Methane is a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide, so when it's leaking by the ton, it's a $50 billion problem. The New York Times described the phenomenon of methane leakage in a recent article which raised questions about the true costs of this waste. 

The EPA estimates that 3 trillion cubic feet of the invisible gas unintentionally escape into the atmosphere each year from patchy gas and oil wells, pipelines, and tanks. This accidental loss alone is equivalent to about half of the global warming power of all U.S. coal power plants emissions.  That is the same climate impact of a quarter billion cars.

Roger Peilke Jr., professor of environmental studies at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder, does an admirable job of estimating the commercial value cost of leaking methane at $24 billion. But there is more to the story -- the cost to society of this methane leakage adds up to a much higher number.

Methane, like CO2, carries a social cost which must be accounted for -- each ton emitted into the atmosphere exacts a toll.  Weather variability will threaten crops; rising sea levels will submerge coastal lands; insurance premiums will rise as more homes are at risk of flooding and fires.  As global warming worsens, these costs will become sharper, causing economic pain across the globe. Though no one benefits from leaking methane, we all pay for its effect on our climate. 

Recently, the Department of Energy used a conservative estimate, $19, to price out the cost to society of a ton of CO2 emissions.  Knowing that, and the fact that methane is 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide, we can do some simple multiplication and determine that the social cost of leaky methane hovers around $29 billion annually.  This is in addition to Professor Peilke's commercial value lost, bringing the grand total to over $50 billion. 

The irony here is -- no one benefits from these leaks. Companies certainly don't profit from the lost revenue.  So if no one benefits, and we will be charged $50 billion for the privilege, why not enforce monitoring and sealing of these leaks? 

As the Times noted, next year Japan will release data from the Gosat satellite which will most likely show hot spots of methane gas pouring into the skies from the worst offenders: Russia, the United States, Ukraine, and Mexico.  We'll be confronted with the images of our total emissions of this global warming gas, and it's probably not a pretty picture.  Leaky methane is only part of the overall problem, but the cost-benefit analysis on fixing it is a no-brainer. 

There is also a larger lesson to be learned here: our actions have consequences, and some cost more money than others.  If we really want to spew methane into the atmosphere in a wasteful and unnecessary way, we must be prepared to pay the price -- in this case, over $50 billion.  And if we want to continue to rely on dirty coal power plants to generate our electricity, we must be prepared to pay that bill as well -- one that is at least $120 billion per year (not even including climate change costs). And if we refuse to invest in controls on our heat-trapping emissions, then we should realize we are likely making a bad bet, one that could wreak havoc on American and global economies. 

Related Links:

AP: Since 1997 “climate change has worsened and accelerated”

In other UK news: “Rain like this happens once every 1,000 years”

Let’s look at one of the illegally hacked emails in more detail

For years now, many members of Congress have insisted that cutting carbon emissions was difficult, if not impossible. It is not. During the two years since 2007, carbon emissions have dropped 9 percent. While part of this drop is from the recession, part of it is also from efficiency gains and from replacing coal with natural gas, wind, solar, and geothermal energy.

The U.S. has ended a century of rising carbon emissions and has now entered a new energy era, one of declining emissions. Peak carbon is now history. What had appeared to be hopelessly difficult is happening at amazing speed.

For a country where oil and coal use have been growing for more than a century, the fall since 2007 is startling. In 2008, oil use dropped 5 percent, coal 1 percent, and carbon emissions by 3 percent. Estimates for 2009, based on U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) data for the first nine months, show oil use down by another 5 percent. Coal is set to fall by 10 percent. Carbon emissions from burning all fossil fuels dropped 9 percent over the two years.

Beyond the cuts already made, there are further massive reductions in the policy pipeline. Prominent among them are stronger automobile fuel-economy standards, higher appliance efficiency standards, and financial incentives supporting the large-scale development of wind, solar, and geothermal energy. (See the data.)

Efforts to reduce fossil fuel use are under way at every level of government -- national, state, and city -- as well as in corporations, utilities, and universities. And millions of climate-conscious, cost-cutting Americans are altering their lifestyles to reduce energy use.

For its part, the federal government -- the largest U.S. energy consumer, with some 500,000 buildings and 600,000 vehicles -- announced in early October 2009 that it is setting its own carbon-cutting goals. These include reducing vehicle fleet fuel use 30 percent by 2020, recycling at least 50 percent of waste by 2015, and buying environmentally responsible products.

Electricity use is falling partly because of gains in efficiency. The potential for further cuts is evident in the wide variation in energy efficiency among states. The Rocky Mountain Institute calculates that if the 40 least-efficient states were to reach the electrical efficiency of the 10 most-efficient ones, national electricity use would be reduced by one-third. This would allow the equivalent of 62 percent of the country's 617 coal-fired power plants to be closed.

Actions are being taken to realize this potential. For several years DOE failed to write the regulations needed to implement appliance efficiency legislation that Congress had already passed. Within days of taking office, President Obama instructed the agency to write the regulations needed to realize these potentially vast efficiency gains as soon as possible.

The energy efficiency revolution that is now under way will transform everything from lighting to transportation. With lighting, for example, shifting from incandescent bulbs to the newer light-emitting diodes (LEDs), combined with motion sensors to turn lights off in unoccupied spaces, can cut electricity use by more than 90 percent. Los Angeles, for example, is replacing its 140,000 street lights with LEDs -- and cutting electricity and maintenance costs by $10 million per year.

The carbon-cutting movement is gaining momentum on many fronts. In July, the Sierra Club -- coordinator of the national anti-coal campaign -- announced the 100th cancellation of a proposed plant since 2001. This battle is leading to a de facto moratorium on new coal plants. Despite the coal industry's $45 million annual budget to promote "clean coal," utilities are giving up on coal and starting to close plants. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), with 11 coal plants (average age 47 years) and a court order to install over $1 billion worth of pollution controls, is considering closing its plant near Rogersville, Tennessee, along with the six oldest units out of eight in its Stevenson, Ala., plant.

TVA is not alone. Altogether, some 22 coal-fired power plants in 12 states are being replaced by wind farms, natural gas plants, wood chip plants, or efficiency gains. Many more are likely to close as public pressure to clean up the air and to cut carbon emissions intensifies. Shifting from coal to natural gas cuts carbon emissions by roughly half. Shifting to wind, solar, and geothermal energy drops them to zero.

State governments are getting behind renewables big time. Thirty-four states have adopted renewable portfolio standards to produce a larger share of their electricity from renewable sources over the next decade or so. Among the more populous states, the renewable standard is 24 percent in New York, 25 percent in Illinois, and 33 percent in California.

While coal plants are closing, wind farms are multiplying. In 2008, a total of 102 wind farms came online, providing more than 8,400 megawatts of generating capacity. Forty-nine wind farms were completed in the first half of 2009 and 57 more are under construction. More important, some 300,000 megawatts of wind projects (think 300 coal plants) are awaiting access to the grid.

U.S. solar cell installations are growing at 40 percent a year. With new incentives, this rapid growth in rooftop installations on homes, shopping malls, and factories should continue. In addition, some 15 large solar thermal power plants that use mirrors to concentrate sunlight and generate electricity are planned in California, Arizona, and Nevada. A new heat-storage technology that enables the plants to continue generating power for up to six hours past sundown helps explain this boom.

For many years, U.S. geothermal energy was confined largely to the huge Geysers project north of San Francisco, with 850 megawatts of generating capacity. Now the United States, with 132 geothermal power plants under development, is experiencing a geothermal renaissance.

After their century-long love-affair with the car, Americans are turning to mass transit. There is hardly a U.S. city that is not either building new light rail, subways, or express bus lines or upgrading and expanding existing ones.

As motorists turn to public transit, and also to bicycles, the U.S. car fleet is shrinking. The estimated scrappage of 14 million cars in 2009 will exceed new sales of 10 million by 4 million, shrinking the fleet 2 percent in one year. This shrinkage will likely continue for a few years.

Oil use and imports are both declining. This will continue as the new fuel economy standards raise the fuel efficiency of new cars 42 percent and light trucks 25 percent by 2016. And since 42 percent of the diesel fuel burned in the rail freight sector is used to haul coal, falling coal use means falling diesel fuel use.

But the big gains in fuel efficiency will come with the shift to plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars. Not only are electric motors three times more efficient than gasoline engines, but they also enable cars to run on wind power at a gasoline-equivalent cost of 75 cents a gallon. Almost every major car maker will soon be selling plug-in hybrids, electric cars, or both.

In this new energy era carbon emissions are declining and they will likely continue to do so because of policies already on the books. We are headed in the right direction. We do not yet know how much we can cut carbon emissions because we are just beginning to make a serious effort. Whether we can move fast enough to avoid catastrophic climate change remains to be seen.

Related Links:

What Do Coal and Dirty Dorm Rooms Have in Common?

Copenhagen, U.S.A. December 7

Toward a medically defensible energy policy

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and other efficiency groups released a negotiated agreement with manufacturers of residential air conditioners and furnaces yesterday, marking the end of a journey to come to consensus that lasted many months.  I negotiated on NRDC's behalf and we will now take this agreement to both Congress and the Department of Energy (DOE).

The agreement covers residential central air conditioners, heat pumps, and gas and oil furnaces and would set the new minimum federal efficiency standards, once adopted by Congress or the DOE.  The standard does not cover portable air conditioners or window units.  The standards would become effective on May 1, 2013 for most furnaces and Jan. 1, 2015 for air conditioners and heat pumps.

 This agreement is a big deal for several reasons.

The last three of these points warrant more discussion.

The first regional appliance standards ever

It is odd to think that the same appliance standard must apply to cold Massachusetts and to sunny Florida, but that is indeed the case.  The reason is fairly simple.  When the federal appliance standards program was created, manufacturers wanted to be able to have a consistent standard level unit that they could mass produce and sell all over the country.  This makes sense for most appliances, but for products where climate plays a huge role, like heating and cooling equipment, folks end up with equipment that was designed for someone else.  Inefficient equipment costs them money every day. 

With this agreement, consumers will no longer waste money on heating or cooling equipment that was designed for another climate.  Condensing furnaces (90 AFUE) will be required in the cold northern states, but not in the south where heating is rare.  In the hot southern states, 14 SEER air conditioners will be required, up from 13 SEER.  In the hot and dry southwest (which is very different from the hot and humid southeast), the units will also be required to operate efficiently at very high temperatures (well over 90 F) that are common in that climate.  Traditional equipment uses much more energy as the temperature rises simply because it is not designed for those conditions. 

This is a big win for consumers, but it is also good for manufacturers.  These companies have invested in the technologies to make their equipment run efficiently in different conditions, and now they will be assured of a market for these designs.  It benefits everyone to make sure that the best equipment goes where it will operate most effectively. 

Allows states more flexibility with their building codes

Federal appliance standards are preemptive, meaning no state can require anything above federal standard (below the standard is illegal).  This makes sense for appliance standards, but what if a state wants to set a building energy code for new construction that would require equipment above the federal standard?  Tricky legal question.

This agreement settles the issue by amending the law to set a clear path for states to adopt building codes based on equipment that is more efficient than the federal standard.  If a state has a performance code (generally a smart thing to do, where instead of telling a builder or architect how to build the building, the state tells them how much energy it can use and lets them figure out the best way to do it), then the maximum amount of energy that can be used can be calculated using equipment that is more efficient that the federal standard.  In this case, 15 SEER air conditioners and 92 AFUE furnaces would be included as the baseline that the new house would have to meet or exceed.

This provision will help remove the weight around the necks of states that want to have better building energy codes.  It does this while recognizing a fundamental difference between new construction and existing buildings -- it's cheaper and easier to make a new building more efficient than an existing building (which is why we need good energy codes).  Advanced technologies often have different needs than previous designs that older buildings were designed around.  For example, condensing furnaces require a drain to remove condensed water while some efficient gas heating equipment needs an electrical outlet.  New technologies may also be physically larger than the previous design.  Requiring them first in new construction where these costs are not a problem makes sense for consumers.

This agreement will save $13 billion dollars and enough energy to power 18 million homes by 2030

There really isn't much to add to that.  Providing the gateway for new, super efficient technologies to gain a foothold in the market with advanced building codes could potentially save even more. 

This agreement is a big deal and we are pleased with the outcome.  We hope it lays the groundwork for even greater gains in the future while setting a positive precedent for standards covering other appliances.

Related Links:

Making buildings more efficient: rationalizing retrofit markets

Making buildings more efficient: looking beyond price

Merkley wants Senate jobs bill to help finance building efficiency retrofits

At today’s Clean Energy Economy Forum, Carol Browner, Director of White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, said that it would be a “big mistake” if Congress passed a clean energy bill without a cap on emissions.

Browner made clear that the country needs a comprehensive bill that creates a carbon market to incentivize clean energy over the long-term.  This is the first public statement I’ve heard from the White House pushing back on the statements by some Senators (not Majority Leader Reid) that have suggested they would prefer to do an energy-only bill.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu was even more blunt.

Chu said a shrinking cap and rising carbon price was “very, very important.”  He said it is the part of the bill “that really means something,” and “the rest is just carrots.”  Chu is a big supporter of carrots but was clear that the long-term signal and steady emissions reductions were critical to avoid catastrophe.

He specifically refenced the recent definitive NOAA-led report on U.S. climate impacts that warns of scorching 9 to 11°F warming over most of inland U.S. by 2090 with Kansas above 90°F some 120 days a year (which that isn’t the worst case, it’s business as usual).

Chu pointed out that on our current emissions path, St. Louis, Missouri would spend one third the year.

Finally, Commerce Secretary Locke said it is “absolutely important we pass this” bill, that it is incredibly important for economic competitiveness, pointing out that China spends $12 million an hour on clean energy!

Related Links:

George Voinovich (R-Ohio) [UPDATED]

Al Franken (D-Minn.)

Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)

Cross-posted from Wonk Room.

A Spanish paper that claimed support for green jobs "may destroy two jobs for every one created" has been debunked by an official publication of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The paper’s conclusions -- led by Exxon-funded libertarian Gabriel Calzada -- have been cited by GOP leaders, Fox News, right-wing columnists, conservative think tanks, and Big Oil front groups to attack President Obama's green economic agenda. However, the DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) finds that the Spanish authors' claim that renewable support kills jobs "is not supported by their work":

The analysis by the authors from King Juan Carlos University represents a significant divergence from traditional methodologies used to estimate employment impacts from renewable energy. In fact, the methodology does not reflect an employment impact analysis. Accordingly, the primary conclusion made by the authors -- policy support of renewable energy results in net jobs losses -- is not supported by their work.

NREL reveals that what Republicans have called a "50-page empirical study" could have been written by ten-year-olds. All the study does is calculate two ratios of Spanish economic figures — renewable subsidies vs. private capital and subsidies vs. average productivity -- and then draw extravagant conclusions not only about the Spanish economy, but project them onto the United States. Here are a few of the fundamental limitations, technical errors, and false assumptions drawn from NREL's takedown of Calzada's work of pseudo-economics:

The metrics used in the Spanish study are not jobs impact estimates. The primary conclusion of the report is that the Spanish economy has experienced job loss as a result of its RE installations. However, comparing the RE subsidy per job with the Spanish economy’s average capital per job and average productivity per job is not a measure of job loss.

The report lacks transparency and supporting statistics. It is striking that the authors' calculations with two very different economic metrics generate the same result. The authors claim this increases their confidence in their result. However, because there is no statistical analysis, it does not seem reasonable to draw conclusions regarding confidence in either result. The authors also fail to justify their chosen methodology or cite others who have applied a similar methodology.

The authors assume that a dollar spent by the government is less efficient than a dollar spent by private industry and that it crowds out private investment. Government spending may be more or less efficient than private investment. To the extent that government spending is a correction for market failures (e.g., existing fossil fuel subsidies, environmental externalities), it is less likely to represent an inefficient allocation of resources. Furthermore, there is no justification given for the assumption that government spending (e.g., tax credits or subsidies) would force out private investment. This assumption is fundamental to the conclusion that Spain's renewable energy policy has resulted in job loss.

Calzada also "fails to account for technology export potential," "relies on jobs estimates that were developed in 2003 and do not reflect Spain’s RE industries in 2009," and "relies on jobs as the sole metric to assess the value of renewable energy." NREL's Suzanne Tegen, a Ph.D. energy market analyst, and Eric Lantz conclude with a summary of what serious economic analysis of the impact of renewable energy investments has found:

In general, comprehensive analyses show that net employment impacts are sensitive to assumptions regarding future energy prices, strategies for addressing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions, and the capacity to export technology. With increased awareness of potential energy price scenarios, recent research has found that it is only when conventional energy prices are forecast to be very low that net employment impacts from RE investments are negative.

In other words, unless you live in a world where global warming and oil spills don’t exist, and fossil fuels remain cheap forever, government investment in renewable energy creates jobs -- just what our nation needs now.

(H/T Pete Altman)

Related Links:

Why won’t Lisa Jackson/Nancy Sutley visit a mountaintop removal site?

Voters in Ohio, Michigan and Missouri support climate action

Senators opposed to Clean Energy Jobs Act are ignoring bill’s benefits to Americans—Part 2

Solar Roadways

A while back I mentioned Solar Roadways, a clean-energy idea that appears kind of kooky, at least on the surface. (See what I did there?) The notion is to replace paved surfaces with rugged, specially built solar panels.

The Solar Road Panels would contain not just solar panels but LED lighting (to enable real-time communication with drivers), heating units (to prevent icing), high-voltage power transmission lines, and even electric-vehicle recharging stations. It's transportation, power, and grid infrastructure in the same place.

At the limit, if all paved surfaces in the U.S. were replaced with 15% efficiency solar panels, the resulting distributed power network could provide three times the electricity the nation consumes, with zero carbon emissions and no additional power grid infrastructure. (Yes, I'm aware manufacturing, installing, and maintaining it would generate emissions, as with any infrastructure project.)

So crazy it just might work? Apparently the Dept. of Transportation thinks so: Solar Roadways has received a $100,000 contract from DOT to build a prototype:

The Solar Roadways will collect solar energy to power businesses and homes via structurally-engineered solar panels that are driven upon, to be placed in parking lots and roadways in lieu of petroleum-based asphalt surfaces.

The Solar Road Panels will contain embedded LEDs which "paint" the road lines from beneath to provide safer nighttime driving, as well as to give up to the minute instructions (via the road) to drivers (i.e. "detour ahead"). The road will be able to sense wildlife on the road and can warn drivers to "slow down". There will also be embedded heating elements in the surface to prevent snow and ice buildup, providing for safer winter driving. This feature packed system will become an intelligent highway that will double as a secure, intelligent, decentralized, self-healing power grid which will enable a gradual weaning from fossil fuels.

... Fully electric vehicles will be able to recharge along the roadway and in parking lots, finally making electric cars practical for long trips.

It is estimated that is will take roughly five billion (a stimulus package in itself) 12' by 12' Solar Road Panels to cover the asphalt surfaces in the U.S. alone, allowing us to produce three times more power than we've ever used as a nation - almost enough to power the entire world.

There are some cost estimates on the site. They argue that roadways could be solarized for roughly the same net cost we'd pay for power plants, grid infrastructure, and asphalt.

As usual with large-scale, visionary ideas like this, it's difficult to agree on a cost-benefit analysis. The costs are mostly quantifiable -- multiply cost of panel by 5 billion, etc. -- but the benefits are not. Many are speculative or unpredictable, many are avoided costs. What are the benefits of not building coal plants and grid infrastructure? Not paying for accidents from ice and wildlife? Not having centralized, brittle power infrastructure?

New infrastructure does not merely replace old infrastructure; it provides a platform for new kinds of innovation. Who knows what would grow out of massively distributed power, a national smart grid, or an electrified vehicle fleet? What would it mean to have an overabundance of clean electricity?

Decisions about projects of such scope can't be made with a mathematical formula. There are irreducible elements of aspiration and faith, values and ethics, fear and desire -- just as there were in America's decisions to wage war, guarantee health care for seniors and the poor, go to the moon, or extend broadband internet access. Conservatives and Blue Dogs tell us we can't afford it, presuming a shared understanding of what it's worth.

Think not just about solar roadways, but more generally about the goal of clean, abundant energy, economic renewal, and a livable climate. What's that worth? And why do the Blue Dogs get to decide?

Related Links:

Freeing the grid

Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?

‘Heretic’ battles straw man

Last week the Department of Energy released part of the $25 billion in loans provided for through the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program, included in Section 136 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The delay in releasing these funds had been one of the longest running scandals in clean tech policy. Upon taking office, the Obama Administration vowed to expedite their release and Secretary Steven Chu had made finalizing rules needed to administer the program a key priority. In the first installment of the loans, Tesla, the VC-backed California maker of an all-electric sports car, founded by Ebay veterans, will receive $465 million to make its compact, all-electric Model S sedan. Ford will receive $5.9 billion to retool 11 factories across five states to improve the overall fuel efficiency of its fleet.  Finally, Nissan will receive $1.6 billion to retool a factory in Smyrna, Tennessee, to make an electric vehicle that is being developed and initially manufactured in Japan. The remainder of the money will be released next year.

DOE's announcement comes on the heels of the release of its formal $3.9 billion smart grid funding solicitation last week. The Funding Opportunity Announcement spells out the conditions and terms for those seeking funding for smart grid investments under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the offical title of the stimulus bill signed into law earlier this year. These two developments, coming one after the other, are evidence that the DOE is moving rapidly on the President's goal not only of getting money out into the economy to create jobs and drive demand, but also of making investments critical to a clean energy future.

In the case of the auto loans, they could not be more timely. Autos are a capital intensive business and with credit markets still impaired, it would have been very expensive or impossible for Tesla, for example, to borrow this money on its own. However, that does not mean that the loan is not good business for the government and Tesla. CEO Elon Musk indicated he thinks that Tesla may be able to repay the loan ahead of schedule. Tesla, despite some speed bumps in its early phase, is now profitable on a unit basis, meaning the approximately $120,000 price of its sleek sports car -- which has a long waiting list -- exceeds the cost of components.  Having also recently sold a stake to Daimler Benz, the company is now reasonably well capitalized. Recently, investor Steve Wesley indicated that Tesla's sales are on track to pass $100 million, a common bar for conducting an IPO. If Tesla continues on its current track, it may be the first home run of the clean transportation industry. In any case, the DOE funding puts it on track to move from the sports car niche to the mainstream where it hopes to leverage the glamour associated with the roadster. While Ford and Nissan have greater access to the capital markets, these loans -- provided for in the 2007 energy legislation in exchange for a commitment to higher fuel efficiency -- will help achieve that goal.

In the case of the smart grid, the major barrier to moving forward has been undeveloped standards.  Normally, standards evolve slowly as industry players forge alliances and choose standards that already enjoy market adoption. In this case, the desire to stimulate the economy has accelerated this process. Secretary Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke are overseeing an effort led by NIST to fast track standards for the grid to facilitate adoption. The disbursements made by DOE will indeed help establish standards insofar as the money spent will validate standards and increase adoption.

It is important that standards be as open and uniform as possible to create the broadest and fairest playing field for innovators to enter the smart grid technology market.  Because a smart grid is necessary to get clean energy online and also to drive the creation of new energy products and services, this is an area I believe is absolutely critical to determining whether clean technology can live up to its promise. 

While it remains to be seen how the smart grid will develop, these two announcements from DOE show that the Administration is on the case. These developments should be encouraging to anyone concerned about America's clean energy future.

Related Links:

Fair, Ambitious & Binding: Essentials for a Successful Climate Deal

A Penny Saved Is…

Tom Friedman on “What They Really Believe”

I've just been forwarded this message from DOE:

On June 19th, the United States Senate, by voice vote, confirmed Cathy Zoi to be the Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

This is a terrific piece of news.  To explain why, I'm going to reprint below my March post "And Obama gives the best clean energy and global warming solutions job to ...":

Cathy Zoi, CEO of Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection, has been nominated by President Obama to serve as Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE) under Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

Zoi has a unique combination of expertise in clean energy and high level federal government experience - she was Chief of Staff in the Clinton White House Office on Environmental Policy, managing the staff working on environmental and energy issues (full bio here, recent writing below). Since I have known Zoi for nearly 2 decades and since in 1997 I held the job she is now nominated for, I can personally attest she will be able to hit the ground running in the crucial job of overseeing the vast majority of the development and deployment of plausible climate solutions technology.

What does EERE do? You could spend hours on their website, here, exploring everything they are into. Of the 12 to 14 most plausible wedges the world needs to stabilize at 350 to 450 ppm - the full global warming solution - EERE is the principal federal agency for working with businesses to develop and deploy the technology for 11 of them!

The stimulus and the 2009 budget dramatically increases - more than doubles - EERE funding for technology development and deployment. Zoi's most important job is deployment, deployment, deployment. And again she is a uniquely qualified to get clean energy into the marketplace. Zoi was a manager at the US Environmental Protection Agency where "she pioneered the Energy Star Program," which was the pioneering energy efficiency deployment program launched in the early 1990s.

So we know Zoi gets energy efficiency. Here's what she wrote last year about "Embracing the Challenge to Repower America":

Many Americans have a hard time thinking about our energy future, largely because their energy present is so challenging. With gasoline prices hovering near $4 per gallon and rising energy bills at home and at work, our economy is struggling with the burden of imported oil and reliance on fossil fuels. The need to satisfy the nation's oil appetite has shaped our foreign and defense postures, and is a primary reason for our current entanglements overseas. Extreme weather here in the U.S. has us feeling uneasy. And the scientists remind us more urgently every week about the mounting manifestations of the climate crisis.

To solve these problems, we must repower our economy. Fast.

Vice President Gore has issued a challenge for us to do just that: Generate 100 percent of America's electricity from truly clean sources that do not contribute to global warming - and do so within 10 years. It is an ambitious but attainable goal. American workers, businesses and families are up to it.

Meeting the challenge to repower America will deliver the affordability, stability and confidence our economy needs, as well as a healthy environment. And it will generate millions of good American jobs that can't be outsourced.

It will involve simultaneous work on three fronts. First, get the most out of the energy we currently produce. Second, quickly deploy the clean energy technologies that we already know can work. Third, create a new integrated electricity grid to deliver power from where it is generated to where people live.

The first front involves energy efficiency. The potential here is vast and largely untapped. Now is the time to begin a comprehensive national energy upgrade that will reduce the energy bills of homeowners and businesses - even as costs of energy supplies may be on the rise.

The second front requires expanding the use of existing generation technologies. This will include accelerated growth in our wind energy industry. We have a strong running start - the U.S. was the leading installer of wind technology last year. Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens says we can get at least 20 percent of America's electricity from wind power. We think he's right.

Solar thermal power is also booming and poised for rapid acceleration. The resource potential is so vast that a series of collectors in the American southwest totaling just 92 miles on a side could power our entire electricity system. Utilities in Arizona, Nevada, and California have already begun to tap this potential, with plans for powering nearly one million homes underway.

Advances in thermal storage technologies, along with investments in our grid, mean that solar thermal power will be able to provide electricity at night, like coal power does today.

Nuclear and hydroelectric power facilities currently combine to contribute roughly 25% of America's electricity. That will continue. Coal and natural gas can also play a significant role by capturing and storing their carbon emissions safely. Our hope is that this CCS emissions technology can be developed and commercialized quickly. Without it, coal isn't "clean." There are reportedly a few CCS plants now proposed in the U.S., although another roughly 70 proposed coal plants have no such plans to capture their carbon pollution.

The third front is the creation of a unified national electricity grid. A "super smart grid" will form the backbone and the entire skeleton of our modern power system. Efficient high voltage lines will move power from remote, resource-rich areas to places where power is consumed.

It will also allow households to make money by automatically using energy at the cheapest times and selling electricity back to the grid when a surplus is available can. A smart meter spins both ways.

Meeting this 100 percent clean power challenge will require a one-time capital investment in new infrastructure, with the bulk of funding coming from private finance. If policies reward reducing global warming pollution, private capital will flow towards clean energy solutions.

But the most important cost figures to consider may be the ones we'll avoid. American utilities will spend roughly $100 billion this year on coal and natural gas to fuel power plants. And more next year and the year after that - until we make the switch to renewable fuels that are free and limitless.

The 10-year time frame is key.

The science, the economic pressures and our national security concerns demand swift, concerted action. The best climate scientists tell us we must make rapid progress to turn the corner on global carbon emissions or the ecological consequences will be irreversible.

The solutions are available now - there are no technology or material impediments. Failing to move swiftly will deprive the U.S. economy of earnings from one of the fastest growing technology sectors in the world.

We've done this before. We mobilized the auto industry in 12 months to service the hardware needs of WWII. The Marshall Plan to reconstruct Europe was executed in four years. And as Vice President Gore pointed out, we reached the moon in eight years, not ten.

We can do this. With support from the American people and leadership from elected officials, America can accept the challenge of building a safe, secure and sustainable energy future.

In short, she gets both energy efficiency and Concentrated solar thermal power Solar Baseload.

Kudos to Obama for this terrific pick!

Related Links:

New reports show successes and failures of Energy Star

Methane leakage runs up a $50 billion bill

DOE and EPA Agree to Make a Brighter Energy Star

This was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom's kind permission.

Every summer, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the U.S. Department of Energy issues its International Energy Outlook (IEO) -- a jam-packed compendium of data and analysis on the evolving world energy equation. For those with the background to interpret its key statistical findings, the release of the IEO can provide a unique opportunity to gauge important shifts in global energy trends, much as reports of routine Communist Party functions in the party journal Pravda once provided America's Kremlin watchers with insights into changes in the Soviet Union's top leadership circle.

As it happens, the recent release of the 2009 IEO has provided energy watchers with a feast of significant revelations. By far the most significant disclosure: the IEO predicts a sharp drop in projected future world oil output (compared to previous expectations) and a corresponding increase in reliance on what are called "unconventional fuels" -- oil sands, ultra-deep oil, shale oil, and biofuels.

So here's the headline for you: For the first time, the well-respected Energy Information Administration appears to be joining with those experts who have long argued that the era of cheap and plentiful oil is drawing to a close. Almost as notable, when it comes to news, the 2009 report highlights Asia's insatiable demand for energy and suggests that China is moving ever closer to the point at which it will overtake the United States as the world's number one energy consumer. Clearly, a new era of cutthroat energy competition is upon us.

Peak Oil Becomes the New Norm

As recently as 2007, the IEO projected that the global production of conventional oil (the stuff that comes gushing out of the ground in liquid form) would reach 107.2 million barrels per day in 2030, a substantial increase from the 81.5 million barrels produced in 2006. Now, in 2009, the latest edition of the report has grimly dropped that projected 2030 figure to just 93.1 million barrels per day -- in future-output terms, an eye-popping decline of 14.1 million expected barrels per day.

Even when you add in the 2009 report's projection of a larger increase than once expected in the output of unconventional fuels, you still end up with a net projected decline of 11.1 million barrels per day in the global supply of liquid fuels (when compared to the IEO's soaring 2007 projected figures). What does this decline signify -- other than growing pessimism by energy experts when it comes to the international supply of petroleum liquids?

Very simply, it indicates that the usually optimistic analysts at the Department of Energy now believe global fuel supplies will simply not be able to keep pace with rising world energy demands. For years now, assorted petroleum geologists and other energy types have been warning that world oil output is approaching a maximum sustainable daily level -- a peak -- and will subsequently go into decline, possibly producing global economic chaos. Whatever the timing of the arrival of peak oil's actual peak, there is growing agreement that we have, at last, made it into peak-oil territory, if not yet to the moment of irreversible decline.

Until recently, Energy Information Administration officials scoffed at the notion that a peak in global oil output was imminent or that we should anticipate a contraction in the future availability of petroleum any time soon. "[We] expect conventional oil to peak closer to the middle than to the beginning of the 21st century," the 2004 IEO report stated emphatically.

Consistent with this view, the EIA reported one year later that global production would reach a staggering 122.2 million barrels per day in 2025, more than 50% above the 2002 level of 80.0 million barrels per day. This was about as close to an explicit rejection of peak oil that you could get from the EIA's experts.

Where Did All the Oil Go?

Now, let's turn back to the 2009 edition. In 2025, according to this new report, world liquids output, conventional and unconventional, will reach only a relatively dismal 101.1 million barrels per day. Worse yet, conventional oil output will be just 89.6 million barrels per day. In EIA terms, this is pure gloom and doom, about as deeply pessimistic when it comes to the world's future oil output capacity as you're likely to get.

The agency's experts claim, however, that this will not prove quite the challenge it might seem, because they have also revised downward their projections of future energy demand. Back in 2005, they were projecting world oil consumption in 2025 at 119.2 million barrels per day, just below anticipated output at that time. This year -- and we should all theoretically breathe a deep sigh of relief -- the report projects that 2025 figure at only 101.1 million barrels per day, conveniently just what the world is expected to produce at that time. If this actually proves the case, then oil prices will presumably remain within a manageable range.

In fact, however, the consumption part of this equation seems like the less reliable calculation, especially if economic growth continues at anything like its recent pace in China and India. Indeed, all evidence suggests that growth in these countries will resume its pre-crisis pace by the end of 2009 or early 2010. Under those circumstances, global oil demand will eventually outpace supply, driving up prices again and threatening recurring and potentially disastrous economic disorders -- possibly on the scale of the present global economic meltdown.

To have the slightest chance of averting such disasters means seeing a sharp rise in unconventional fuel output. Such fuels include Canadian oil sands, Venezuelan extra-heavy oil, deep-offshore oil, Arctic oil, shale oil, liquids derived from coal (coal-to-liquids or CTL), and biofuels. At present, these cumulatively constitute only about 4% of the world's liquid fuel supply but are expected to reach nearly 13% by 2030. All told, according to estimates in the new IEO report, unconventional liquid production will reach an estimated 13.4 million barrels per day in 2030, up from a projected 9.7 million barrels in the 2008 edition.

But for an expansion on this scale to occur, whole new industries will have to be created to manufacture such fuels at a cost of several trillion dollars. This undertaking, in turn, is provoking a wide-ranging debate over the environmental consequences of producing such fuels.

For example, any significant increase in biofuels use -- assuming such fuels were produced by chemical means rather than, as now, by cooking -- could substantially reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, actually slowing the tempo of future climate change. On the other hand, any increase in the production of Canadian oil sands, Venezuelan extra-heavy oil, and Rocky Mountain shale oil will entail energy-intensive activities at staggering levels, sure to emit vast amounts of CO2, which might more than cancel out any gains from the biofuels.

In addition, increased biofuels production risks the diversion of vast tracts of arable land from the crucial cultivation of basic food staples to the manufacture of transportation fuel. If, as is likely, oil prices continue to rise, expect it to be ever more attractive for farmers to grow more corn and other crops for eventual conversion to transportation fuels, which means rises in food costs that could price basics out of the range of the very poor, while stretching working families to the limit. As in May and June of 2008, when food riots spread across the planet in response to high food prices -- caused, in part, by the diversion of vast amounts of corn acreage to biofuel production -- this could well lead to mass unrest and mass starvation.

A Heavy Energy Footprint on the Planet

The geopolitical implications of this transformation could well be striking. Among other developments, the global clout of Canada, Venezuela, and Brazil -- all key producers of unconventional fuels -- is bound to be strengthened.

Canada is becoming increasingly important as the world's leading producer of oil sands, or bitumen -- a thick, gooey, viscous material that must be dug out of the ground and treated in various energy-intensive ways before it can be converted into synthetic petroleum fuel (synfuel). According to the IEO report, oil sands production, now at 1.3 million barrels a day and barely profitable, could hit the 4.4 million barrel mark (or even, according to the most optimistic scenarios, 6.5 million barrels) by 2030.

Given the IEA's new projections, this would represent an extraordinary addition to global energy supplies just when key sources of conventional oil in places like Mexico and the North Sea are expected to suffer severe declines. The extraction of oil sands, however, could prove a pollution disaster of the first order. For one thing, remarkable infusions of old-style energy are needed to extract this new energy, huge forest tracts would have to be cleared, and vast quantities of water used for the steam necessary to dislodge the buried goo (just as the equivalent of "peak water" may be arriving).

What this means is that the accelerated production of oil sands is sure to be linked to environmental despoliation, pollution, and global warming. There is considerable doubt that Canadian officials and the general public will, in the end, be willing to pay the economic and environmental price involved. In other words, whatever the IEA may project now, no one can know whether synfuels will really be available in the necessary quantities 15 or 20 years down the road.

Venezuela has long been an important source of crude oil for the United States, generating much of the revenue used by President Hugo Chávez to sustain his social experiments at home and an ambitious anti-American political agenda abroad. In the coming years, however, its production of conventional petroleum is expected to fall, leaving the country increasingly reliant on the exploitation of large deposits of bitumen in the eastern Orinoco River basin. Just to develop these "extra-heavy oil" deposits will require significant financial and energy investments and, as with Canadian oil sands, the environmental impact could be devastating. Nevertheless, successful development of these deposits could prove an economic bonanza for Venezuela.

The big winner in these grim energy sweepstakes, however, is likely to be Brazil. Already a major producer of ethanol, it is expected to see a huge increase in unconventional oil output once its new ultra-deep fields in the "subsalt" Campos and Santos basins come on-line. These are massive offshore oil deposits buried beneath thick layers of salt some 100 miles off the coast of Rio de Janeiro and several miles beneath the ocean's surface.

When the substantial technical challenges to exploiting these undersea fields are overcome, Brazil's output could soar by as much as three million barrels per day. By 2030, Brazil should be a major player in the world energy equation, having succeeded Venezuela as South America's leading petroleum producer.

New Powers, New Problems

The IEO report hints at other geopolitical changes occurring in the global energy landscape, especially an expected stunning increase in the share of the global energy supply consumed in Asia and a corresponding decline by the United States, Japan, and other "First World" powers. In 1990, the developing nations of Asia and the Middle East accounted for only 17% of world energy consumption; by 2030, that number, the report suggests, should reach 41%, matching that of the major First World powers.

All recent editions of the report have predicted that China would eventually overtake the United States as number one energy consumer. What's notable is how quickly the 2009 edition expects that to happen. The 2006 report had China assuming the leadership position in a 2026-2030 timeframe; in 2007, it was 2021-2024; in 2008, it was 2016-2020. This year, the EIA is projecting that China will overtake the United States between 2010 and 2014.

It's easy enough to overlook these shifting estimates, since the reports don't emphasize how they have changed from year to year. What they suggest, however, is that the United States will face ever fiercer competition from China in the global struggle to secure adequate supplies of energy to meet national needs.

Given what we have learned about the dwindling prospects for adequate future oil supplies, we are sure to face increased geopolitical competition and strife between the two countries in those few areas that are capable of producing additional quantities of oil (and undoubtedly genuine desperation among many other countries with far less resources and power).

And much else follows: As the world's leading energy consumer, Beijing will undoubtedly play a far more critical role in setting international energy policies and prices, undercutting the pivotal role long played by Washington. It is not hard to imagine, then, that major oil producers in the Middle East and Africa will see it as in their interest to deepen political and economic ties with China at the expense of the United States. China can also be expected to maintain close ties with oil providers like Iran and Sudan, no matter how this clashes with American foreign policy objectives.

At first glance, the International Energy Outlook for 2009 hardly looks different from previous editions: a tedious compendium of tables and text on global energy trends. Looked at another way, however, it trumpets the headlines of the future -- and their news is not comforting.

The global energy equation is changing rapidly, and with it is likely to come great power competition, economic peril, rising starvation, growing unrest, environmental disaster, and shrinking energy supplies, no matter what steps are taken. No doubt the 2010 edition of the report and those that follow will reveal far more, but the new trends in energy on the planet are already increasingly evident -- and unsettling.

Related Links:

What Do Coal and Dirty Dorm Rooms Have in Common?

Clean energy opportunities

Oil: enough energy to melt glaciers!

Advocates of regulatory environmentalism dominated the spin wars last month when the monumental American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES) -- aka the carbon cap-and-trade bill assembled by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) -- passed out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Climate politics "realists" lauded “historic action” (in the words of Al Gore) on a bill that would at last "establish comprehensive national limits on the pollution that causes global warming" (in the words of Dan Lashof of the Natural Resources Defense Council). Meanwhile, cap-and-trade fans made of sterner stuff complained that the bill’s target for an initial 17-percent reduction from 2005 levels of greenhouse-gas emissions by 2020 was far too weak and decried Waxman and Markey’s massive giveaways of emissions permits to polluting industries.

In short, the initial mixed verdict on ACES was issued almost exclusively by the proponents of regulatory and carbon pricing solutions to America’s climate and energy-security challenge.

But there is another standpoint from which to assess ACES, one less prominent in Washington circles, and that is to ask what the bill does to promote clean energy innovation and game-changing technology breakthroughs.

Strangely secondary in the carbon discourse, the needs of the technologists, the inventors, the entrepreneurs, and the economic-development practitioners ought to emerge as at least an equal priority to regulatory responses in the nation’s struggle to decarbonize its economy.

As a recent report issued by my group at the Brookings Institution argues, America needs to catalyze and massively commercialize -- very soon -- truly transformative scientific and technological breakthroughs if it is going to have any chance of securing the 80-percent greenhouse-gas emissions cuts needed by mid-century to stave off really disruptive environmental breakdowns.

And that applies even if the nation can get a strong regulatory and pricing cap in place in the next few years. Over the next four decades, after all, global energy demand is expected to triple. But world emissions must be cut by half or more. All of which means that America and the world must change the game. America, in short, must move aggressively to develop and harness a portfolio of truly scalable clean energy sources -- which we do not now have -- and ensure that they are affordable enough to deploy throughout the world.

Consequently, it matters hugely whether or not the Waxman-Markey bill (or Congress through the standard appropriations channels) invests deeply enough in clean energy R&D and technology development and deployment to catalyze the needed inventions over the next 40 years.

So how are we doing? On the innovation front, Waxman-Markey must be deemed an important start, a move in the right direction, but not there yet.

Waxman and Markey deserve credit, given the circumstances, for setting aside some 16 percent of the hundreds of billions of dollars of cap-and-trade revenue that the bill would generate for such items as new auto technology, carbon-capture-and-storage work, and other clean energy technology development and deployment. Such public investments will be crucial to jump-starting the innovation process, creating clean energy jobs, and upgrading the nation’s energy infrastructure in the presence of numerous market failures. Given the pressure of competing interests, reserving even that much of the bill’s revenue for innovation activities represents an important start.

Also noteworthy is the bill’s dedication of 1 percent of the bill’s permit revenue to the establishment of eight "Clean Energy Innovation Centers" -- regional R&D hubs reminiscent of Brookings’ proposal for the nation to launch a network of energy discovery-innovation institutes (e-DIIs) designed to leverage the expertise of universities, national laboratories, industry, venture capital, and others in the transfer of powerful clean energy technologies into the marketplace.

Paralleling the Department of Energy’s FY 2010 proposal for the creation of eight “energy innovation hubs,” the Waxman-Markey centers represent an important affirmation of the importance of public investments in innovation, run through new commercialization-oriented paradigms. Of particular value in Waxman and Markey’s centers is their strong regional cast, and recognition that breakthroughs and their commercialization don’t automatically spring up and go nation-wide through university or federal laboratory work but instead require extensive synergistic interactions of scientists and technologists with local and global networks of firms, suppliers, investors, and preexisting industry "clusters."

And yet, the innovation investments in the ACES bill that passed out of the Energy and Commerce Committee remain too small, largely because so many of the bill’s carbon-emission permits had to be given away free to ensure the bill’s passage. Assuming an average pollution allowance price of $15, ACES as currently written would generate just $9 billion annually for technology innovation activities, broadly defined, as notes an analysis by the Breakthrough Institute.

To be sure, $9 billion a year is hardly nothing, and would represent an important boost to the nation’s paltry current innovation flows. But the ACES innovation funding pales in view of that fact that my group at Brookings (and many other groups) has called for the nation to invest as much as $20 to $30 billion per year on energy R&D alone even as President Obama has called for investing $15 billion. And it’s doubly disappointing given that cap-and-trade revenues represent the nation’s best shot at finding the money to sufficiently fund innovation in the face of the punishingly tight budgets that will prevail for the foreseeable future.

The verdict, then, is mixed: Reps. Waxman and Markey merit praise for insisting upon crucial placeholders for innovation in their bill, but the accommodations extracted by the interest groups have left too little revenue behind for the most crucial use of cap-trade money -- investments to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy.

And so the way forward is clear: Notwithstanding the crush of competing interests, Congress must significantly enlarge the innovation component of whatever carbon program it cobbles together in the next year or two. So let’s say the cap-trade "to do" for the rest of the year in the House must be to defend the clean energy innovation outlays of ACES from marauding interest groups -- and then perhaps double them. Fail in this, and the nation could gain a complicated carbon pricing scheme but blow its best opportunity to finance the breakthroughs needed to make clean energy cheap and so stave off massive environmental destabilization.

But that’s a goal for the next several years -- or longer. In the meantime, the nation simply cannot afford to wait the two or three or six or seven years it will take to fix ACES and begin to direct cap-and-trade revenue into specific programs to boost energy innovation. And so Congress should engage now in the regular appropriations process. With engagement from the White House, the relevant committees should move now to embrace the Department of Energy’s 2010 budget request. Secretary Steven Chu’s first budget includes the outlines of a powerful energy innovation system for America that would broadly engage the pure-science community through the funding of Energy Frontier Research Centers, conduct "disruptive" research through ARPA-E, and start eight of its own “energy innovation hubs” for translational work to get new energy technologies out of the lab and into the market.

Congress should fund it all, this year. By doing that, the country could finally get started on putting in place the pieces of a serious, sophisticated push to make clean energy cheap and meaningfully slow climate change even as we wait for the crafting of the right carbon-pricing program.

Related Links:

Fair, Ambitious & Binding: Essentials for a Successful Climate Deal

Obama administration may (finally) offer greenhouse-gas targets

John McCain’s troubles are the world’s troubles

In a laudable attempt to draw more elite media attention to the Waxman-Markey bill -- which, like all things "environmental," has not exactly been a preoccupation of the political cable/blog/op-ed axis -- Washington Post business writer Steven Pearlstein makes a hash of a few important facts.

Pearlstein says the Waxman-Markey bill will create "create dozens of new government agencies with broad powers to set standards, dole out rebates and tax subsidies, and pick winning and losing technologies." By my math, "dozens" means 24 or more, but I can't even come up with a handful. EPA will monitor CO2 and issue permits. FERC will regulate the carbon trading market. The Department of Energy will establish efficiency standards, do new research, and expand smart grid and electrical vehicle support programs. These aren't new agencies.

There is a new Carbon Storage Research Corporation [S114(b)] run by EPRI. There's an Offsets Integrity Advisory Board [S731] to consult on quality and standards for offsets. There might at some point be a clean energy and/or infrastructure investment bank to help finance new green projects. But most of the regulating is being done by existing departments and agencies.

Pearlstein's hyperbole is par for the course these days. Lots of people have taken to exaggerating the complexity and opacity of the bill based primarily on its page length (one wonders how many have read it, or even a summary). Waxman-Markey does a great many things (thus the many pages), but most of them are described fairly clearly and constitute reasonable evolution of existing regulatory authority. This isn't to say there aren't complexities -- important questions remain to be answered about coal plant performance standards and EPA authority, for example -- but the bill is not the impenetrable Rube Goldberg mechanism so many in the press caricature.

Pearlstein is mixed up about the choices in climate policy as well. Apparently Paul Portney, former president of Resources for the Future, told him there are three options in reducing emissions: a carbon tax, a cap-and-trade system, and other regulations, standards, and investments (so-called "complementary policies"). Not sure if Portney said exactly that, but if he did, he's mixed up too. That's like saying your sandwich choices are chunky peanut butter, creamy peanut butter, or jelly.

Then Portney/Pearlstein adds to the confusion by saying Waxman-Markey uses a mix of all three policies, but that's not right either. The carbon title of the bill is a cap-and-trade system, full stop. It's a declining cap and tradable permits. Features that might have made it slightly more tax-like, e.g. 100 percent auction of permits, were rejected. There's no tax in the mix.

The cap-and-trade system is, in fact, packaged in a large bill with a whole range of complementary policies. But why should expect (or want) otherwise? Climate policy cannot live by carbon pricing alone. [See, from the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center: “Cap and Trade is Not Enough: Improving US Climate Policy” (PDF), or Holmes Hummel, “The Essential Role of Complementary Policies in Climate Policy Design” (PPT).]

The climate policy stool has three legs: a price on carbon, complementary regulations and standards, and public investment. It would be unwise to pick one at the expense of the others just to make a bill tidier or fewer pages in length. If anything, the third leg -- investment -- needs to be bulked up in the bill.

All that said, Pearlstein is absolutely to be commended for recognizing that:

Something very important has been happening this week -- more important, if you can believe it, than what Nancy Pelosi knew about waterboarding or why Kris Allen scored his upset victory on "American Idol."

So damn true. Let's hope Pearlstein can get a few more of his colleagues interested. One of the things that would have made the bill better is a lot more sunlight, and that only comes with relentless (and accurate) press exposure. After all, he's dead on about this:

Given the bill's scope and complexity, just getting it out of committee is a monumental achievement on the part of its principal authors, Democrats Henry Waxman of California and Ed Markey of Massachusetts. To do so, they had to make numerous compromises and concessions to powerful special interests and regional voting blocs that would be most affected by the transition to a system in which companies and consumers are forced to pay, indirectly, for the environmental damage they cause. Waxman and Markey are wily and experienced politicians, so it is a fair assumption that the bill their committee passed last night in a 33-25 vote is pretty close to what the U.S. political system is now willing to accept.

Producing a better bill than Waxman-Markey would require a few changes in the political landscape, one of which is a political media that takes the bill and the issues it addresses seriously.

Related Links:

What to make of the new climate poll

Capturing the massive social benefits of fuel efficiency requires regulation

Are carbon taxes a viable option?

"We have a problem and we've got to get it solved. The politics of energy are such that it actually shouldn't be a political question. Let's get to a different point in the discussion about what American needs, and what this country really needs is something where it doesn't really matter whether you're a Republican or a Democrat. ... California went through that transition in the 1970s. That's why their per capita energy use has remained flat over the years, because both parties became convinced that this was something that was very important. I think a similar feeling has to emerge in the general population of the United States, that this is a problem. Our national security, our economic prosperity, our climate issues are really not ultimately political questions."

-- Energy Secretary Steven Chu, responding to a question on the political challenges of crafting energy and climate policy, at the Newsweek Energy Independence 2020 summit

Related Links:

Graham and Kerry are in talks with White House “to discuss a possible compromise.”

Methane leakage runs up a $50 billion bill

U.S. headed for massive decline in carbon emissions

Cathy Zoi, CEO of Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection, has been nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE) under Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

Zoi has a unique combination of expertise in clean energy and high level federal government experience -- she was Chief of Staff in the Clinton White House Office on Environmental Policy, managing the staff working on environmental and energy issues (full bio here, recent writing below). Since I have known Zoi for nearly two decades and since in 1997 I held the job she is now nominated for, I can personally attest she will be able to hit the ground running in the crucial job of overseeing the vast majority of the development and deployment of plausible climate solutions technology.

What does EERE do? You could spend hours on their website, here, exploring everything they are into. Of the 12 to 14 most plausible wedges the world needs to stabilize at 350 to 450 ppm -- the full global warming solution -- EERE is the principal federal agency for working with businesses to develop and deploy the technology for 11 of them!

The stimulus and the 2009 budget dramatically increases -- more than doubles -- EERE funding for technology development and deployment. Zoi's most important job is deployment, deployment, deployment. And again she is a uniquely qualified to get clean energy into the marketplace. Zoi was a manager at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency where "she pioneered the Energy Star Program," which was the pioneering energy efficiency deployment program launched in the early 1990s.

So we know Zoi gets energy efficiency. Here's what she wrote last year about "Embracing the Challenge to Repower America":

In short, she gets both energy efficiency and Concentrated solar thermal power Solar Baseload.

Kudos to Obama for this terrific pick!

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Related Links:

What Do Coal and Dirty Dorm Rooms Have in Common?

Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?

Bring on all the water news—the good, the bad and the ugly

President Obama has picked David Sandalow to be assistant secretary for Policy and International Affairs at the Energy Department. He also plans to nominate BP chief scientist Steven Koonin to be undersecretary for Science.

And I hear that renewables expert and UC Berkeley professor Dan Kammen (PDF) is on the short list for assistant secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) -- the position I held for 6 months in 1997 (in an acting capacity).

Sandalow is a good friend who also held a number of positions during the Clinton administration (bio here). He is an expert on both global warming and oil policy -- and wrote The Book to Read on "Freedom from Oil." You can watch a video interview of Sandalow laying out his plan to end the US oil addiction here.

Sandalow is a big supporter of plug-in hybrids, which is no surprise since they are a core climate solution, And electricity is the only alternative fuel that can lead to energy independence.

E&E Daily ($ub. req) says about the appointment:

Kudos to Obama and Chu for picking such a first-rate choice.

I have been on the same platform as Koonin many times, and he is a very sharp guy who also understands climate. E&E has more on his nomination:

The truly plum position for clean energy advocates, and one of the best jobs in the whole federal government, is running EERE. I'll post as soon as there is an official announcement for that position.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Related Links:

Chuck Norris on Copenhagen

Climate Denial Crock of the Week: The big mist take

The U.S.-India climate ‘partnership’

The Department of Energy announced on Friday that the first energy loan guarantee authorized by the 2005 (!) Energy Policy Act went to a plant that manufactures solar panels:

"This investment is part of President Obama's aggressive strategy to put Americans back to work and reduce our dependence on foreign oil by developing clean, renewable sources of energy," Secretary Chu said. "We can create millions of new, good paying jobs that can't be outsourced. Instead of relying on imports from other countries to meet our energy needs, we'll rely on America's innovation, America's resources, and America's workers."

[Note to Chu and DOE press team: Next time, please don't issue such big, newsworthy announcements on Fridays. That's when the previous administration would release news they wanted to bury (see "The four global warming impact studies Bush tried to bury in his final days").]

Ironically, this loan program was "established to speed the deployment of low-carbon energy technologies but has been plagued-to the consternation of lawmakers-by delays stemming mainly from policy disputes between the Bush administration DOE and Office of Management and Budget," as Energy Daily ($ub. req'd) noted.

That's right -- for over two years, the Bush administration couldn't even decide amongst itself how to use these loans. But then again all of Bush's pro-technology talk was just that -- talk (see here).

Here are more details from DOE on the company that got the loan:

Further details on the potential advantages of their technology are below.

Here are some more details on how this loan will operate:

Here are comments from Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee chair Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.):

Scientific American had a good story in October on Solyndra (here).

Energy Daily has more recent details:

Yes -- venture capital has been critical to the recent explosion in U.S. clean energy companies (see here).

Kudos to Chu for jumpstarting the loan program and focusing on the key job creating technologies of this century -- renewable energy.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Related Links:

What Do Coal and Dirty Dorm Rooms Have in Common?

Bring on all the water news—the good, the bad and the ugly

Clean energy opportunities

Chu starts about 21 minutes in:

Related Links:

It’s Getting Ha! in Here: Maria Bamford

Gore on the Daily Show: extended dance remix

Gore on The Daily Show

Today the Department of Energy announced its first energy loan guarantee. It's going to ... Solyndra, a manufacturer of solar panels. What's the phrase? Oh, right: elections have consequences.

Related Links:

What Do Coal and Dirty Dorm Rooms Have in Common?

Freeing the grid

Clean energy opportunities

Stephanie Cooke shares an inconvenient truth about the Energy Department:

Related Links:

Two senators push to ramp up nuclear energy

Nuclear companies face reactor design problems, ethics questions

Will South Carolina become the nation’s new Yucca Mountain?

Related Links:

Climate Denial Crock of the Week: The big mist take

What Do Coal and Dirty Dorm Rooms Have in Common?

Copenhagen, U.S.A. December 7

Related Links:

What Do Coal and Dirty Dorm Rooms Have in Common?

Clean energy opportunities

The Wind Kids: How high school students helped bring a wind farm to Milford, Utah