ngapsis’s Recent Comments

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  Title I, Subtitle A, Sec. 610, which details COMBINED EFFICIENCY AND RENEWABLE ELECTRICITY STANDARDs, details how Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) are given to utilities and companies "based on the proportion of the electricity that is attributable to the renewable energy resource or other qualifying energy resource…" (http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h2454/text?version=ih&nid=t0:ih:406).

  what exactly are the "other qualifying energy resources"? landfil gas, wastewater treatment gas, coal mine methane, and other qualified waste-to-energy resources. if you can use these, which already occur, for  generating energy, awesome.

  but what are "other qualified waste to energy resources"?  the bill defines it as "energy from the combustion of municipal solid waste or construction, demolition, or disaster debris, or from the gasification or pyrolization of such waste or debris and the combustion of the resulting gas at the same facility…"(http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h2454/text?version=ih&nid=t0:ih:313).

  so, burning trash is a renewable source of energy now? yeah, it's abundant, but burning it is definitely NOT helping to lower emissions. i may be knit picking parts out of this bill but this is obviously a concession to trash incineration. this bill still needs work .  

   

   

  On Excellent National Wildlife Federation summary and “Toolbox Assessment” of Waxman-Markey posted 5 months, 1 week ago 3 Responses

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  "76% of ACES’ allowances from 2012-2030 are used for clean, green and fair climate solutions that serve the public interest…About 40% of allowances are auctioned federally or by states in 2012, growing to about 80% by 2030."

  uhh, what? if electric utilities and merchant coal get 35% of the allowances AND natural gas gets 9%, how can 76% been given to clean, green, fair climate solutions (35+9=44; 100-44=56%)? also, 4.1% of allowances are allocated for carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. CCS is a half-assed means of  greewashing dirty, inefficient coal. 

  go here, read who/what get the allowances for yourself:

  http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090515/allowanceallocation.pdf

   

   

  On Excellent National Wildlife Federation summary and “Toolbox Assessment” of Waxman-Markey posted 5 months, 1 week ago 3 Responses

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  David,

  I think it's good that you are exposing this myth of the 85%; its repetition takes away from the credibility of environmental groups and outlets doing good work. If you look at the PDF of the allocations, you can see why it's confusing. It says, "15% of allowances will be auctioned each year and the proceeds of these allowances will be distributed to low- and moderate-income families to protect them from other energy cost increases." It's easy to jump to the conclusion that that only 15% of allowances are being auctioned off in total. Thanks for clearing that up.

  But i think you miss the point, which is, this bill still sucks. Let's go back to the PDF. 35% of allowances are to be given to the electricity sector; 9% to natural gas; oil refiners receive 2% starting in 2014. Most importantly, as stated in the 1st paragraph, "these allowances will be distributed according to a formula recommended by the utility industry…" Hmmm. Still sounds like a pretty good amount of pandering is going on here.  Using Nat Keohane's numbers as you have above, 362 billion dollars given away to industry, along with the increase of the price of their services due to the carbn capping itself, is going to generate windfall profits for these companies. And you know that these utilities are going to set the price of their commodities at what the market will bear, not what is fair for the consumers.Have they ever done anything else? This is exactly what happened in the Euro Zone when they instituted cap-and-allocate in 2005. If the bill really was protecting consumers, it would offer up a lot more than the revenue generated by auctioning a meager 15% of allowances. Add this to the weak target level of 17% below 2005 (didn't the IPCC state that we need to be at 25% below 1990 levels to stave off catastrophic temp rises?); the LDC-to-consumer stuff (i'll trust Stavis on this one, but when he says " the allocation of allowances affects neither the environmental performance of the cap-and-trade system nor its aggregate social cost…" he definitely didn't  take into account the 2 billion offsets which prevent a true move to lower carbon emissions OR the weak target level); the very limited investment in clean and renewable tech and TRAINING for godsakes; the large giveaways to CCS; and we have a bill that is straight up lacking. I agree this is a start. But now is not the time to be saying, "its not THAT bad"; now is the time to be pushing for a BETTER bill. Grist seems to be one of the only "environmental news" sites that was willing to give the bill a B+ ( http://www.grist.org/article/2009-03-31-waxman-markey-bill-gets-a-b ) rather than effuse praise all over it (ahem…sierra club ), so stick to your guns, tell people to get involved and push for a better bill. And of course, to not use myths to do the pushing.

   

  On Myth: Waxman-Markey gives away 85 percent of allowances to polluters posted 5 months, 2 weeks ago 16 Responses