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Duke University's study on the intersection of green jobs and rust belt manufacturing

Check out this report [PDF] from Duke University, completed in conjunction with Environmental Defense Fund and a coalition of labor unions. It is on the economic benefits of energy recycling. This is Chapter 7 of an on-going series on Manufacturing Climate Solutions that is focused specifically on those green technologies that can benefit the U.S. manufacturing sector.

Green jobs, to be sure, but not in the Van Jones sense where the green pulls the job, but in the sense that businesses who seek to be green can boost their profitability and protect existing jobs.

To be sure, there's a fair amount in here about our company, but I think the conclusions are generalizable, as is the political benefit to be gained from "strange bedfellows" of environmentalists and rust belt industries (and their employees). Worth the time to read.

He is not 'guilty of inaccuracies and overstatements' and is owed a correction by the NYT

I will examine here the February 24 New York Times article by Andy Revkin to show that Al Gore is not "guilty of inaccuracies and overstatements," as he was accused.

Part 1 detailed how Roger Pielke, Jr. started all this by repeatedly misstating what Gore had said in his AAAS talk (video here). These indefensible charges would have died on the gossip grapevine of the blogosphere, had they not been picked up by Revkin.

I have written multiple emails to Andy in an effort to get him to clear Gore's name in print, and he refuses. If he won't, I feel that someone must for the record and the search engines. If I could clear Gore's name without criticizing Andy, I would. But I can't.

My reason for writing this post is simple. Having your reputation stained in print in the New York Times is a very big deal for anyone because:

• That story is reprinted and excerpted around the planet. It lives on forever.
• The NYT is the "paper of record," and thus considered highly credible (though it shouldn't be).

Let's look at exactly what Revkin wrote in "In Debate on Climate Change, Exaggeration Is a Common Pitfall" (see here, original links, emphasis added):

In the effort to shape the public's views on global climate change, hyperbole is an ever-present temptation on all sides of the debate ...

Mr. Gore, addressing a hall filled with scientists in Chicago, showed a slide that illustrated a sharp spike in fires, floods and other calamities around the world and warned the audience that global warming "is creating weather-related disasters that are completely unprecedented."

...

Both men, experts said afterward, were guilty of inaccuracies and overstatements.

Mr. Gore removed the slide from his presentation after the Belgian research group that assembled the disaster data said he had misrepresented what was driving the upward trend. The group said a host of factors contributed to the trend, with climate change possibly being one of them. A spokeswoman for Mr. Gore said he planned to switch to using data on disasters compiled by insurance companies.

Do you see what Revkin did here?

Q&A with a board candidate I wish I could vote for

Checking out the statements of candidates for the Sierra Club national board, I was disappointed to find no champions for vigorous climate action, so in an idle moment I drafted answers to the Candidate Questionnaire from the sort of candidate for whom I'd like to cast my vote.

Q. What leadership positions have you held in the Sierra Club, and what have you accomplished in those positions?

Berkeley's program to finance solar systems through property tax assessments is off to great start

The city of Berkeley, Calif. is pioneering a program to help homeowners finance solar systems through property tax assessments. How's that working out?

The first tranche of funds sold out in nine minutes.

And on Friday, the first two checks were handed out to proud owners of new solar systems. Meanwhile, we were able to tweak the federal tax code to ensure that program participants can still use the federal investment tax credit (thanks, Speaker Pelosi). And we are working with partners in eight states and counting to get enabling legislation on the books to allow more cities to replicate the model.

Note that this program can be set up to fund more than just solar electric.  Solar hot-water and energy-efficiency upgrades can and should be included as well.

The NYT's false 'guilty of inaccuracies and overstatements' charge began with false charge by Pielke

In all the hubbub about George Will's falsehood-filled columns and Andy Revkin's equation of Al Gore with George Will in the New York Times, one simple fact has been a largely overlooked:

Contrary to Revkin's assertions, Former Vice President Al Gore is not guilty of "exaggeration," let alone "guilty of inaccuracies and overstatements."

Having communicated at length with Gore's staff and Revkin, I will show that not only did Gore do nothing worthy of the NYT's criticism, but in fact he acted honorably and in the highest traditions of science journalism. Contrary to the impression left by Revkin in his February 24, "News Analysis" piece (see here), Gore and his team work overtime to accurately represent the data and the science.

Gore is very careful in his use of language, more careful than the NYT -- and far more careful than the man who initiated the indefensible charge, Roger Pielke, Jr. As Dylan Otto Krider wrote at Examiner.com:

It was Pielke who provided Revkin with his Gore infraction to "balance out" his article on Will to allow Revkin to say "both sides do it" ...

As we will see in this two-parter, Revkin's case is so weak, so nonexistent, that it rests almost entirely on his interpretation -- on his indefensible overinterpretation -- of one word by Gore, a word that Revkin didn't even include in his article for reasons that will soon be obvious to all.

Part 1 focuses on how Pielke started all this by fabricating a bunch of baseless charges against Gore and smeared the good name of thousands of scientists.

Some perspective on tax-and-dividend and a better alternative

James Hansen has again been lecturing Congress on the virtues of tax-and-dividend. I'm no policy expert, but neither is Dr. Hansen, so I'm going to share some of my own amateur observations for the benefit of fellow Grist wonks.

Hansen did some calculations and came up with the following dividend estimates for a $115/ton (equivalent to $1/gallon) tax:

Single share: $3000/year ($250 per month, deposited monthly in bank account)

Family with 2 children: $9000/year ($750 per month, deposited monthly in bank account)

Wow! Free money! That sounds enticing. Of course, the money has to come from somewhere, so people's energy costs would, on average, increase by the same amount. But with that much money sloshing around there are bound to be huge inequities. For example, I live in northern California, where we have a mild climate and little coal power, and I don't need to drive much, so I might see my net income rise by maybe a couple thousand dollars. That would be nice, but folks back east who are paying more wouldn't like it one bit.

The tax rate and dividend should increase with time. ...

[The tax rate should increase until fossil fuel energy is not competitive with clean energy.]

Nothing's going to happen until the tax rate is high enough to overcome the price barrier. Once it does, there will be a "tipping point" at which clean energy will start to overtake fossil fuels and a variety of positive feedback mechanisms (competition, technology, economies of scale, learning by doing) will make the transition self-sustaining and gradually less dependent on price supports. So what is needed is a high price incentive right away -- not a gradually escalating incentive.

However, a high price incentive does not imply a high tax; it is possible to have an initially high and declining carbon price incentive implemented through an initially low and increasing carbon tax.

One last foray into the economics discussion

The guys at Environmental Economics replied to my post on economics and climate here and here. Read if you like. I would protest that "the extreme position by some environmentalists that economics is evil" has nothing to do with me or what I wrote, and that if there is some war between Environmentalism As Such and Economics As Such I want nothing to do with it, but ... feh.

I just want to make one final point, somewhat abstracted from the details of this oh-so-illuminating back and forth. In the course of decrying the pointlessness of a battle between greens and economists, Ryan Avent defends me from Tim Haab's charge that I'm an idiot:

Roberts is very smart on these issues and has a very sophisticated, and for the most part correct (in my view), outlook on carbon pricing.

First, thanks!

Now, not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but note the evidence offered that I'm not an economic philistine: I respect carbon pricing. I don't want to make too much of a passing comment, but this strikes me as endemic to these debates: the notion that when it comes to environment and energy issues, "economics" means "market-based policy" means "pricing."

This seems like a weirdly constrained use of economics to me -- reflective of the narrow range of economics visible in America's public conversation -- and it's made for a weirdly constrained debate. Economists themselves aren't necessarily guilty -- see here -- but it's true of many people arriving newly to climate/energy policy debates. They discover that Economic Science says one thing and fuzzy headed advocates say something else, so of course they want to be Sensible and side with Economic Science (don't want to get patouli on you!). Thus you get a weird kind of zealotry around pricing from people who know very little about the specifics of environmental history or regulation or technology, whereby they wildly overstate the potential of pricing and proclaim confidently that Economic Science has discredited the alternatives. (*cough*carbon tax advocates*cough)

Seems to me, though, economic thinking could go both more micro and more macro than carbon pricing.

A closer look at PG&E's immensely promising solar proposal

Last Tuesday, PG&E, the second largest utility in California, announced a major new solar initiative: 250 megawatts (MW) of utility-owned, distributed generation solar, and a further 250 MW to be built by private solar developers, under fixed-price contracts, at the utility's cost of service.

This is very good news, with implications I predict will reverberate through the solar policy community for quite awhile.

First, let's take the issue of utility involvement in the distributed generation solar market. I co-wrote an article on this last fall with my colleague Kevin Fox. The upshot: utility involvement in solar brings the opportunity for new economies of scale, but can also raise concerns about the potential of monopoly power crowding out private solar developers and stifling competition. The future of solar is dependent on nurturing a competitive workforce throughout the value chain, and healthy competition to foster a robust market and bring costs down for consumers.

Our suggested cure: utility involvement in the distributed generation solar industry should be conditioned on opening access for private solar companies to provide the same value to ratepayers. On first look, PG&E's application appears to meet this standard. The program maximizes the benefits of utility involvement while minimizing the potential drawbacks.

PG&E's solar program follows on the heels of similar announcements from Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric, and Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. SCE and LADWP's approaches contained efforts to limit markets and exclude participation, and as a result have been met with robust challenges.

The second policy implication concerns discussions around feed-in tariffs. While this is not a classic feed-in tariff in that it doesn't contain a must-take element (developers will submit projects to PG&E under standard contract and prices, winners will be selected based on assessed project viability and other elements), this proposal will re-introduce the spirit of competition when discussing fixed price contracts. More on this later.

Finally, we are going to see a lot of discussion on the price. PG&E projects that its cost of service will be the equivalent of $0.246/kWh, plus time-of-delivery adder, totaling $0.295 kWh. Given that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission just signed a contract for 5 MW at $0.235 in one of the least sunny places in California, and Austin Energy signed a 30 MW contract for a reported $0.165 c/kWh, I believe this is a case of PG&E underpromising so as to overdeliver. We'll see once they make their actual bid. In any event, it's sunny days for the California solar industry.

What is Obama’s proposed price on carbon?

This is a guest post by Chaz Teplin [ChazTeplin@gmail.com], who works at the National Renewable Energy Lab developing cheaper materials for efficient photovoltaics. His opinions are his own and do not represent the views of his employer.

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The new Obama budget is striking because a cap and trade program is specifically called out and, critically, actual numbers are offered for the revenue raised from the program.

For years environmentalists have argued over the tradeoffs between a carbon tax and cap-and-trade, but either approach, if well-implemented, forces energy users to pay a price for carbon emissions. The actual price is crucial. A high carbon price financially motivates companies and individuals to increase energy efficiency and switch to carbon-free energy sources. With a low carbon price, the incentive for change is small.

So what is the Obama carbon price?

Obama's proposed budget anticipates about $80 billion in auction revenue in 2011 (Table S-6). Starting from this figure and some reasonable assumptions, its quite simple to get an approximate carbon price. (While we can hope for dramatically reduced emissions before the first year the plan takes affect, it seems unlikely.) The Obama plan explicitly calls for auctioning off 100 percent of the emissions permits, so we can get an approximate price of a permit by dividing the $80 billion auction revenue by current U.S. emissions.

With 2006 numbers for CO2 emissions, the Obama carbon price is $14.30 per metric ton of CO2. I don't know about you, but I don't buy my energy by the ton of CO2. Here is what $14.30 per ton would do to common energy costs*:

Effect of the Obama carbon price**

• Petroleum fuels: adds 15¢/gallon
• Electricity: adds 0.8¢/kWhr (compare to 7-10¢/kWhr residential rates)
• Natural gas: adds 8¢/therm (compare to 85¢/therm residential rates)

In other words, energy prices would increase by about 10 percent. Its a start, but a very slow one.

For wind energy, the added cost to burn coal would be a small help because wind is already cost competitive. For solar, the increase in competing electricity prices would be irrelevant in comparison to existing federal subsidies. Considering the recent volatility in oil prices, I doubt many drivers would even notice the 15¢/gallon.

Of course, these numbers are just for 2011. But the Obama budget anticipates only small increases in auction revenue through 2020 and the stated goal is only to hit "14 percent below 2005 levels by 2020." Assuming this target is achieved, the Obama carbon price would remain below $20/ton.

I doubt that such small carbon price signals will significantly impact energy choices. Perhaps the administration is relying on the recessionary economy and a smaller GDP to reduce emissions.

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* Using commonly available data on the emissions intensity of various fuels and electricity generation. (Calculations available in this spreadsheet [XLS].)

** These numbers will not be exact, but they should be as close as anything else in a projected budget.

NAIOP releases disinformation study downplaying building efficiency

I was wondering when it would happen: a building sector disinformation campaign launched by vested interests.

Well it's here. The campaign hit the New York Times on Saturday, and it comes from NAIOP, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association. It appears just as the country has come to grips with the fact that buildings are responsible for over 50% (50.1% to be exact*) of all the energy consumed in the U.S. It comes at a time when Americans are trying to reshape their energy policy and wean themselves from dependence on foreign oil, dwindling natural gas reserves, and dirty conventional coal.

This disinformation campaign is obviously meant to stall, confuse, and distort. The first salvo, a spurious study (PDF) and press release, was issued two days before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on improving building energy code standards.

It is clear from a simple analysis of the study that NAIOP commissioned a building energy efficiency analysis to support predetermined results. They contracted with ConSol, an energy modeling firm, and asked them to analyze five (yes, only five) efficiency measures for an imaginary square-shaped, four-story office building with completely sealed windows and an equal amount of un-shaded glass on all four sides of the building.

In other words, analyze an energy hog.

They conducted the analysis for different cities and climates -- Newport Beach, Chicago, and Baltimore -- without changing the design to respond to these very different climates. They did not study changing the shape of the building, its orientation or form, or redistributing windows or using different windows to take advantage of natural light for daylighting or sunlight for heating. (Office buildings are day-use facilities.) They did not study shading the glass in summertime to reduce the need for air-conditioning, using operable windows for ventilation (not even in Newport Beach with its beautiful year-round climate), using landscaping to reduce micro-climatic impacts, employing cost-effective solar hot water heating systems, employing an energy management control system, or even study the impact of using inexpensive energy saving occupancy sensors in rooms to turn off lights.

In other words, NAIOP intentionally kept out of the analysis all the readily available low-cost, no-cost, and cost-saving options to reduce a building's energy consumption. This deliberate omission is glaringly apparent in their press release and in the NYT article. In fact, they take so many inexpensive energy-saving options off the table that it is impossible for the imaginary building to reach commonly achievable energy-consumption-reduction targets. They then add an inflammatory headline to their press release -- "Results show efficiencies unable to reach 30 percent mandates" -- and state that, "The study provides an unbiased insight into the energy targets practical to commercial development today."

Using this pseudo-analysis as their baseline, NAIOP goes on to report, without any objective basis, that "reaching a 30 percent reduction above the ASHRAE standard (a commercial building energy code standard) is not feasible using common design approaches and would exceed a 10-year payback." They conclude, "achieving a 50 percent reduction above the standard is not currently reachable."

Clearly, this study is meant to confuse the public and stall meaningful legislation, insuring that America remains dependent on foreign oil, natural gas, and dirty conventional coal.

The U.S. peaked in oil production in 1970 and natural gas in 1973. Our reserves are in steep decline and 70 percent of the remaining world oil and gas reserves are located in the Middle East, an area stretching from Saudi Arabia and Iran to the Islamic republics of the former Soviet Union. This type of activity by NAIOP not only hurts our country, it is also a disservice to their membership and all those in the building sector who work hard to deliver a high-quality, energy-efficient building products.

NAIOP touts itself as advancing responsible commercial real estate development and advocating for effective public policy. This pseudo-study and misleading campaign accomplishes none of these goals.

The American public deserves better.

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* To create a U.S. Building Sector, the Residential buildings (operations) sector, Commercial buildings (operations) sector, Industrial sector-building operations estimate, and the Industrial sector-annual building construction and materials embodied energy estimate were combined.