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Senate Gets a Climate and Energy Bill, Modified by a Gulf Spill That Still Grows

Thursday, May 13, 2010

The long delayed and much amended Senate plan to deal with global warming and energy was unveiled on Wednesday to considerable fanfare but uncertain prospects.

After nearly eight months of negotiations with lawmakers and interest groups, Senators John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, produced a 987-page bill that tries to limit climate-altering emissions, reduce oil imports and create millions of new energy-related jobs.

The sponsors rewrote the section on offshore oil drilling in recent days to reflect mounting concern over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, raising new hurdles for any future drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts while allowing it to proceed off Louisiana, Texas and Alaska.

Mr. Kerry said the United States was crippled by a broken energy policy and falling behind in the global race for leadership in clean-energy technology.

“We’re threatened by the impacts of a changing climate,” he said in a packed Senate hearing room. “And right now, as one of the worst oil spills in our nation’s history washes onto our shores, no one can doubt how urgently we need a new energy policy in this country. Now is the time to take action.”

It may be difficult, however, for him to persuade the Senate to act. The country is nervously watching efforts to halt the gulf spill, the Senate is torn by deep partisan hostility and the public is uncertain whether the benefits of combating global warming are worth the costs. There is also no assurance that the bill will break through the crowded Senate calendar to reach the floor this year.

No Republicans have stepped forward to support the two senators’ efforts.

President Obama endorsed the proposal.

“Americans know what’s at stake by continuing our dependence on fossil fuels,” Mr. Obama said Wednesday. “But the challenges we face — underscored by the immense tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico — are reason to redouble our efforts to reform our nation’s energy policies. For too long, Washington has kicked this challenge to the next generation. This time, the status quo is no longer acceptable to Americans.”

He called on the Senate to move ahead so that a final bill could be enacted this year.

One of the central elements of the Senate bill — incentives to increase domestic offshore oil production — was changed in the aftermath of the explosion and fire on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the gulf on April 20, which left an undersea well leaking oil. Instead of providing for a broad expansion of offshore drilling, the measure would have the effect of sharply limiting oil operations off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts by giving states the right to veto any drilling plan that could cause environmental or economic harm.

The original oil drilling provision was drafted in part by Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, a supporter of expanded drilling and an important envoy to other Republicans. Mr. Graham had been a partner in drawing up the climate legislation, but he dropped out of the effort last week over the problems raised by the gulf spill and an unrelated dispute with the Senate leadership over immigration.

Mr. Graham said Wednesday that while he agreed with many of the goals of his former partners, he did not think that the Senate was likely to act this year.

“The problems created by the historic oil spill in the gulf, along with the uncertainty of immigration politics, have made it extremely difficult for transformational legislation in the area of energy and climate to garner bipartisan support at this time,” he said.

The Kerry-Lieberman proposal would treat each major sector of the economy differently, while providing something for every major energy interest: loan guarantees for nuclear plant operators, incentives for use of natural gas in transportation, exemptions from emissions caps for heavy industry, generous pollution permits for utilities for years, modest carbon dioxide limits for oil refiners and substantial refunds for consumers.

The bill’s overall goal is to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 17 percent (compared with 2005 levels) by 2020, and by 83 percent by 2050. The targets match those in a House bill passed last year and in the Obama administration’s announced policy goal.

There is no economywide cap-and-trade system like that in the House measure, but electric utilities will face limits on their greenhouse-gas emissions and a market will be established to allow them to trade pollution permits. The leader of the main utility industry trade group, Thomas R. Kuhn of the Edison Electric Institute, stood with Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lieberman on Wednesday and endorsed their bill.

The oil industry will have to buy emissions permits, based loosely on the price set in the utility-trading markets. It is expected they will pass along added costs to consumers in the form of higher fuel prices. The American Petroleum Institute said it was withholding judgment until the measure’s effects on the oil and gas industry could be analyzed. Some oil companies, however, including BP and ConocoPhillips, have indicated their support.

It cannot yet be known whether the concessions and compromises embodied in the bill will let it attract the 60 votes needed to thwart a filibuster.

Some environmental advocates were involved in drafting the bill and were highly supportive. But other environmentalists said the bill did not go far enough and offered too many concessions to win industry support.

The United States Chamber of Commerce, whose support was avidly courted, refused to endorse the measure, calling it a “work in progress” that may prove too costly to business. (link)

 

 







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Siemens’s Green Energy Sales Grow

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

German engineering conglomerate Siemens AG said its revenue from energy-saving and other green technology products rose 11% to €23 billion (about $34.5 billion) over the past year, more than a quarter of its total expected sales in fiscal 2009.

Siemens, long a world leader in coal-fired and nuclear-energy plant production, is increasingly generating its sales from products such as energy-saving turbine engines, solar inverter systems and components for so-called smart electricity grids. The growth in such environmentally minded products helped keep the German engineering giant’s overall sales steady in an otherwise difficult year.

“Our green products and solutions are contributing to stabilizing our business during the economic crisis,” said Barbara Kux, Siemens management board member and chief sustainability officer. The company has said it expects to generate the same level of total sales in fiscal 2009 as it did in 2008, or €77.3 billion.

Siemens is moving to capitalize on the carbon-dioxide emission-reduction targets many companies now have to meet. It’s also banking on growth from the hundreds of billions of euros that governments around the world plan to spend over the next several years to make power grids, transportation networks and other infrastructure more efficient and less damaging to the environment.

“We don’t just want to talk about it,” Ms. Kux said in an interview. “We have the solutions in our pocket.”

Siemens also announced Tuesday its first wind energy order from Latin America. The $270 million contract, from Mexican wind energy developer Grupo Soluciones en Energias Renovables, is to build 70 wind turbines for the Los Vergeles wind farm in Tamaulipas, Mexico. The project is intended to supply more than 200,000 Mexican households with clean power by the end of 2010.   (link)

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Oil prices hit high but report warns of supply crunch

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

World oil prices hit their highest point for a year yesterday, as a major new report urged governments around the world to take drastic action to head off an approaching oil supply crunch.

US light crude futures pushed above $79 a barrel, supported by the view that a recovering world economy would raise demand for crude. Oil prices have more than doubled from the low point they hit in the spring, but are still around half the all-time high of nearly $150 a barrel they reached in early summer last year.

Analysts have been surprised at the recent resilience of oil prices given the impact on energy demand of the global recession. In spite of this year’s volatility in the oil price, the underlying trend for a decade has been for it to rise steadily.

A report from the non-governmental organisation Global Witness – famous for its exposé of so-called “blood diamonds” – pointed to an impending supply shock that could be so severe that many of the world’s poor countries would simply be shut off from the world of energy by sky-high prices.

Two years in the preparation, Global Witness’s report, Heads in the Sand, accused governments of ignoring the fact that the world could soon start to run short of oil. This would lead to huge consequences in terms of price shocks and much higher levels of violence around the world than last year’s food riots.

“There is a train crash about to happen from an energy point of view. But politicians everywhere seem to have entirely missed the scale of the problem,” said the report’s author, Simon Taylor.

“We are all addicted to oil but if you look at the mathematics of the problem, they simply don’t add up in terms of future supply and demand.”

The report went through the latest figures from the oil industry and the Paris-based International Energy Agency, which last year drastically reduced its estimate of the available oil.

The IEA figures showed there could be a gap of 7m barrels a day between supply and demand by 2015. That represents about 8% of the expected world demand by then of 91m barrels a day.

The IEA expects production from existing oilfields to fall by 50% between now and 2020 and warned the world needs to find an additional 64m barrels a day of capacity by 2030 – equivalent to six times current Saudi Arabian production.

But Global Witness took issue with the IEA’s recommendation that the oil industry spend $450bn a year chasing these supplies, many of which may well not be there. Because of the demands of climate change, the report argued, the money would be better invested in moving rapidly to a post-oil world of renewable energy and conservation.

Taylor said even the new IEA projections of how much new oil the world would discover were likely to be over-optimistic. He said the so-called “big” oil discoveries of the last few years added up to nothing like the “discovery rate” needed to replace the world’s dwindling supplies from existing fields. They have totalled around 16bn barrels, or only around 1.7m barrels a day, once up and running.

The report said that between 2005 and 2008, global oil production ceased to grow in spite of widespread investment and rising prices, which should normally have brought forth a big rise in supply. It notes that the biggest year for new discoveries was 1965, since when they have been falling. Global oil production overtook new discoveries in 1984 and has outpaced them ever since.

It also dismissed as myth a widely held expectation that tar sands in Canada could fill the supply gap. Tar sands are unlikely ever to yield more than 3-4m barrels a day, equivalent to the pace at which existing fields are declining every year.

Taylor said the four key issues about oil – declining output, declining discoveries, increasing demand and insufficient projects in the pipeline – have been apparent for many years.

“But governments and multilateral agencies have failed to recognise the imminence and scale of the global oil supply crunch, and most of them remain completely unprepared for its consequences,” he said.

“There has been a decade of dithering and it is now too late to avoid the consequences unless the authorities move like there is no tomorrow.”   (link)

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Obama: Clean energy helps economy, environment

Thursday, October 15, 2009

President Barack Obama says it’s time to do the right thing for the environment and at the same boost the economy by doing more to promote renewable energy and reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.

At a town hall meeting Thursday in New Orleans, a participant asked Obama what can be done to make environmental policies more effective.

Obama pointed to clean-energy programs already being financed by the economic stimulus package. He said renewable energy has the potential to become a huge engine for economic growth in the economy.

The president said he’ll be pushing for a broader clean-energy initiative once he’s done working on health care legislation.  (link)

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The top 10 cleantech countries of 2009

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Shawn Lesser of Sustainable World Capital takes a global look at government mandates, green-collar jobs and entrepreneurial innovation.

The cleantech wave is expected to continue to grow, with some analysts estimating the cleantech market will crack the $2 trillion threshold by 2030.

The players in the cleantech space are a mix of world economic, political and social leaders. They include former American vice presidents, billionaire entrepreneurs, Arab Sultans, Internet moguls and huge pension funds.

A few months ago, I ranked the best states for top 10 states in the U.S for cleantech (see The top 10 U.S. states for cleantech in 2009 [1]). But that got me thinking: Which countries are the leaders in cleantech?

There are no black and white answers. I analyzed what I thought were the most important factors, such as government initiatives and programs, large investment mandates, entrepreneurial innovation as well as cultural and social drivers.

What are the key objectives of the countries on my list? For starters, the creation of green collar jobs, continued economic development, and a desire to achieve energy independence.

Here, then, is my ranking for the ten top cleantech countries of 2009:

  1. Denmark with the national goal of becoming 100 percent fossil fuel free. The Danes are Europe’s largest exporters of energy technology and the birthplace of wind technology. The Danish wind industry accounts for approximately one-third of the world market, with big players such as Vestas, Siemens and Gamesa all having major R&D and production facilities in Denmark. The Danes also have the financial backing of ATP Pension Fund, DONG Energy and AP Pension, all with huge mandates for cleantech. Denmark is truly a model cleantech country where business, international cooperation, entrepreneurship and R&D partnerships are facilitated by such organizations as Copenhagen Capacity, Copenhagen Cleantech Cluster, and Cleantech Scandinavia (see A Copenhagen call to action [2]). 
  2. Germany is the solar capital of the world. Over half of all global solar energy is produced in Germany. Led by powerful government initiatives such as the feed-in tariff program, 10 percent of the energy consumed in Germany was produced from renewable resources in 2008. Germany also tops European countries for cleantech investment in 2008, with $383 million in capital—an increase of 217 percent from 2007 (see ‘Mittelstand’ drives Germany’s cleantech boom [3]). The German government’s “High Tech Strategy” devoted more than €15 billion to technology and innovation between 2006 and 2009 and has helped increase employment in the cleantech industry from 250,000 in 2007 to 280,000 in 2008. Germany’s 2050 goal is to have half of primary energy consumption coming from renewable resources.
  3. Sweden is a country fully embracing green technologies, with 43.3 percent of total energy consumption coming from renewable sources. The city of Malmo is a true example of cleantech living—with 39.9 percent of its energy consumption covered by renewable energy (see Swedish port city in green transformation [4]). Sweden boasts two internationally renowned sustainable city projects, City of Tomorrow in Malmo and Hammarby Waterfront in Stockholm. Between 1990 and 2007 Sweden’s GDP grew by 48 percent while greenhouse gas emissions decreased by 9 percent. Strong legislation has pushed the cleantech industry, fueled by some of the strongest environmental organizations in the world. The Society of Nature Conservation, WWF and Greenpeace have some 500,000 supporters/members in a country with a total population of 8.5 million. Add the backing of financial of such institutions as AP7 Pension Fund, Northzone Ventures, Sustainable Technologies Funds, and SEB Venture Capital, and one can easily see why Sweden is a true cleantech force on the world stage.
  4. The United Kingdom’s official commitment to cleantech is strong and growing. It is aiming to achieve a 60 percent reduction in UK carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, and carbon neutrality by 2012 for the government’s office estate, all backed by such groups as UK Trade & Investments and ThinkLondon (see UK: No new coal without CCS [5] and UK to spend £250M on electric car incentives [6]). With the 2012 Olympics aimed to be the greenest games ever, the UK has set a target of 15 percent of energy from renewables by 2020. The UK is also in the running for the financial hub of cleantech with well respected firms such as Generation Investment Management (co-founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore), Virgin Green Fund (founded by entrepreneur billionaire Sir Richard Branson), Zouk Ventures, Carbon Trust, Impax, and the Environment Technology Fund.
  5. Israel, the ‘Silicon Valley’ of water technology, is fast becoming the cleantech incubator to the world (see Israel to export $2.5B in water technologies by 2011 [7]). Israel recycles 75 percent of its wastewater, invented drip irrigation, and is home to the world’s largest reverse osmosis desalination plant (see Israel plans largest desal plant in $513M deal [8]). Israel certainly isn’t the world’s biggest cleantech market, but it might just be one of the world’s most important centers of cleantech innovation and R&D, with innovative companies such as CellEra, Aqwise, and Emefcy. Better Place is also making Israel the first test-market for a nationwide electric vehicle recharge network (see Electric cars are coming to Israel [9]). Leading Israeli VCs include Israel Cleantech, Aqua Argo Fund and Terra Ventures.
  6. Switzerland has set itself apart as the global hub of cleantech finance. It led the way the with a specialized fund more than 10 years ago, and is now home to a huge pool of cleantech money in financial powerhouses such as SAM, Good Energies, Emerald, UBS, Picet Sarasin and Mountain Cleantech (see Swiss group spreads the cash around [10] and Swiss cleantech € and ocean power [11]). Intertwined with a historic culture for sustainability and 56 percent of all electricity coming from hydropower, Switzerland has positioned itself to take advantage of the cleantech revolution.
  7. The United States, with American-based VCs pouring about $5.9 billion of new investments into the sector in 2008, leads the world with 70 percent of total global investment (see Record 2008 for cleantech with $8.4B in investments [12]). Preeminent VCs such as Nth Power, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, RockPort Capital Partners, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Enterech Capital and corporate investors such as Google and Intel have helped to fuel cleantech. Other large U.S. investors in cleantech include CalPERS, California State Teachers Retirement System, New York State Retirement Fund and the Oregon Investment Fund. President Obama has also sent a very strong signal: Renewable energy is going to play a central role in both energy-environment and economic recovery strategies.
  8. While the United Arab Emirates may not be the greenest nation in the world today, it is taking bold steps to position itself as a renewable energy hub of tomorrow (see UAE: The future of cleantech? [13]). Led by CEO Sultan Al Jaber in 2006, Abu Dhabi established Masdar City, a $15 billion development that is expected to become the world’s first zero-carbon, zero-waste city. It is to be home to more than 1,500 renewable energy-related companies, creating a global centre of renewable innovation (see Abu Dhabi, the next cleantech hub? [14]). When a leading oil-producing country tells the world it wants to become the new hub for renewables, it is sending a strong message that the future is beyond petroleum.
  9. China is a world leader in the manufacturing of solar photovoltaic technology, with its six biggest solar companies having a combined value of more than $15 billion. China has incredible potential when it comes to cleantech. China has abundant resources in hydropower, wind, solar, biofuel, geothermal and tidal energies. Renewable energies and nuclear power accounted for 7.5 percent of total energy consumption last year. China’s State Renewable Energy Agency is aiming to raise its renewable share to 10 percent in 2010 and 15 percent in 2020. China’s hydro potential ranks first in the world. In addition, China has the largest wind resources in the world and three-quarters of them are offshore (see China drives global market, supply for wind [15]).
  10. Canada runs on hydropower. Canada is the world’s second largest producer of hydroelectricity in the world. Some provinces such as Quebec, Manitoba, Newfoundland & Labrador, and the Yukon produce more than 90 percent of their electricity from hydro. The Canada government has put a unique program into place, the $1 billion Sustainable Development Technology Canada fund. SDTC is a not-for-profit foundation that finances and supports the development and demonstration of clean technologies.

Who will emerge as the ultimate winner? In the end, I think we’ll see many winners, but keep an eye on those countries that have powerful government regulations and incentives, large capital infusions, a spirit of innovation and powerful cultural adaption and enthusiasm.

Shawn Lesser is the president and founder of Atlanta-based Sustainable World Capital, which is focused on fund-raising for private equity cleantech/sustainable funds, as well as private cleantech companies. For information, visit his Web site [16].   (link)

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President Barack Obama’s so-called green team has undergone a growth spurt

Thursday, October 8, 2009

President Barack Obama’s so-called green team has undergone a growth spurt.

The group of Cabinet secretaries and White House advisers who meet regularly to craft the president’s energy and environmental agenda now numbers 13, double what it was during the administration’s early days.

It’s just one of the signs that the administration is stepping up its push to pass energy and climate legislation this year, as the Senate continues to wrangle with Obama’s other top domestic priority, health care reform. The House has already passed a bill.

Since the summer, when everyone else’s attention was focused on the heated town hall meetings over health care, Obama administration officials have been meeting with more than half the Senate, made calls to nearly 100 mayors in 17 states, and met with numerous governors, according to White House records. Their goal, according to Carol Browner, the president’s assistant for energy and climate change, “is to get the bill moving and keep it moving.”

“It’s really engaging a wide array of people across the administration to make sure that we’re answering the questions that the Senate needs answered and working with individual members as they think about how they can support comprehensive energy legislation,” Browner said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press. “It’s just grown and grown and grown, with more and more Cabinet agencies and secretaries wanting to be involved.”

In the days and hours before the House vote in June, White House officials and the president himself pressed reluctant lawmakers to vote for the legislation. The bill passed narrowly, 219-212. The climb to 60 votes in the Senate is expected to be even more steep, and it comes as the administration is under pressure to make progress on climate change before international negotiations in Copenhagen in December. The Senate bill would cut greenhouse gases 80 percent by 2050.

The White House effort started earlier this year. The first big meeting between Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who introduced the bill last week, and administration officials took place over dinner in March at his Georgetown home. Browner, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, White House science adviser John Holdren and State Department climate negotiators Todd Stern and Jonathan Pershing attended.

There has also been a permanent White House representative at a weekly meeting of nearly 20 senators working to advance the legislation, Kerry said.

“Now there will be a more unified meeting process between senators and the administration in order to lock things in,” said Kerry. “We are getting into the stage of negotiations where people need to close.”

Browner was scheduled to meet later Thursday with a group of five Democratic senators concerned about the cost curbing greenhouse gases will have on their home-state industries. Their votes are crucial for the measure to pass.

“It’s important for us to get right from the senators their thinking,” Browner said. “As the bill starts to move … we want to make sure that we in the administration know what members are most focused on and what’s going to be key to ensuring their support for comprehensive energy legislation.”

How much support the administration is getting is unclear. Kerry on Thursday acknowledged that the bill had a long way to go. His co-sponsor Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said Sunday during an interview on C-SPAN that she did not have the 60 votes. Hearings on the measure may also be pushed back to later in October to wait for an EPA analysis of the legislation.

Browner would not handicap the bill Thursday, saying only that she wanted the legislation “to be as far along as we possibly can be.”

In a sign of how important a domestic bill is to the White House’s efforts, Browner has no plans yet to attend the U.N. conference in Copenhagen — and she says she won’t be going if the bill is still working its way through Congress.

“Obviously, we’d love to sign the bill” into law before then, Browner said. “I don’t think that is going to happen.”  (link)

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Guardian U.K.: A new report says worldwide production of conventionally extracted oil could peak in the next decade

Thursday, October 8, 2009

There is a “significant risk” that global oil production could begin to decline in the next decade, researchers said today.

A report by the UK Energy Research Council (UKERC) said worldwide production of conventionally extracted oil could “peak” and go into terminal decline before 2020 – but that the government was not facing up to the risk.

Falls in production will lead to higher and more volatile prices, and could encourage investment in even more polluting fossil fuels, such as tar sands, which “need to stay in the ground” to avoid dangerous climate change as a result of carbon emissions, the researchers said.

The new report said there was too much geological, political and economic uncertainty to predict an exact date for peak oil, which would not lead to a sudden decline but a “bumpy plateau” with a downward trend in extraction.

But Steve Sorrell, chief author of the report, said while those who forecasted an imminent decline had underestimated oil reserves, more positive forecasts suggesting oil production will not peak before 2030 were “at best optimistic and at worst implausible”.

The world has used less than half of the planet’s conventionally extracted oil, but the remaining resources will be more difficult and expensive to get out of the ground, slowing production and increasing prices of crude.

With exploitation of the world’s reserves running at more than 80m barrels a day, even major new discoveries such as the oil fields recently found in the Gulf of Mexico by BP would only delay a peak by a few days or weeks, the report said.

Robert Gross of UKERC said: “The age of easy and cheap oil is coming to an end. It doesn’t suddenly come to an end; obviously it’s a gradual change. But we’re moving away from easy and cheap oil to increasingly difficult and expensive oil.”

The public should expect to see more higher and more volatile petrol costs in the future, with long-distance travel becoming pricier.

Britons should invest in the most energy-efficient vehicles and put pressure on the government to take the issue seriously, the researchers urged. With long time-scales and large investment needed to move away from a reliance on crude oil – particularly in the transport sector, which uses the lion’s share of fossil fuel – the report said governments needed to take action now.

Sorrell said the UK government had no contingency plans for oil peaking before 2020, but officials needed to increase and speed up measures already being taken to cut climate emissions, such as improving vehicle fuel efficiency, shifting to electric cars and investing more in public transport.

Though high oil prices could encourage investment in renewables and technological changes, they could also do the same for more polluting and energy-intensive forms of oil. These include tar sands, where extraction of fuel becomes viable when the oil price hits around $70/barrel – its current level – and converting coal to a liquid, which requires a great deal of energy.

“Most of these unconventional resources need to stay in the ground, but [there are] such strong incentives to exploit them,” he said.

The consequences in terms of carbon emissions of unconventional sources of oil could be “catastrophic”, Gross said.

“The danger is, high oil prices push us into high carbon resources just as much as they might help push us towards renewables. The challenge for policymakers is to make sure, on a global scale, that that isn’t the response to more difficult and expensive oil.”

A spokesman for the Energy and Climate Change Department said: “Already, our climate change, energy efficiency and energy security policies outlined in the UK low carbon transition plan are not only reducing the UK’s carbon emissions, but are consistent with the need to reduce our use of fossil fuels.

“This will help to ease demand for oil in the UK and internationally. In addition, the UK government is investing and supporting research on renewable and clean transport technologies – which is the UK sector that consumes most fossil fuels.”    (link)

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Job Well Done: Austin Energy general manager announces retirement

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Austin Energy General Manager Roger Duncan announced Tuesday that he will retire on March 1, 2010.

Duncan, who served two terms on Austin City Council and led a 20-year career as manger in the environmental department, began his post as general manager of the electric utility last February.

“More than 35 years ago I began to work as a citizen of Austin to convince the city government to focus on new programs in energy conservation, renewable energy, recycling and other programs to help make our city more environmentally conscience and sustainable in its actions,” Duncan said. “I did not realize at the time how involved I would become.”

Under Duncan’s leadership the utility has maintained one of the lowest electric rates in Texas and became a national leader for programs including Green Building, Smart Grid efficiency and promotion in development of plug-in hybrid vehicles.

City Manager Marc Ott commended Duncan for his vision in keeping the utility at the forefront of green energy alternatives and improving service reliability.

“He leaves, obviously, some very big shoes to fill,” Ott said. “Roger has done an exemplary job in leading Austin Energy, and it will be a challenge to find someone who can come in and continue his legacy.”

The city plans to conduct a national search for Duncan’s replacement in the next few months.

Echoing Ott’s praise, Mayor Lee Leffingwell said Duncan put Austin Energy on the map, not just in Texas or in the nation, but globally.

After retirement, Duncan plans to finish a book on energy, seek opportunities to teach and possibly do part-time consulting.

“It has been a great honor to serve the citizens of Austin in various roles over the years and I now look forward to finding new opportunities to help this great city,” he said.   (link)

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Defiant Chamber Chief Says ‘Bring ‘Em On’

Thursday, October 8, 2009

The United States Chamber of Commerce, under fire for its vocal opposition to climate change regulation, says that the vast majority of its members support its position.

“We’re not changing where we are,” Thomas Donohue, the group’s president and chief executive, told a small group of reporters in Washington this morning. “We’ve thought long and hard about what is important here and we’re not going anywhere.”

He said that the chamber was sorry for the “Scopes monkey trial” analogy raised by a chamber representative this summer in conversations with the media — in which the representative, William Kovacs, vowed to put climate change regulation on trial, similar to the 1920s showdown between creationists and evolutionists.

However, the Chamber would still like a full, public hearing on the science behind the proposed endangerment finding of the Environmental Protection Agency, by which the agency aims to regulate carbon dioxide emissions as it does other forms of pollution.

“We don’t have regrets about our position and we’re not going to change it,” Mr. Donohue said.

That position, as Mr. Donohue said in his opening remarks, is: “We, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, support strong action on climate change.” That includes, he said, federal legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions, though the chamber opposes the Waxman-Markey version of a climate bill that passed the House in June.

That bill, Mr. Donohue said, would raise energy prices significantly and “either put our companies at a disadvantage globally or risk a trade war.”

Fewer than a dozen members have raised objections to the chamber’s position climate policy, Mr. Donohue said, and “Almost nobody is pressing us to change our position.”

Mr. Donohue had particular remarks for Apple, which canceled its membership last week, describing the chamber’s position as being “at odds” with regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr. Donohue said that Apple, in a letter the company issued upon its resignation, “flatly misstates” the chamber’s position on greenhouse gases.

“The great preponderance of our members believe in our position and support it,” he added.

The chamber, Mr. Donohue said, has become a lightning rod because it has raised objections to the legislation “with good manners and high integrity.” Of his critics in the business community, Congress and environmental groups he said: “Bring ‘em on.”

 

As to how the chamber arrived at its climate positions — a subject raised by Nike, which quit the board last month but remained in the chamber — Bruce Josten, the chamber’s executive vice-president for government affairs, explained that the chamber has an energy and environment committee made up of more than 100 representatives from member companies.

Those committees, Mr. Josten said, have debated and made a recommendation on policy. It was never voted on by the board of directors, he said, because it was brought before the board on the “consent calendar,” meaning there was no debate or vote.

The board has never voted on Waxman-Markey because “it didn’t meet the principles that the board adopted,” Mr. Josten said, and thus no action was necessary.

He added that Nike was the only company that has questioned the Chamber’s governance and how such policies are produced.  (link)

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Saudis ask for aid if world cuts dependence on oil

Thursday, October 8, 2009

There are plenty of needy countries at the U.N. climate talks in Bangkok that make the case they need financial assistance to adapt to the impacts of global warming. Then there are the Saudis.

Saudi Arabia has led a quiet campaign during these and other negotiations — demanding behind closed doors that oil-producing nations get special financial assistance if a new climate pact calls for substantial reductions in the use of fossil fuels.

That campaign comes despite an International Energy Agency report released this week showing that OPEC revenues would still increase $23 trillion between 2008 and 2030 — a fourfold increase compared to the period from 1985 to 2007 — if countries agree to significantly slash emissions and thereby cut their use of oil. That is the limit most countries agree is needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

The head of the Saudi delegation Mohammad S. Al Sabban dismissed the IEA figures as “biased” and said OPEC’s own calculations showed that Saudi Arabia would lose $19 billion a year starting in 2012 under a new climate pact. The region would lose much more, he said.

“We are among the economically vulnerable countries,” Al Sabban told The Associated Press on the sidelines of the talks ahead of negotiations in Copenhagen in December for a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

“This is very serious for us,” he continued. “We are in the process of diversifying our economy but this will take a long time. We don’t have too many resources.”

Saudi Arabia, which sits atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves, is seeing economic growth slide because of fallout from the global meltdown, but experts still expect the country, flush with cash from oil’s earlier price spike last year, to be better able than other nations to cope with the current crisis.

Al Sabban accused Western nations of pursuing an agenda against oil producers, under the guise of protecting the planet.

“Many politicians in the Western world think these climate change negotiations and the new agreement will provide them with a golden opportunity to reduce their dependence on imported oil,” Al Sabban said. “That means you will transfer the burden to developing countries, especially to those highly dependent on the exploitation of oil.”

Al Sabban said his country wanted a new deal and was not impeding progress in talks as some activists have claimed.

An Arab environmental group IndyACT and the environmental group Germanwatch released a report Thursday accusing Saudi Arabia of blocking key elements of the negotiations. Among their tactics, the groups said, was slowing negotiations by insisting that the economic woes of oil producers be included in the text.

“Despite the variability in the region, the current Arab position is mainly focused around protecting the oil trade rather than saving the planet form the adverse impacts of climate change,” said Wael Hmaidan, the executive director of IndyACT.

Most countries have agreed that any new pact should include provisions to avoid temperature increases of more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above preindustrial levels — the threshold at which most scientists say serious climate change will ensue.

That would require emissions cuts from industrial countries of 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, far above the 15 to 23 percent cuts rich countries have offered so far. It would also require developing countries to scale back their emissions.

Both rich and poor countries are counting on a transition to a low carbon economy as a key component of meeting their reductions, a move that would require them to away from fossil fuels and toward renewables like solar, wind and hydro power. (link)

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