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Weekend reading

The Senate Energy Committee released some of the titles of their draft energy legislation today. So what are you waiting for? Start reading!

Are greens jumping the gun by bashing GE’s new ecomagination?

Over on TomPaine.com today, Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Watch takes on GE's "ecomagination." Frank makes some compelling arguments -- similar to comments made on gristmill earlier in the week -- as to why this is just a bunch of greenwashing.

As strange as it makes me feel to ask this question, I'll do it. Aren't we jumping the gun here, gang? Shouldn't we want a polluting corporation to have an "Extreme Makeover"? Or are we saying "Mission Impossible" to any attempts to change because of past environmental sins?

Call me naive (and you probably will in the comments), but it seems like we have to actually give GE a chance to fulfill their "ecomagination." So what do you think? Extreme makeover or mission impossible?

(I'll admit they are not off to a good start with this appropriation rider shenanigans.)

Rivers Phoenix

Many small waterways rising from ashes, but U.S. rivers still ailing With press attention focused on major river cleanups — when it’s focused on rivers at all — some 37,000 […]

Teach an Old Dog a New Mix

Brit researcher says clean energy has more juice than previously thought It’s a familiar argument: Renewable-energy technologies are not “mature,” and the power they provide is intermittent, so nuclear power […]

Learn to identify certain common fallacies

In response to this post, both Jeff and Ana have good points.

Jeff's is that a parallel bit of slipperiness often pops up in arguments about nuclear energy. On the one hand, we hear that renewables aren't "mature" and that only nuclear can get us safely through the global warming crisis. On the other, we hear that nuclear can do this (safely) only with a decade and billions of dollars in R&D costs for new technologies. But if we have a decade and billions of dollars, why not funnel them into clean energy?

Ana's is about the related bogus argument that, to meet our energy needs, solar would have to carpet the entire state of Oklahoma! Or wind turbines would have to fill the state of North Dakota! Plus they are intermittent, so they would leave gaps in our power! Etc. But of course no one claims that any one of these alternatives can fill the gap. The point is that we should move to a distributed mix of sources: solar, wind, wave/tidal, biomass, and let's not forget, conservation.

On Ana's point, check out this story, which discusses research done at Oxford showing that such a mix could provide a much larger percentage of the U.K.'s energy needs than had been previously thought. Jamais looks at the research in more detail.

Arguments against clean energy often indulge in these fallacies casually. It's time greens started challenging them.

Massive new Washington habitat conservation plan is bad news.

Today is the final day for the public to weigh in on a giant new habitat conservation plan--called the Forests and Fish Plan--that will govern how Washington's timber industry behaves and how well it safeguards habitat for endangered salmon. Here's the punchline: the plan will essentially grant the timber industry 50 years of legal immunity to the federal Endangered Species Act.

This is not a smart move.

Habitat conservation plans, ostensibly designed to protect endangered species, often authorize destructive activity that harms the very creatures they are supposed to protect. The Forests and Fish Plan will supposedly require timber companies to repair roads that erode into salmon streams, as well as leave streamside timber uncut. But the plan also leaves out a number of important measures.

Here is just a sampling of criticism that appeared in a recent Seattle Post-Intelligencer article:

An ecological guide thereto.

Via Nick, a simple and useful ecological guide to paper. Don't be the last kid on your block to learn the difference between PCF and ECF!

It contains great insight on the alignment of policital forces and the future of the green movement.

There has been much rending of garments and gnashing of teeth among environmentalists since the election, and even more so since the debut of that godforsaken paper.

Much of it assumes that "the movement" -- to the extent there is such a discrete thing -- is responsible for its own ill fortunes. I don't want to say that's entirely untrue, but I think greens, like perhaps everyone, tend to exaggerate the degree to which they control their own fate. There are large historical forces afoot, and to some extent environmentalism is simply carried along.

Consider that, to use that most hackneyed of analytical crutches, 9/11 changed everything. Well it didn't change everything, but it prompted a pretty significant realignment of the concerns and allegiances of a pretty significant portion of the voting public. In particular, the public mood turned very aggressive about foreign policy, and aligned with the party that displayed the most bellicosity on that subject: Republican.

It so happens that, at least presently, those running the Republican Party are fairly hostile to environmental regulation and indifferent toward environmental concerns (yes, of course there are exceptions, but let's not pretend, okay?).

So, there's been no particular shift away from environmental concern in the electorate. It's just that kicking some ass (anybody's ass will do) took precedence. So much the worse for the environment, but I'm not sure the green movement can be fairly blamed for it.

Support for this view can be found in the massive recent Pew poll. Consider this:

Uncle Sam Wants You! … To Clean Up After Him

Closed military bases frequently icky Irony alert: Hot on the heels of news that the Pentagon is appealing to Congress for exemptions from air and hazardous-waste laws comes word that […]

Clean energy tech is not frozen in time.

So, I'm listening to a show on KUOW about peak oil, and you know what bugs me? I'll tell you.

You often hear a single person make the following two claims:

• Clean, renewable energy sources like wind and solar "just aren't developed enough" now to meet our energy needs. Just not dense enough in their energy output. Take up too much darn space. "Maybe someday," they say wistfully, "but not today."
• Although we're running out of conventional sources of oil, magical new technologies and methods will allow us to extract oil economically from deep water, tar sands, shale, the moon, god knows what. "Never underestimate human ingenuity," they cry, "technology shall save us!"

In other words, the argument against moving from oil to clean energy depends on discussing renewable energy technologies as though they are frozen in time, while at the same time painting a picture of a Jetsons-esque future for oil extraction technologies.

Me, I love technology, and I have great faith in human ingenuity. But if brainpower and billions of dollars of investment can transform oil extraction technologies, why can't they make clean energy technologies orders of magnitude smaller, more efficient, and easier to use?

Keep an eye out for this slight of hand. If current oil technology and current clean energy technology go head to head (and environmental consequences are taken into account), clean energy technology wins. If they go head to head based on the assumption of brilliant new technological advances, clean energy technology wins.

Clean energy technology wins.