July 9, 2004

Climate Stewardship Act

The Climate Stewardship Act (S.139), sponsored by Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), failed in the U.S. Senate on October 30, 2003, by a vote of 43-55. The sponsors have committed to fighting to bring the bill back up for a vote in 2004 and as many times as needed until it passes. A companion bill was introduced in the House by Representatives Wayne Gilchrest (R-Md.) and John Olver (D-Mass.) on March 30, 2004.

The legislation would cap producers of 85% of the country's greenhouse gas emissions at 2000 levels, starting in 2010. And it would set up a market for trading emissions allowances.

The Climate Network lists 10 reasons to support the legislation, but all of them are statements of the problem and statements of support rather than evidence that the legislation would help to solve anything. I comment on a couple . . .
4) a) Coalitions of major U.S. corporations, including Maytag, Honeywell, Trane, GE Wind Energy, American Gas Association, and others who manufacture cleaner technologies, support the Act’s market-based emissions trading system. The system encourages innovation and will help U.S. industry be a leader in the $20 trillion global market for energy technologies over the next 20 years.
A "carbon trading" system does not reduce carbon emissions. It simply allows carbon producers to buy "indulgences." The "green" producers are not reducing emissions but in fact supporting them. The artificial market creates a new source of profits for energy producers as well as a justification for raising prices without actually having to take any measures for the public good.
9) Farmers & Ranchers Support the Act -- The National Farmers Union supports the Act, which creates a new source of income for farmers through a carbon “sequestration” market that rewards environmentally beneficial farming, ranching, and forestry. The Act includes additional incentives for biofuels and wind power. Farms and ranches are exempt from emissions control requirements under the Act.
So farms and ranches will be at the forefront of carbon reduction but are exempt from emission controls. Forgive me, but that doesn't make sense. It is in keeping, however, with the idea that the scheme is not about reducing carbon so much as creating a way for polluters to continue polluting and to make more profits doing so.

July 7, 2004

A note about "NIMBYism"

NIMBY stands for "not in my back yard" and typically refers to the supporters of such social services as half-way houses or utilities such as cell-phone towers and recycling centers as long as they are in other people's neighborhoods. Though it is a common accusation, it does not apply to most opponents of wind facilities. Many of the most vocal were indeed inspired by the threat to local ridges; concern for one's environment is normally considered as admirable. Rather than roll over to the plans of multinational consortia to industrialize the high wild places that characterize the area, it was their duty to learn more about such facilities; making oneself informed also is normally considered positively. They learned about large-scale wind's ineffectual contribution and significant negative impacts, leading them to oppose such projects not just in their own back yards but everywhere. Facts sometimes overcome wishful thinking and propaganda, which is why Mr. Dewey (earlier post) prefers to argue aesthetics (insisting that he is the most qualified judge) and to spout greeting-card pabulum.

Wind turbines = Nazi flag

Strange but true, Keith Dewey, the founder of Fair Wind Vermont, which opposes opposition to industrial wind plants, wrote an essay arguing that the Nazi flag is considered to be ugly because of "intellectual" associations (which presumably is good, though he isn't quite clear on the point), and that for the same reason industrial wind plants are opposed as ugly (which judgement, he says, is bad). He neglects to say why it's good to think the Nazi flag is ugly even though it isn't (he says) and why it's bad to think industrial wind plants are ugly even though they aren't, either (he says). Since he asserts that both are not ugly, perhaps he believes both judgements to be bad, since they aren't purely aesthetic (by the criteria of his architecturally trained eye).

Because he undercuts his own argument for the pure beauty of wind towers by asserting that they symbolize responsible and progressive stewardship of the planet, which is why (intellectually) they are beautiful. So unless he really believes that the Nazi flag ought to be admired because it is well designed, then we must also apply only intellectual criteria to judging wind turbines. Opponents have concluded from their research that wind turbines are ugly because they are harmful and of no value . . . click on any of the wind links in the sidebar to read the many reasons industrial wind plants are a sham. If we are right to see the Nazi flag as ugly — because of what it symbolizes — then we are also right in seeing industrial wind plants as ugly.

In his attempt to belittle opponents of industrial wind, Dewey obviously didn't think this through. That's hardly surprising, though: Proponents of large-scale wind invariably operate on the most superficial level of salesmen and meretricious consultants. Their words are not derived but are designed to distract from actual thought.

[Dewey's article appeared in the April 2004 newsletter of the Vermont chapter of the American Institute of Architects. The newsletter has been removed from the AIA-VT web site but is available here.]

July 6, 2004

New movie of America

'But the most stirring sequence is the penultimate scene, in which a young man on the eve of his surrender to Wal-Mart, bids farewell to his mother:

'"Tom Snode: Maybe it's like Ashcroft says. A fellow ain't got privacy of his own, -- maybe just a little peace in the big privatization, the one big secret energy company that belongs to a few deserving souls, then --

'Ma: Then what?

'Tom Snode: We'll be all around in the dark -- we'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look -- wherever there's a fight in Iraq, so wealthy people can eat, we'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, we'll be the guy. We'll be there in the way Cheney yells when he's mad. We'll be there in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know budget cuts are ready, and when some people are cheatin' the tax structure the rest of us support, and livin' in the second houses they built on untaxed profits, we'll be th-- oh wait, we're still waitin' on the invite to that one."

'The movie closes with a charming montage of sun-dappled wheat fields, nuclear families watching a fireworks display, the farmer in the dell, the happiest girl in the whole USA, a butcher, a baker, a fundamentalist policymaker, a basket of kittens, and workers in hardhats enjoying a wholesome chuckle over a blueprint. A news crawl at the bottom of the screen reminds viewers to report any suspicious voter registration and to expect terrorist attacks as they exit through the central mall.'

-- Joyce McGreevy, Salon

July 5, 2004

Nuclear conspiracy?

The usually clear-headed Windpower Monthly (click title) finds the coincidence of the British nuclear industry pushing its wares at the same time of an "unprecedented number of misinformed attacks on wind's ability to provide cheap, safe and reliable supplies of green power" to be suggestive of conspiracy. The editor, Lyn Harrison (click here), even calls it a "hate campaign."

There's a more obvious reason for widespread and increasingly coordinated opposition: the unprecedented number of applications for large facilities in so many parts of the U.K. Windpower Monthly may find the opposition "misinformed," but while wind may indeed be able to provide a certain amount of electricity, only massive numbers of giant turbines can make a significant source on the grid. Even then, it does not displace other sources which must be kept on to make up for wind's variability and to respond to actual demand. Opposition to such a destructive and dubious scheme is quite informed.

The industry fear of conspiracy and prejudice suggests an inability to show that industrial-scale wind provides real benefits to justify its high costs (aesthetic, environmental, etc.). The fading enthusiasm as people -- and their politicians -- become better informed is evident in the editorial's description of the industry's on-going struggles:
"France's new market framework is a disaster; Australia is refusing to extend its green power mandate; Europe is not meeting its targets for renewables; U.S. wind development is at a standstill; amendments to wind laws in Germany and Spain are bad news; Britain is not delivering new wind megawatts fast enough -- and U.K. wind is being subjected to what looks like a media hate campaign to boot."
If the U.K. wants to make more of its electricity generation emission-free, it is not surprising that the nuclear industry takes advantage of that stated goal to remind people that nuclear power fits the bill (one need only overlook its many problems, such as dangerous waste, leakage, contamination of water, and potential for large-scale disaster). Despite its very serious drawbacks, it has proved able to provide the very large amount of power necessary to keep a consumerist society going.

In France, nuclear plants produce over 75% of its electricity. In another article, Windpower Monthly discusses France's failure to jump on the wind bandwagon as another anti-wind conspiracy, suggesting that the government doesn't support their industry. The fact is don't really need a new low-CO2 source, particularly one whose contribution would be so unhelpful yet whose physical and aesthetic impact would be so large.

It is revealing that the wind industry feels threatened by having to share the stage with other electricity sources. They don't seem to like being compared to generators that actually meet the needs of the grid.

Simple conservation measures would reduce more CO2 than any amount of industrial wind turbines could. They would affect all energy use, not just that used for electricity. Meanwhile, the international group Iter is ready to start building a fusion reactor, though they can't agree on a site.

July 4, 2004

There is no substitute for conservation

"This no-free-lunch rule applies to all energy alternatives. For example, while ethanol brewed from cost-effective crops can replace gasoline in the short-term, it still releases CO2. Solar and wind power are emission-free, but face their own downsides. One is power density. While a chunk of coal packs lots of energy into a small volume, wind and solar are rather dispersed. Thus, where a coal-fired power plant capable of powering a small city takes up only a few hundred acres, a wind-farm of the same capacity would require hundreds of square miles. Ditto for solar."

So says Paul Roberts towards the end of a clear-headed article about energy in today's Boston Globe (click the title of this post, which is the last heading of his piece).

A couple of points concerning the excerpt above. Corn or hemp or other plant-derived gasoline substitutes do indeed release CO2 when burned, but while the crops are growing they absorb CO2 and are therefore considered emission-neutral. And a wind-powered facility of the same capacity as the coal-fired plant in his example would in fact have to be almost 4 times as large as he says, to make up for the intermittency of its energy source, the wind. You would still need the coal-fired plant as well, operating very inefficiently, to compensate for the highly variable wind-plant output and respond to actual customer need (to which wind facilities are happily oblivious).

Independence Day

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government."