Environment Forum

from Reuters Investigates:

Solar energy vs wildlife

Sarah McBride reports on brewing battles between environmentalists in her special report: "With solar power, it's Green vs. Green."

It turns out the perfect place to build a big solar plant is often also the perfect place for a tortoise or a fox to live. This means developers of large-scale solar plants are running into legal challenges from people who one would expect to be natural allies of alternative energy providers.

Here's a map of some of the more contentious projects.

One local resident of the Panoche Valley, Sallie Calhoun, had this to say:

"I am passionate about preserving open space," she says, adding she believes the solar plant achieves that goal. "The idea that we're going to protect every lizard, every drainage, seems counterproductive."

California takes top spot in clean energy leadership rankings

As the end of the year approaches, everyone seems to be making their lists. And, today, comes another one — U.S. states ranked for “clean energy leadership.”

Not surprisingly, California took the No. 1 spot, followed by Oregon, Massachusetts, Washington and Colorado. The bottom half of the Top 10 are New York, Illinois, Connecticut, Minnesota and New Jersey.

Clean Edge, a West Coast research and consulting firm, compiled the list based on 80 indicators, including a state’s renewable energy production, transportation systems, regulatory policies and incentives and financial and intellectual capital.

“We track more than 4,000 public and private data points across all 50 states,” said Ron Pernick, Clean Edge’s managing director.

The firm looked at such factors as patents for clean energy technology, electric car charging stations, green MBA programs and membership in regional climate initiatives.

Such rankings are of interest to investors and may take on a greater significance as Congress abandons efforts to enact national climate change legislation and as the focus on fighting global warming shifts back to the states.

“California is No. 1 in overall clean-energy leadership by a wide margin, leveraging its history of technology innovation, rich bounty of natural renewable energy resources and investment capital, and consistently supportive government policies,” the report states. “California leads in the technology and capital categories, but the No. 1 state for policy is Washington — just ahead of Massachusetts, which ranks first in regulations and mandates, and Illinois, the top state for incentives.”

Passage of little-known initiative may disrupt California climate plan

While California’s election results offered plenty for state environmentalists to cheer, the passage of a so-called “stealth” ballot initiative could undermine its proposed carbon market.

Last Tuesday, voters rejected Proposition 23, which sought to halt California’s landmark environmental law, AB 32, which mandates the state reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. They also elected climate hawk and AB 32 champion Jerry Brown governor.

But with little fanfare, voters also approved Proposition 26 by a margin of 52.8% to 47.2%. Proposition 26, officially called the “Stop the Hidden Taxes Initiative,” requires two-thirds of legislators to approve fee increases, as opposed to just a simple majority – a difficult political hurdle given the makeup of the state legislature.

In the run-up to the election, not a single public opinion poll was conducted on Proposition 26, and Brown never took a position on the measure. The campaign backing Proposition 26 claimed during the campaign that it was not aimed at disarming the state’s environmental laws.

“Proposition 26 will not diminish the ability of state regulatory agencies to implement and enforce environmental laws in any way,” said Maureen Gorsen, a spokeswoman with the Yes on 26 campaign. But its outspent opponents weren’t buying it then, and they aren’t buying it now. They question why oil giants like Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and Conoco-Philips would funnel millions into the campaign to pass Proposition 26 if not to cripple the state’s environmental law.

Jon Costantino, a senior advisor with law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips in Sacramento, said the initiative could now threaten the California Air Resources Board’s (Carb) ability to collect the roughly $30 million a year in administrative fees it uses to implement AB 32 down the road. Carb is responsible for designing the plan to achieve the AB 32 goal.

“I can’t see the Republicans voting for a global warming fee in California,” he said after the election. Another threat to the program depends on whether the sale of carbon allowances in the proposed cap-and-trade system will need the approval of two-thirds of the legislature. If so, that could create a major obstacle when the time comes for the program’s first allowance auction, currently set for early 2012.

Campaign ad equating global warming with weather gets “pants-on-fire” rating

By now, almost everybody — with the possible exception of Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina — realizes there’s a difference between climate and weather. Fiorina, running in the California primary and ultimately aiming to unseat Democrat Barbara Boxer, paid for and appeared in a campaign ad slamming the sitting senator for being “worried about the weather” when there are serious concerns like terrorism to deal with.

Take a look here:

A few problems with this ad earned it the not-so-coveted beyond-false “Pants on Fire” rating from Politifact, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalism website that checks on the truthfulness of political advertising. First off, Boxer didn’t say she was worried about the weather. She said that climate change was “one of the very important national security issues” — a position in line with the Pentagon and the CIA. The site also found that it’s not an either/or thing, that focusing on climate change doesn’t necessarily mean neglecting national security. They took a look at Boxer’s record and found she has supported at least six bills against terrorism.

“Fiorina casts climate change as something you need to pack an umbrella for, or that prompts you to curse at the TV weatherman — which strikes us as not only a trivialization of climate change but also a failure to distinguish between two well-established scientific specialties,” Politifact said. “She also ignores Boxer’s lengthy record supporting bills against terrorism. So we have to light up the meter (the site’s Truth-o-Meter): Pants on Fire!”

Not surprisingly, Boxer’s campaign fired back in a press release, saying that, “during Fiorina’s tenure at HP, the company sold millions of dollars worth of high tech gear to intermediary shell companies selling to Iran, despite trade sanctions against Iran, a country that the U.S. State Department has named as a State Sponsor of Terror.”

Should be an interesting race. The California primary is on June 8.

Photo credits: REUTERS/Fred Prouser (Carly Fiorina at ”Jobs, Jobs, Jobs” panel Beverly Hills, California April 26, 2010. REUTERS/Fred Prouser)

Ted Turner returns to solar

U.S. billionaire Ted Turner is taking a shine to solar power — again.

Back in 2007, Turner sold solar developer Turner Renewable Energy to solar panel maker First Solar for $34.4 million — which has since ramped up its push into developing its own solar power projects.

Now Turner is teaming up with Atlanta-based utility Southern Company to develop renewable energy in the United States. To start, they will focus on large-scale solar farms in the U.S. Southwest, where solar development is already heating up in states like California and Arizona.

Some of the projects could end up on Turner’s land. He is the largest individual land owner in North America with more than two million acres.  

The move could expand the reach of Southern Company, which serves customers in Georgia, Mississippi and Florida and has more than 42 gigawatts of generating capacity.

(Photo: Philanthropist Ted Turner speaks during a panel discussion at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York in September 2009. Photo credit: Chip East / Reuters)

Major California port sees greener trucks

One of California’s biggest ports has cleaned up its fleet of 8,000 trucks.

The Port of Long Beach has cut nearly 80 percent of emissions from truck engines at the port since it started its ban of old diesel-fueled trucks. That’s roughly 200 tons less of soot — known as particulate matter — in the air at the port annually.

In 2008, the port of Long Beach, together with its sister port in Los Angeles started to green their truck fleets, targeting trucks built before 1989. Together the ports make up the busiest cargo hub in the United States.

In 2010 the ban at Long Beach ramps up to prohibit trucks from 1993 and older, plus trucks from 1994 to 2003 that have not been updated with exhaust filters to meet strict emissions standards.

The move at Long Beach has drawn controversy from the trucking industry, but reflects a broader trend toward smart mobility and to make transport hubs around the world greener.

Now the port of Long Beach is dealing with its ships, trains and terminals to reduce pollution.

Over the next several years, the port is building an electrical system so that ships can plug in for power and turn off their engines. Currently cargo ships run their diesel engines for operations – such as keeping containers refrigerated — while at port. Long Beach is also looking at automated terminals to help reduce greenhouse gases, said Art Wong, a spokesman at the port.

Obama gets high marks for green record: environmental group

President Barack Obama came into office with climate change and the environment on his list of top priorities.

Nearly a year later, one of the top environmental groups in the United States says that Obama has made the grade so far.

In a review of his green record, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) highlighted dozens of moves by Obama at home and abroad. They cited the $50 billion the president put in the stimulus package for cleaner energy and energy efficiency; an executive order for federal agencies to set targets to cut emissions by 2020; and the adoption of strict auto emissions standards, modeled after environmental trendsetter California.

Abroad, the group said that Obama has restored U.S. leadership in the arena of climate change. They pointed to Obama’s efforts to secure an accord at the global climate change summit in Copenhagen — an outcome that the president has said people are justified in being disappointed with — and to partner with China, India and Latin America on clean energy.

Perhaps the brightest spot on Obama’s green record is also his biggest challenge in 2010.

Early on in his first year, the president called on Congress to pass legislation to combat climate change. Getting that legislation passed now sits at the top of the list for his second year at the White House, the group concluded.

(Photo:  U.S. President Barack Obama takes a tour of DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center in Arcadia, Florida in October. Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young)

California looks to catch a wave, of energy

Besides surfing, tourism and the ocean views, California may get another benefit from its famed coast: energy.

With shores that stretch for 745 miles along the Pacific Ocean, California could harness more than 37,000 megawatts of ocean power, or enough to supply a fifth of the state’s energy needs, according to the California Energy Commission.

On Friday, California utility Pacific Gas and Electric Co, or PG&E, took a dive in that direction. The company said it signed an agreement with the U.S. Air Force to study a wave energy project near a base and off the coast of northern Santa Barbara County. The utility is also seeking approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC.

The proposed project could harness up to 100 megawatts of electricity from waves in the Pacific. If it is built, devices would convert the wave’s energy into electricity, a submarine cable would bring it to shore, where it would feed into the electrical grid at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Any excess electricity would go to the utility’s electrical grid, which is connected to the base.

California will have to wait a few years, however, to see if wave energy will help the state meet its goal for a third of its energy needs to come from renewable resources by 2020.

The study for wave power off of the central coast will take three years and is part of PG&E’s wave energy program. The company is also looking to develop a smaller project in northern California, off the coast of Humboldt County. Together the studies will cost more than $7 million, a spokesman with PG& E said.

“Right now the wave industry is in its infancy,” said Kory Raftery, with PG&E. “It’s comparable to where wind was in the 1970s.”

Which U.S. states make the grade on net-metering?

Advocates for renewable energy hail net-metering as a key policy so that electricity from solar and wind is generated at the same place where it is consumed.

Supporters refer to it as the policy that lets the electric meter spin backwards. It allows people who own solar power systems, for example, export electricity to the grid and earn credits — at retail prices — on their utility bill.

In a new report called “Freeing the Grid,” advocates with several groups grade each state on their net-metering policies.

Environmental trendsetter California tied for fifth, but Colorado got the top spot.

Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey followed Colorado in the ranking, while California, Oregon and Pennsylvania tied for fifth.

Seven states flunked by default. Those states  — Alabama, Alaska, Mississippi, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas — have no statewide net-metering policy.

The report also looked at how states fare on another key policy: interconnection standards, which determine how a generator on a customer’s site plugs into the electricity grid.

Biggest California CO2 emitter is…

The biggest greenhouse gas emitter in California isn’t in California.

A string of PacifiCorp power plants are the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide included in the state’s 2008 inventory of carbon sources tied to state use.

California aims to start a cap-and-trade system for carbon pollution in 2012, if it is not preempted by a federal plan, and emissions reports by big power plants and the like represent a step toward that goal.

In-state and out-of-state power plants are roughly equal in the amount of carbon dioxide they produce, and together account for about a quarter of the state’s emissions. A weak economy has raised the stakes for California’s energy plans, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently vetoed legislative renewable power goals that would have limited out-of-state supply. Instead he set a target with an administrative order that was less restrictive.

The biggest in-state California sources of CO2 were Chevron, Shell and BP refineries, accounting for under 5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent each in a chart of top emitters released by the California Air Resources Board. (One PacifiCorp plant in Wyoming had emissions over 15 million metric tones.)

The biggest source of emissions in California, though, is transport, and the 38 percent of emissions from that is not included in refineries’ totals. The Air Resources Board plans to give an update of its cap-and-trade program on Tuesday. 

(Reuters picture by Kim White of Chevron refinery)