A pending bill in the Massachusetts legislature would set up a reasonably good system for facilitating the siting of wind energy facilities in Massachusetts.   Conservation Law Foundation and a group of allies have placed on the public record a letter supporting this bill and responding to issues raised by opponents.   We urge Massachusetts residents to educate themselves on this issue and to make their voices heard.

Anyone who has ever authored anything relating to global warming that was posted on even a moderately popular website knows that this is a topic that brings forth legions of trolls lurking in the tubes of the interwebs in web “comments.”

My recent Boston Globe Op-Ed (which also was posted on this blog) unleashed just such a torrent.

Fortunately, some sanity prevailed in the later comments as a fellow who goes by “freejung” posted some smart responses with links to good resources at the end of the comment string.

He highlights the letter from 18 of the most respected science organizations to the Senate on the subject as well as an interesting list of web resources.

Perhaps the most interesting development in the collapse of climate change denial as socially and intellectually acceptable is the news that Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma appears to stand alone as the last “flat earther”, to use the words of a Washington Post columnist.   That column quotes a number of Inhofe’s colleagues who don’t support particular bills but do believe in the science:

“Eleven academies in industrialized countries say that climate change is real; humans have caused most of the recent warming,” admitted Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). “If fire chiefs of the same reputation told me my house was about to burn down, I’d buy some fire insurance.”

An oil-state senator, David Vitter (R-La), said that he, too, wants to “get us beyond high-carbon fuels” and “focus on conservation, nuclear, natural gas and new technologies like electric cars.” And an industrial-state senator, George Voinovich (R-Ohio), acknowledged that climate change “is a serious and complex issue that deserves our full attention.”

The continued flow of oil into the Timor Sea north of Australia previously presented on this blog

"PTTEP ERG Media" via Australian Broadcasting Company

is both a general example of the many kinds of harm that flow from uncontrolled fossil fuel use and a specific example of why talk about new drilling techniques being safe should be viewed with great skepticism.

News reports tell us that the flow of oil into the sea from the drilling platform continues and in a really sad new development the platform burst into flames during an attempt to close down the well.

And now there is video of the situation.  Note the spokesman for the oil exploration company admitting that the fire is out of control.

And yes the Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett who is in part responsible for dealing with this is the same Peter Garrett who was the lead singer of Australian rock band Midnight Oil.  Only a matter of time until someone asks how he can sleep while the rig is burning, to paraphrase their biggest hit.

CLF’s Seth Kaplan in an Op-Ed article from the October 26, 2009 Boston Globe:

THE BLUR of details and fog of ideological attacks can obscure the truly essential in the current congressional debate about legislation to confront global warming while building a green economy: the stark need for immediate action.

The bill recently unveiled by Senators John F. Kerry and Barbara Boxer represents an important step forward. The bill is not perfect, and ways that it can be strengthened are discussed below. However, it does include some of the most essential tools for addressing this most fundamental of challenges.

The Kerry-Boxer bill sets hard targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions consistent with the need identified by science. It creates new tools for tackling the job of climate stabilization while leaving in place the US Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to use tried-and-true tools in this cause. The citizens of Massachusetts should feel strongly about maintaining those tools: our attorney general’s office led the charge that culminated in a Supreme Court declaration that greenhouse gas emissions can be addressed under the decades-old federal Clean Air Act.

This core of essential provisions – a science-based cap on greenhouse gas emissions and sustained EPA authority – provides a solid foundation for federal climate legislation.

Kerry took a critical step toward moving the legislative process forward when he coauthored a New York Times op-ed article with Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican, describing a course to the 60 votes needed for Senate passage. In his collaboration with Graham, Kerry is acting in the best tradition of reaching across the aisle to “get to yes.’’ However, while bipartisan compromise is essential, a climate bill must not be traded for the environmental soul of the Senate. Packaging a climate bill with provisions, hinted at in the op-ed, that make the climate challenge more difficult and that Kerry has long (and appropriately) rejected, such as opening fragile coastal waters to oil drilling, should be a nonstarter. The same is true for proposals to pour billions of dollars into expensive nuclear power plants, especially given the long-unanswered questions about the safety and security of those plants, the very dangerous waste they produce, and the opportunities that would be lost for investing instead in truly sustainable and clean energy resources.

Good federal climate policy will emphasize clean and cost-effective measures like energy efficiency, both supporting state efforts and introducing strong new federal mandates for deployment of efficiency resources. It should also bring forward state and federal incentives and standards for renewable energy, like wind and solar, breaking our dependence on dirty and imported fossil fuels. It should create a framework for planning new transmission lines to support a massive ramp-up in renewable electricity generation, while respecting the critical role of states and regions in electric system planning.

These clean energy provisions, as well as the excellent building and energy code provisions from the House’s Waxman-Markey bill, will fit cleanly into a Senate climate bill. The final legislative package must include smart “cap and invest’’ provisions that set out a mechanism for auctioning pollution allowances and investing the proceeds in clean energy, especially efficiency and conservation measures that can slash greenhouse gas emissions while reducing energy bills and fostering livable communities. It should also support clean transportation planning and infrastructure and mandate use of low carbon fuels.

The legislation also should build upon New England’s nation-leading role in beginning the process of purging our fleet of old, inefficient, and polluting coal-fired power plants – an essential transformation that can be accelerated and replicated nationally by a strengthened climate bill setting clear standards implemented through a rapid phase-in.

Passing climate legislation will not be easy. We must continue to look to leaders like Edward Markey and Kerry to press forward with this most difficult yet essential of tasks. If we do not fully support and help them and their colleagues to deliver on this critical legislation, we will both court disaster and bear responsibility for dumping an increasingly heavy burden on our children.

October 24, 2009 is the International Day of Climate Action, and author Bill McKibben’s advocacy movement known as 350.org has been getting a lot of attention. 350.org is coordinating a widespread day of environmental action with one goal: solutions to the climate crisis.

Why 350? McKibben argues that it is the safe upper limit in atmospheric carbon dioxide, measured in parts per million. In order to avoid an environmental catastrophe, it’s the number targeted by this movement. In this week’s Yale Environment 360, economist Frank Ackerman argues that what is good for the Earth is good for the wallet. Of course, it is an alarming idea that this is the “safe” level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as we are at 390 already – and rising.

Though 350.org’s wide umbrella includes some efforts that are problematic, the message is a powerful one: the time for solutions is now. The medium of that message, hundreds of thousands of people at 4,000 events in 170 countries, is even more striking.

To locate an event in your local community, use the map below:

To hop on this trajectory of a reduction in global carbon dioxide levels, learn the 5 things that New Englanders must do in 5 years, and 5 things that you can do in 5 minutes.

Incredibly, Boston-based energy management company EnerNOC, a company that likes to pitch itself as “green”, has convinced  the California Public Utilities Commission to approve a program that uses diesel generators to supply “peak power” to Sempra, the electric utility serving the San Diego area.  SNL, an energy and financial trade press website, reported the decision this way:

California narrowly approves diesel generators contract for demand-side management
October 15, 2009 5:11 PM ET
By Jeff Stanfield

In a rare 3-2 vote, the California Public Utilities Commission on Oct. 15 approved San Diego Gas & Electric Co.’s contract with Celerity Energy Partners, an EnerNOC Inc. company that aggregates distributed generation resources, with dissenting commissioners arguing that the decision threatens a core state energy policy.

The commissioners fell out over whether 45 MW of small diesel backup generators should be included at the top of the state’s loading order, which emphasizes energy efficiency and demand response as the first choice for meeting electricity needs.

. . . PUC President Michael Peevey and Commissioner Dian Grueneich argued that approval of the contract would be counter to the state’s energy policies.

“It would put diesels on top of demand response,” Peevey said. “Demand response is on top of the loading order, and this would flip [the energy resource preference policy] on its head. Placing diesel first is inconsistent with the state’s energy and environmental policies.”

For full story, including how the diesel generators that will be part of the program will install pollution control equipment (which they should do anyway but incredibly is not required for all diesel generators) and the justification for the decision as replacing new conventional power plants  click here

A staff “Administrative Law Judge” had recommended rejection of the contract. It is interesting to note that the 3-2 vote went the way it did, overriding that recommendation, because one Commissioner (in fact the one who proposed overriding the staff) phoned in his vote from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington.

Sadly, EnerNOC is polluting both the environment and its image when it gets involved in deploying diesel generators for peak electricity generation at the very times, and in the very places, when local populations are most vulnerable to air pollution.

Much of EnerNOC’s other technologies and actions help to reduce pollution and build a green economy – but deploying diesel generators that spew large quantities of greenhouse gas pollution, as well as conventional emissions, pulls in exactly the wrong direction. The investors who are buying into EnerNOC because they think it is a “green” company that is rising with that tide should be outraged by this project and action.

The NY Times presents some required reading about how improvements in air pollution control technology can have the unpleasant consequence of putting pollution into our waterways.  The problem of contaminated coal ash is one that CLF has engaged for years – back in the year 2000 CLF negotiated a successful settlement with the then-owner of the Salem Harbor and Brayton Point power plants (PG&E) that cleaned up groundwater and land that had been contaminated by toxic coal ash over the course of decades – a settlement that predates the purchase of those power plants (out of bankruptcy) by Dominion – company that has its own checkered history regarding coal ash disposal.

Another manifestation of the same problem comes from the longstanding practice of using ash from coal fired powerplants as a “feedstock” for cement – iconic concrete structures containing coal ash include the Hoover dam, vast swaths of interstate highways and the tunnels and stations of the Washington DC metro.

More recently, coal plants have been awarded “carbon offsets” for selling ash to cement companies on the theory that use of ash “displaces” industrial kilns that produce greenhouse gas pollution while making cement.  Many organizations, including CLF, have expressed strong doubts about this practice – noting that it is simply paying coal plant owners once again for something they would have been doing anyway: turning a waste product into a revenue producing commodity.   A far better course of action, rather than create “rip offsets” that undermine climate protection while bestowing a windfall on polluters is to encourage processes and procedures that slash greenhouse gas emissions from cement kilns.

The increasing levels of toxic metals in the ash as air pollution regulations have tightened, is bringing an end to the practice of using fly ash in cement in projects designated as green under the LEED program of the U.S. Green Building Council and the innovative Collaborative for High-Performance Schools (CHPS).  Academic research strongly suggests that this is increasingly dangerous practice.

The bottom line is clear: coal is laden with toxic materials, and converting coal into energy, whether it be through burning it in the oldest or newest of plants (or even gasifying it)  releases these materials creating a serious toxic waste handling and disposal issue with potentially catastrophic effects if done badly.

The other day I got an email from the folks at Zipcar asking for support from Zipcar members who live in Brookline MA to speak up regarding proposed revised zoning ordinances to encourage car sharing, and this note is to ask for your support of these updates. The proposed changes are “Warrant Articles” 12 and 13 on the November 2009 Town Meeting Warrant.  Here’s a quick overview prepared by Zipcar:

• A limited number of shared car parking locations will be permitted in all areas except those zoned for single family dwellings.
• A special permitting process would be available for those locations where member demand requires us to provide more than the number of spaces allowed under Article 13.

In response I sent the following email to members of Brookline Town Meeting:

Dear Town Meeting Members,

I am writing to you today in both my personal capacity as a Brookline resident and in my professional capacity, as a climate and environmental advocate, in order to urge you to vote in favor of Warrant Articles 12 and 13.

Almost ten years ago I had an opportunity to discuss the idea of car sharing with the founders of Zipcar just prior to the creation and launch of that enterprise. I urged them to press ahead with the concept and company and I joined shortly after the launch and have made heavy use of their services ever since. I can directly testify that the presence of Zipcar (particularly in Brookline Village) has allowed my family to manage with only one car. Car sharing reduces demand for parking, consumption of land by cars and traffic on the streets as cars are juggled among parking spaces. It supports and enhances public transportation use and activity in our commercial and residential centers (like Brookline Village, Coolidge Corner and Washington Square) and town policy should encourage and foster its expansion.

Zipcar started with a single green Volkswagen New Beetle in the Springfield Street municipal parking lot in Cambridge and its early expansion brought it naturally to Brookline. Through organic growth and merger it has now expanded across the continent (from California to Canada) and even across the Atlantic to London. We should be proud of the role that Brookline played in providing this good enterprise with a base for growth and should recognize that it continues to provide value to our residents and a benefit to the Town. The proposed Warrant Articles are reasonable measures that will facilitate this important community benefit – whether it is provided by Zipcar or another car sharing service.

Please let me know if I can provide you with any additional information or answer any questions on this, or any other, subject.

Seth Kaplan

I firmly believe in the value of car sharing (really, the wikipedia entry is quite good) as a tool for reducing car ownership and usage and for boosting transit use and helping build vital urban communities.

Some members of Brookline Town Meeting have suggested that they are concerned about noisy and disruptive college students traveling to and returning from cars stored in residential areas. This is a legitimate concern – but I would point out that Zipcar (and pretty much every operation of this sort) requires that members be at least 21 years of age and having shared cars in the neighborhood has the positive effect of providing local students (and recent grads) with an alternative that allows them to avoid owning a car that will clog up local streets.

On August 21st, the Thai based energy company PTTEP announced that a “crude oil gas leak incident occurred” in the Timor Sea about 155 miles northwest of Western Australia.  The energy company’s press released continued that “the size of the spill is not known.  Aproximately 40 barrels of oil were discharged from the wellhead in the initial incident.”  In the ensuing month, it has become clear that this oil spill is much more serious than initially thought:

Aerial Photo of the oil spill from the drilling platform in the Timor Sea (Source: SkyTruth)

1. As of September 25th, photos from NASA satellites document that the oil slicks and sheen from the spill covered 9,870 square miles, an area even bigger than the state of Vermont.  Part of the oil sheen has been moving perilously close to the Cartier Island Marine Reserve.
2. According to conservative estimates by the World Wildlife Fund, the rig has been leaking 400 barrels a day — over 14,000 barrels since late August.  That equates to about 600,000 gallons of oil.
3. When the spill was first reported, the government of Australia predicted it would take 7 weeks to clean up.   Already, it has been 5 weeks and the spill isn’t contained.

This devastating spill may be a world away but US ocean waters, including Georges Bank and the rest of the Gulf of Maine, are also at risk because they no longer are protected from the devastating impacts of oil and gas extraction. As a parting gift before leaving office, President Bush lifted the Presidential Moratorium on drilling for oil and natural gas on the Outer Continental Shelf that had been in place since 1990.  On September 30, 2008, Congress followed suit and lifted a longstanding legislative ban on offshore oil and gas leasing as part of a large government operations appropriations bill.  As a result, important habitat in the Gulf of Maine, including Georges Bank — one of the world’s premier fishing grounds — is at risk of industrial scale fossil fuel energy development.

As the Saudi oil fields are tapped out, there is increased pressure to drill in remote areas of the ocean.  For example, at the beginning of September, BP announced a “giant oil discovery” 35,055 feet below the Gulf of Mexico seafloor, which itself is already 4,132 feet below the surface of the ocean.  In an ironic twist of fate, just as the ocean is beginning to bear the brunt of the impacts of climate change (see my earlier blog post on ocean acidification), oil companies are stepping up efforts to locate and drill for oil and gas under the seafloor.

Clearly we need energy — but how do we design a sustainable, climate neutral ocean energy solution that will not put important marine wildlife, habitat and ecosystems at risk? As Greg Watson, then a VP at the Mass Technology Collaborative, noted, New England (and Massachusetts in particular) is “the ‘Saudi Arabia of Wind.’” Of course, we need to responsibly tap this renewable resource — we can’t build wind farms wholesale across the region just because there is a lot of wind on the ocean.  Rather, we need to engage in a thorough marine spatial planning process whereby different human uses and ecological resources are identified and mapped and responsible renewable energy development is sited in a way that doesn’t create unreasonable impacts on those activities or natural resources.  Massachusetts is in the process of doing just that — and has released the first in the nation Draft Ocean Management Plan.  In Maine, the governor appointed an Ocean Energy Task Force to evaluate how to develop offshore renewable energy.  Rhode Island is working on an Ocean Special Area Management Plan (SAMP) in part to promote offshore renewable energy development.  Finally, at the federal level, President Obama issued an Executive Memorandum calling for a national ocean policy and marine spatial planning  framework.  CLF is working on all of these issues.

Imagine if all of Vermont were covered in an oil spill.  Well it has been over a month and an equally large spill in the Timor Sea hasn’t been contained.  Oil and gas drilling is still a risky business and, thanks to former President Bush and Congress, these projects are allowable in US ocean waters.  A concerted effort is needed to make oil and gas drilling old news.  We need to usher in a new era of responsible, climate friendly, renewable ocean energy development.  Help CLF make this a reality!

What can you do to help promote responsible marine renewable energy Development?

1. Sign the CLF Ocean Petition
2. Learn more about the Massachusetts Draft Ocean Management Plan, Maine Ocean Energy Task Force, Rhode Island Ocean Special Area Management Plan and the National Ocean Policy and Marine Spatial Framework.
3. Learn more about the Timor Sea Spill

Satellite Image of the oil spill in the Timor Sea. Northwest Australia is in the lower right hand corner of the photo (Source: SkyTruth)