Another Record Warm Winter

It's official: this winter was the warmest ever recorded, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (See Reuters story here.) (We wish it would be warmer this weekend!)

While we enjoyed playing golf in our shorts in January, we doubt it's a good thing for our earth in the long run. This year, Virginia will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Jamestown colony. Our question: will the land on which the Jamestown colony was settled even be in existence in another 400 years? Or will it be under the rising sea?

While we're at it, MIT has released a report--The Future of Coal--arguing that advances in technology make it possible to burn the black fuel cleanly in the future, with minimal carbon emissions. You can find the report here. We're a bit dubious--clean coal is expensive and we think the investment would pay off faster in conservation and wind energy, perhaps solar.

BUT, it appears inevitable that rapidly developing economies in India and especially China will rely heavily on coal, so it may be wise to develop and advance these coal technologies nonetheless.

Mark Sanford: SC's Faux Green Governor

Perusing today's Washington Post, the Curmudgeon was surprised to see an op-ed piece on global climate change from none other than South Carolina's very red Republican governor Mark Sanford.

The headline, "Why the Right Needs to Get Invested in the Search for Climate Change Solutions" was certainly provocative. Could it be, we wondered, that even someone as far right as Mark Sanford was finally seeing the light on global warming?

Nope, not really. Sanford makes the logical point that conservatives need to join the debate on global climate change or simply be left out. He describes himself as a "conservationist," which means that, like many Republicans, he supports state tax subsidies to wealthy landowners to create "conservation easements" that restrict future development.

(We're not against conservation easements so long as the tax subsidies are not unreasonably generous and the restrictions on future development are real, which they often aren't. We are against conservatives like Sanford who "oppose" regulation and "raising" taxes, but don't think that subsidies in the form of tax breaks are also a form of regulation and state expenditure. If Sanford really meant what he says, he'd simply "encourage" wealthy landowners to set aside their land from development out of the goodness of their conservative Christian hearts.)

Apart, however, from saying that if conservatives don't act, they'll cede ground to "far-left interest groups", Sanford offers no prescription for action.

(When Sanford speaks of "far-left interest groups," he means anyone to the left of his far right agenda. And when he speaks of people "losing their rights and freedoms" he excludes Taliban-like Christian activists in his party who would love to tell the rest of us how to live our lives, especially in the bedroom.)

The plain fact is that South Carolina is far behind the curve when it comes to policies that will combat global warming. For example, South Carolina has no net metering law, which would require local utilities to allow businesses and homeowners to tie distributed renewable electricity sources, such as wind and solar, into the local power grid. SC is one of less than 10 states that don't have a net metering provision; its neighbors in Georgia and NC both have such laws.

The absence of a net metering law is a real hindrance to those who want to fight global warming. We recently suggested to a very good friend, who tries to lead a green lifestyle in South Carolina, that he put up a wind microturbine and a few solar panels on his Sullivans Island home. (Sanford also has a home on Sullivans Island, a thin barrier island, rising just a few feet above rising sea levels, to the north of Charleston harbor. The wealthy enclave is pictured above.) Our friend said it was not practical since SC has no interconnection option.

Nor can our friend opt, as he could in many other states (including NC, but alas, not Virginia), to purchase "green power" from his local utility, at a premium charge, to encourage the utility to finance development of alternative sources of energy.

South Carolina is blessed with abundant sunshine, and along it's coast and some parts of the state's mountains it also has ample wind resources. SC also has the finest coastline on the Eastern Seaboard, with beautiful wide beaches and the most tidal marshlands of any state. All of which is greatly imperilled by rising sea levels and the threat of more frequent and more intense hurricanes.

If Sanford was serious, he'd try to put together a package of "incentives" (not regulations) and "tax breaks" (not state spending) that would enhance the "rights and freedoms" of South Carolinians by encouraging them to develop the state's largely untapped renewable energy resources. He'd try to make the state a leader--not a laggard--in that arena, which, by the way, holds the promise of new jobs and technologies.

He'd also promote conservation--not land conservation, but energy conservation. To do so, however, he'll need to embrace at least some moderate levels of "regulation," such as requiring that new homes be built to certain green standards. Is that such a big deal? Not really--the state already has numerous regulations and building code provisions applying to construction. Adjusting them to promote conservation is not really "new" regulation unless Sanford simply wants to do away with all the existing requirements.

Sanford is probably correct that if conservatives don't act, the rest of the country and the world will. And he might not like what comes of that.

So, Mark Sanford, if you're serious, try leading by example and action, instead of empty words. You can start by putting a wind turbine and some solar panels on your beachfront farm, and making sure that other South Carolinians can do likewise without interference from the local utility.

Don't Conflate Energy Independence With Climate Change Policy

Now that the House Democrats have finished their largely symbolic first 100 hours agenda, Speaker Nancy Pelosi says one of the next key issues is "energy independence." According to Pelosi, "climate change is part of energy independence."

Wrong.

The converse might well be true, however: energy independence could well be a by-product of aggressive policies to reduce carbon emissions as a means of addressing global warming.

Here's the problem. "Energy independence" is a set of policies designed to wean America from its ever-growing dependence on foreign oil, and, to a lesser extent, imported natural gas. The goal of achieving energy independence is to enhance our national security, primarily by avoiding entanglements with the unstable and sometimes unsavory governments that control much of our foreign oil.

If we really want energy independence, we can pretty easily get it, albeit at a cost. The U.S. has ample coal reserves that can be tapped for generating electricity and transforming into liquid fuel. Likewise, U.S. corn production can increasingly be diverted into distillation of ethanol to run automobiles. We can also choose to open up drilling in environmentally sensitive areas of the Arctic and boost incentives to develop shale oil in the Rockies. We can also boost nuclear power. And, of course, we can expand our use of renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar and geothermal.

All these steps could reduce our use of foreign oil, which we use primarily because it is CHEAP compared to these other options.

Now, let's turn to global warming. If we want to reduce carbon emissions, we won't tap our vast coal reserves. Indeed, the first step we'd want to take is to replace coal-fired electric plants with almost anything else, since coal is the biggest carbon emitter of the major fuels. Similarly, we wouldn't want to open up vast new oil fields in Alaska or off our coasts since oil, too, is a major carbon emitter.

Ethanol production from corn is a closer question, but most scientists who've looked into it have concluded that corn-based ethanol is, at best, only slightly better from a carbon perspective than gasoline derived from oil. It might even be a bit worse.

Instead, we would concentrate our efforts on renewable fuels that are low in carbon emissions. Wind and solar energy are great--the only carbon emissions are those caused by the manufacture and construction of their components, which is relatively small. Wind, especially, is a great source of electricity and is already competitive with carbon fuels such as oil. Solar is more expensive, but spurring its widespread use with subsidies will help the industry produce next generation solar panels that are more efficient.

Neither wind nor solar, however, can be counted on for round the clock electricity generation, and large scale storage is not likely to be very economical or environmentally friendly. Accordingly, we need to also invest in new nuclear plants, which are as carbon friendly as wind. Those "environmentalists" who oppose all nuclear of any kind are unreasonable, and, in the end, making a huge negative environmental trade-off based more on fear than fact.

On the automotive front, we need to encourage development of cellulose based biofuels from plants such as switchgrass and cornstalks, and move away from corn-based ethanol. Cellulose biofuels should be 5-10 times more carbon friendly than corn. But that's just for the short run. In the long run, we need to move rapidly toward replacement of our existing automotive fleet with cars that are primarily electric--hybrids with an additional battery, which can achieve 70 mpg (of gasoline or biofuel).

Ultimately, we need to move to a hydrogen fuel cell fleet, a feat that is more difficult than most people think. One problem: today, most hydrogen in the U.S. is produced from natural gas, and thus emits carbon. Hydrogen can be produced by electrolysis of water, but that requires a lot of electricity. One solution--next generation nuclear electric plants, which operate at such high temperatures they can produce both electricity and hydrogen.

Eliminating oil and natural gas for home heating is also quite a challenge.

Of course, since virtually all our imported energy is in the form of oil and natural gas, switching to lower carbon sources of energy will have, as a side effect, promotion of energy independence.

Accordingly, Democrats should concentrate their policy changes on those that promote reduced carbon emissions. "Energy independence" as a goal unto itself will not do much to address global warming--indeed, it could make matters worse if we rely increasingly on our abundant coal.

Unfortunately, for political reasons--wanting to look strong on national defense, catering to farm belt corn interests, etc.--Democrats will probably continue to wrap themselves in the rhetoric of energy independence. Let's just hope they funnel the money to the more promising carbon neutral technologies.