arguments will be heard in federal court June 2.

Three of the nation’s four largest coal companies have filed for bankruptcy protection during the past year based primarily on lagging demand for coal both here and in China.

Some 27 states, all led by Republican governors, have joined the suit and yet these very states are often the ones benefiting most from an accelerating shift to wind and solar energy.

Wind turbines and solar panels accounted for more than two-thirds of all new electric generation capacity added to the grid in 2015, according to an Associated Press account published May 6 based on an analysis by the U.S. Department of Energy.

The remaining one-third was largely from new power plants fueled by natural gas, a cleaner burning fossil fuel, which has become significantly cheaper as a result of hydraulic fracturing.

The process, also known as “fracking,” has its own detractors based on massive use of water that is injected into the earth to force trapped gas toward the surface where it can be captured. Fracking has also been blamed for clusters of earthquakes in areas of the Midwest where they previously hadn’t been an issue.

Republican lawmakers have been trying to protect coal-fired power plants by fighting President Obama’s efforts to curtail climate warming carbon emissions. And yet, the states they represent are those most likely to reap the rewards of burgeoning renewable energy sources, according to the A.P. report. It makes one recall the book, “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” in which the author analyzes that state’s penchant for voting against its own fiscal interests.

Another book of interest is John Grisham’s novel “Gray Mountain.” Set in the heart of Appalachia where the land itself is under attack by Big Coal, it lists tricks by coal companies to circumvent laws and avoid paying legal judgments to residents harmed by decades of mountaintop removal.

As the Republican Party is trying desperately to quell an insurrection caused by the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump and his penchant for spouting politically incorrect epithets, GOP leaders are fighting to stop the country’s growing switch to renewable forms of energy.

While Republican senators, most notably Senate Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, say they’re protecting coal-mining jobs, the facts differ. Nationwide, coalmines now employ only 56,700 workers while the solar industry employs 210,000 and wind energy employs another 77,000, according to federal estimates.

McConnell, whose political career has depended heavily on coal-industry support, loves to call Obama’s efforts to curb climate-warming carbon emissions a “War on Coal” and his Clean Power Plan “job-killing” federal over reach.

The recent signing at the United Nations by a record number of countries, which agree on human-caused climate change and methods to implement reductions in carbon emissions, is a call to limit global warming and the already occurring destruction of low lying island nations. If nations of different cultures all over the world can accept the facts in agreement, why can’t our two political parties work together to accomplish similar goals?

More than two decades ago, author Bill McKibben warned about the ramifications of climate change. Legislators refused to listen, probably figuring these calamities wouldn’t happen on their watch. But, guess what; they’re now more imminent than just possible.

Nobody said the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy would be easy. But surely it isn’t impossible and it is necessary. Instead of the divisive approach taken by Republican legislators to thwart that change and kill all efforts to restructure our energy production, we should unite to challenge the most pressing issue confronting our world.

It’s hard to know whether pending bankruptcies among coal companies will curtail their political giving during the upcoming election. But the industry is still spending heavily to protect its interests in Washington. If history counts, pro-coal interests spent millions to influence the 2014-midterm congressional elections. And more than 95 percent of that went to Republican candidates, according to non-partisan studies.

In the current court action, all but one of the 34 senators and 171 House members who have signed on to support the court challenge are Republicans. The sole democratic senator represents the coal-dependent state of West Virginia. Need we say more?

http://www.malibutimes.com/malibu_life/ ... 334d5.html

[Subjectivist]

Last may Kansas suspended their law complying with the Obama Adminstration EPA regulations for power plant CO2 emissions pending a new ruling from the Supreme Court.

TOPEKA — Kansas is suspending its work on a plan for complying with federal regulations meant to combat climate change by reducing carbon emissions from power plants.

A new state law putting the work on hold takes effect May 19 and would make Kansas at least the third state to take such a step following a U.S. Supreme Court decision in February. Lawmakers in Virginia and Wyoming included similar measures in budget legislation earlier this year, though Oklahoma’s governor issued an executive order last year to keep her state from drafting a plan.

The high court issued a 5-4 decision staying the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s rules requiring states to reduce carbon emissions from power plants until legal challenges to the regulations are resolved. Kansas was among 27 states challenging the rules, finalized by President Barack Obama’s administration last year.

http://m.ljworld.com/news/2016/may/09/k ... rbon-emis/

Now that President Elect Trump is coming into office with what seem to be very different practices two questions arise. First, how long until the Supreme court gets its needed ninth member? Second, will the new EPA administrator rescind the CO2 regulations and if so hiw soon will they do so?