An Environmental Miscellany

In sorting through the “to be blogged about” pile I noted these three environmental items and in the interest of efficiency and organization am putting them in one place.

The June 29th issue of the New Yorker has a long profile of Jim Hansen, NASA’s climate expert and director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. This is the guy who created a climate model 30 years ago and has been accurately predicted climate change since then. He is THE climate change guy. According to the article he and his wife own a house in Bucks County where they often spend their weekends.

Hansen might have taken notice of Pennsylvania HB 80 and this July 2nd press release from Bucks County Rep. Steve Santarsiero (D-31):

State Rep. Steven J. Santarsiero, D-Bucks, today successfully amended clean-energy legislation in an effort to reduce carbon emissions from power plants at no additional cost to electric utility ratepayers.

Several environmental advocacy groups, including PennEnvironment, Sierra Club Pennsylvania Chapter, Pennsylvania Clean Water Action and Clean Air Council, endorse the language offered by Santarsiero that would remove incentives for coal plants that do not store carbon pollution.

"House Bill 80 advances carbon capture and sequestration technologies, but does so in a way that could incentivize the construction of new coal-fired power plants that never end up sequestering their pollution -- a huge threat to our efforts to combat global warming," said Nathan Willcox, energy and clean air advocate for PennEnvironment.

"Representative Santarsiero is addressing this issue in a way that helps the economy as well as the environment. PennEnvironment applauds the representative for his critical efforts on this legislation," Willcox said.

"Sequestering carbon pollution from coal power plants is a good goal, but we were amazed that legislation was being considered that would result in new coal plants being built, but without requiring sequestration," said Myron Arnowitt, Pennsylvania state director for Clean Water Action. "Representative Santarsiero should be applauded for his efforts to get those requirements into House Bill 80. His leadership has been essential to ensuring that we move to a clean energy economy."

The bill Santarsiero amended, H.B. 80, would increase Tier I requirements in Pennsylvania's Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards to 20 percent by 2026. Tier I requirements are the proportion of electricity that electric distribution companies must purchase from renewable sources such as wind and solar energy.

It also would add incentives for new and existing coal-fired power plants that conduct carbon capture and sequestration, which Santarsiero said would prevent the harmful gas from being released into the atmosphere.

Under the language Santarsiero is proposing, coal plants that do not use CCS would not receive alternative energy tax credits in excess of the cost of the carbon dioxide capture equipment installed at the plants.

"With the language I authored, coal-fired energy plants would not be eligible for certain incentives unless they store the carbon dioxide they generate," Santarsiero said.

Santarsiero amended the bill before it was recommitted to the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee for further review.

And in related news from the irony department, we find in the June 29th Wall Street Journal, “Valero harnesses wind energy to fuel it’s oil-refining process,” by Ana Campoy. Yes, that headline is correct, the Texas company has installed 33 windmills so it can develop its own power source and avoid fluctuating electricity prices and make the oil refinery more economical. It is, indeed, a strange world.