A majority of Americans – about 75 percent – support regulating greenhouse gases from power plants, cars and manufacturing that would reduce global warming, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

But only a bare majority – 52 percent – support a cap-and-trade approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and 42 percent oppose such a program, which is the type of approach taken in the Waxman-Markey climate legislation expected to be voted on in the US House of Representations, possibly Friday.

Support for controls on emissions wavered even more as those polled were asked whether they’d pay higher electricity prices to help bring about reduced greenhouse gases.

Only 44 percent said they would back a cap-and-trade system if it meant monthly electricity bills would be $25 higher. Support was stronger, at 56 percent, if the proposed monthly electricity increase was just $10 a month, according to the randomized poll of 1,001 adults.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that regulating greenhouse gases would cost the typical household about $175 a year in 2020, when the shift to clean energy and emissions controls would be in high gear.

But opponents of the pending climate legislation, especially conservative Republicans, argue that costs will be much higher.

The poll found that people living in households making less than $50,000 a year were the most concerned about the costs of the climate regulation.

Young people were the most supportive of federal regulation to control climate-related emissions (about 60 percent said they supported cap-and-trade) and senior citizens the least supportive (about 40 percent said they favored cap-and-trade).

Cap-and-trade is a market-based approach to controlling GHG emissions. It sets caps on the amount of pollution companies are allowed and lets them bid for extra credits if they go over their emissions allowance or sell credits if they keep under pollution limits. Limits for everyone are lowered over time to reduce carbon emissions.

Talk about a hot and windy debate as Washington grapples with the first big bill to try to power up a new clean energy economy. Studies and accusations are whipping around like wind propellers as the constituencies of fossil fuels and new energy square off.

While this seems like a flurry of much ado — is it possible that the American Clean Energy and Security Act wouldn’t pass?

Still, there’s much at stake. As we know from last year’s blockbuster stimulus bill, no one really reads all the copy, so there could be a lot of caveats, crumbs and sneaky insertions embedded into the 1,000-plus page act, also known as the Waxman-Markey bill.

One hot button issue (funny how the political cliches fit this climate change topic) has been whether the bill will drive up electricity costs. Stands to reason that re-jiggering how we get power and the sort of power we use will come with costs. It also seems reasonable to expect that over time, clean energy, coming as it does from ongoing natural phenomena like the wind and the sun, would have cost efficiencies compared with crude oil, which must be siphoned from the earth and shipped around.

In my earlier blog, I asked who really knows how much these changes will affect household electrical bills; I mean really, how can we tell? It’s such a tar pit of variables.

Apparently, The Pew Center on Global Climate Change does think it has a handle on this issue. At least they’re trying harder than most to decipher the variables and forecast the future. For their take see their “Eight Myths About the Waxman-Markey Clean Energy Bill.”

Myth #2 deals with energy costs and Pew seems to conclude that this switch to clean energy might (maybe) cost US households somewhere around $100 a year over the next few decades.

They also agree with our “who knows” thesis, saying essentially that: “Given the limitations of economic modeling, no analysis should be assumed to give a correct answer.”

They also note, a bit illogically, that even though we can’t count on any given economic analysis, if a group does undertake such an analysis (which might not be worth much) they definitely should “faithfully represent what is actually required by the bill”.

Right. Let the wrangling recommence.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Comments are flying faster than bats heading for a wind turbine in D.C. as all the “stakeholders” queue up to make their case for or against the Waxman-Markey climate legislation being debated next week.

First, our favorite — and this is a real giggle — from U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, the fast-fossilizing Republican from the Dallas area. He’s suggested that Congress not “cap” industrial emissions per se and that it “exclude carbon dioxide from a list of federal pollutants,” according to a McClatchy-Tribune news service report.

Right. Great answer to carbon pollution.

Next up, from a different perspective, our friends in wind power generation. They’re in a panic that Congress, with its perennial tendency to compromise until neither side is happy, will wantonly dilute the W-M bill requirements. Specifically, they’re concerned about the chipping away at the renewable electricity standard or RES, which designates that the country should using a certain percentage of clean energy by a certain year.

Talk was that the RES would be set at 25 percent by 2025– clean, simple. It was what U.S. Reps. Henry A. Waxman and Edward J. Markey and President Obama wanted, that 25 percent of U.S. power would come from wind, solar, geothermal and other low-carbon sources, and it would happen by 2025.

But a new draft of the American Clean Energy and Security Act now makes that 20 percent by 2020. Doesn’t sound so bad.

But wait, here come the loopholes: Only 15 percent of the electricity would have to come from renewables, the other five could come from “energy efficiency measures”.

A further loophole would allow a governor to reduce the clean energy component to 12 percent for his or her state (this could help “low wind” states), as long as he/she could account for the other 8 percent with “energy efficiency measures” (adding up to 20, see?).

All this slippage is in response to concerns that electricity consumers would suffer increases in their bills at the higher RES. And one argument that does make sense is that not all states are created equal. It will take some innovation to bring solar and wind to places where solar and wind power are not easy solutions, say a non-windy Northern locale.

Still, one can’t help but notice that the D.C. mishmasher has made the new proposed RES more complicated and opens the door for “clean coal,” that quixotic elixir that’s supposed to make coal viably clean but which nobody can afford (that ought to make electricity cheaper) to malinger. Not to mention the potential that some places could stay tethered too long to dirty power sources under the influence of powerful lobbyists, while substituting energy conservation measures (that we should be taking anyway) for real change.

Of more urgent note: The group of U.S. wind executives say diluting the RES would deflate the newbie U.S. clean energy industry, where wind companies are playing catch-up to European firms as well as competing with countries like China.

Yes, they’re playing the job card. But perhaps someone should.

“We are concerned that the significantly lower renewable targets currently being discussed, as compared to proposals from President Obama, Chairman Bingaman and Chairman Markey, will severely blunt the signal for companies like ours that manufacture turbines and components to invest billions of dollars to expand production and our workforces in the U.S.,” said the letter. It was signed by the future wannabe titans of the industry –GE Energy, Vestas Americas, Gamesa, NRG Systems, REPower USA, Broadwind Energy, TPI Composites, PPG Industries, Clipper Windpower and the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).

The AWEA calculates that the wind industry now employees about 85,000 Americans (did I say voters?), counting manufacturing, construction and operations.

A weak RES — talk about taking the wind out of our sails.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

The first full day of hearings on that proposed law known as Waxman-Markey, which would promote clean energy, foster green jobs and set up a system to curb greenhouse gas emissions, began — fittingly — on Earth Day.

But how do we make sense of this sweeping piece of legislation that affects everything from the air you breathe to the refrigerator you use? You could watch the hearings on C-Span over the next few weeks. (If you are unemployed, have all day long to plop in front of the tube and can remain alert for extended periods while people discuss abstractions like “carbon allowances” and “international offsets” this might be for you!)

Or you could read the bill. It is 648 pages. But as we learned from the recent stimulus escapades, even people in Congress don’t read these things.

So let’s stick to the executive summary of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. It is five pages long. For serious climate watchers, politicos, green collar workers and would-be Earth advocates, scanning this document is not a bad idea.

Fortunately we’re not the only ones trying to find ways to make this incredibly complex matter digestible. The EPA is on the job. The agency that would regulate and guide many of the directives in Waxman-Markey, should it pass, has put out an analysis of how it would help grow the economy and boost personal income while transforming the U.S. energy landscape and curtailing carbon emissions. (Though we’re back up to nine pages on this one.)

The EPA review — done at the request of House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Energy and Environment Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.) — looked mainly at how emissions reductions and cap-and-trade guidelines would affect the economy (Title III in the Act.). It found that the W-M bill would:

• Make it more economical to invest in energy efficient manufacturing, housing and transportation, which would reduce energy consumption, delaying until mid-century the consumption levels we’d otherwise reach by 2015.

• Grow renewable energy; push forward new technology for coal production, bringing coal carbon capture and storage online in 2015.

• Its cap-and-trade provisions would result in carbon costs of about $13-$17 per metric ton in 2015, rising to $17-$22 by 2020 – propelling the development of cleaner alternatives.

• More clean energy would offset the need for increased petroleum use (a major security issue), keeping it nearly static through 2050. (Which tells you a bit about where the opposition to W-M will come from.)

The EPA report says a lot more. But it’s as thick as Ulysses. It needs deciphering. The Natural Resources Defense Council is trying, having asked its chief economist to analyze the EPA’s analysis (only in Washington).

Laurie Johnson, chief economist for the NRDC, looked at what the EPA was (trying) to say about household income under Waxman-Markey and found that:

• Households will become 18-19 percent richer between 2010 and 2020, and 36-40 percent by 2030. By contrast, the investment of the average household in the bill would only be $98 to $140 a year.

Takeaway: The Congressional prescription for global warming and our ailing economy won’t cost us too much net-net, and could even make us better off. If all goes well.

Take it with a grain of salt. And stay tuned.

(The NRDC has other decipherers. See David Doniger’s blog “First Read” of the Waxman-Markey Energy and Climate Discussion Draft. This excellent piece breaks the Act down into its significant parts.)

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

One degree Fahrenheit.

On average, that’s how much the Earth’s temperature has increased over the past century, according to a report by the EPA. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted that during the 21st century the global temperature will increase by 2-6° C.

To the average person, one degree might not seem like a problem. But to scientists studying the climate, it is cause for concern. At this rate of warming, climate changes would occur faster than any of the climate changes over the past 10,000 years.

The warming of a few degrees would lead to more frequent droughts and heat waves; it can also cause an increase in rainfall and change the strength of storms. While some areas of land might benefit from the increased rainfall, others will be devastated by lack of rain.

Lately, some scientists have revised their projections on when global warming will spell the end of the Arctic ice cap. Now, some feel that the ice could be gone within five years, which could trigger a “tipping point” with the oceans warming and rising, and the Earth’s ability to reflect sunlight greatly impaired. In a recent Newsweek interview, Department of Energy Secretary Stephen Chu defined “tipping point” as the point where “no matter what humans do, it’s out of our control.”

Some scientists suggest that the rise in ocean temperatures has led to the increased intensity of hurricanes. There is no way to definitively prove that this is directly related to the rise in global temperatures. However, in 2005 the Science journal released a study regarding hurricane strength and the connection to global warming. The study showed as the storms were becoming more intense, the global temperature was also increasing. The study is quick to point out that Hurricane Katrina and other damaging hurricanes can not be blamed on global warming. However, there appears to be a connection emerging.

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