Dan Kammen: On Climate Change and Renewable Energy

At a recent Crossroads Lecture, energy policy expert Daniel Kammen spoke about Energizing the Low-Carbon Future. His presentation is timely – climate change has been on the public mind as hurricane superstorm Sandy devastated New York, New Jersey, and beyond. Though we would all agree that energy is an essential part of our daily life, Americans spend more money on potato chips than on energy research and development. Dan has a deep nuanced understanding of where we are at, and where we need to go, to build a clean, sustainable energy future.

In the presentation below, Dr. Kammen explores innovations in, and barriers to, building renewable energy systems worldwide – from villages to large regional economies.  He discusses tools already available, and others needed, to speed the transition to a sustainable planet. Daniel Kammen is Professor in the Energy and Resources Group (ERG), Professor of Public Policy in the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also the founding Director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL). Kammen advises the World Bank, and the Presidents Committee on Science and Technology (PCAST), and is a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Working Group III and the Special Report on Technology Transfer).

Dan spoke for about an hour, followed by a 35 minute question and answer session. The Q&A session has some great questions and discussion.

Dan talked about cleantech jobs, the economic benefits of transitioning to renewable energy, climate change, coal, natural gas, arctic sea ice loss, peak oil, the real cost of coal and other high-carbon sources of energy, solar energy, and energy storage.  One of my favorite quotes:

When you are spending your funds buying fuels as a fraction of the cost of the technology, it’s a very different equation than when you are investing in people, training, new companies, and intellectual capital. [And so, for example] if you buy a gas turbine, 70 percent of the money that will go in to that, over its lifetime, is not going to be for human resources and hardware, it’s to buy fuel. If you buy renewable energy and energy efficiency, while we have a problem of needing to find ways to amortize up-front costs, you are investing in people, companies, and innovation.

Jobs created, per dollar invested, are consistently higher for cleantech jobs versus old fossil fuel based energy sources. Economist Robert Solow, in his Nobel prize winning work on the drivers of economic growth, demonstrated that about 75 to 80 percent of the growth in US output per worker was attributable to technical progress and innovation.  Transitioning to renewable forms of energy will provide strong stimulus to our economy, while reducing public health and environmental costs associated with dirty coal and oil pollution.

cleantech renewable energy conservation jobs chart
(source: Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts Amherst)

After Dan Kammen finished overviewing climate change and energy issues, he highlighted several case studies that featured renewable energy and low-carbon energy production implementations for small (personal), medium (community) and large (national) installations.  Watch the video above for more.

Recommended Reading

Climate Change

Energy

 

Income Inequality: A Congressional Report Card

The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) just released their first Inequality Report Card. It evaluates each congressional representative’s voting record on 40 bills aimed at reducing income inequality. Legislation ranges from the ” Buffet Rule” that would establish a minimum tax rate for upper-income Americans to increasing the minimum wage and indexing it to inflation.

The report includes an overall “honor roll” — to highlight those representatives and senators who have done the most to narrow America’s economic divide — as well as a “dishonor roll” of lawmakers who have repeatedly tilted the “1%” way. The report card also details the “most 1% friendly” and “most 99% friendly” by party affiliation.

IPS gave each congressperson a grade, A through F.

See how your representatives did on the Inequality Report Card. Click on the map below and find your representative based on where you live. The colors represent the different grades each house member received. If your not happy with what they are doing, the map includes a quick simple button to contact your member of congress.

Income Inequality report card map
(click for larger image)

Income inequality in the US is at an all time high. As measured by the Gini Index, the US ranks with Rwanda and Uganda in income inequality.

Recommended Reading

Who Stole the American Dream? by Hedrick Smith

When Does the Wealth of a Nation Hurt its Wellbeing? by Jay Kimball

Hedrick Smith: Who Stole the American Dream? by Jay Kimball (includes video talk by Hedrick Smith)

 

Hedrick Smith: Who Stole the American Dream?

Veteran investigative reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner Hedrick Smith’s new work, Who Stole the American Dream?, steps back from the partisan fever of the 2012 campaign to explain how we got to where we are today — how America moved from an era of middle class prosperity and power, effective bipartisanship, and grass roots activism, to today’s polarized gridlock, unequal democracy and unequal economy that has unraveled the American Dream for millions of middle class families.

On 22 September 2012, Hedrick Smith spoke at the Parish Hall on Orcas Island, WA, as part of the Crossroads Lecture Series. He spoke for about an hour, followed by a 20 minute question and answer session. His book is available on Orcas Island at Darvill’s Bookstore (a signed copy), or at Amazon.

Smith’s book is brimming with fascinating insider stories that detail the shift from  a strong middle class of the 50s and 60s, to the current weakened middle class, with an income inequality that is at an all time high, ranking with that of Rwanda and Uganda.

This didn’t happen by accident. Smith details how, beginning in the 1970s, corporate attorney Lewis Powell sparked a political rebellion with his call to arms for Corporate America. Like a gripping detective story, Smith follows the trail through to present day.  Chronicling a stunning shift in power, away from a healthy growing middle-class, toward a superPACed, lobbyist fueled, special interest driven, well oiled, corporate powered, political machine.

Over the past decade, at the center of the machine, stands the “Gang of Six” and Washington insider Dirk Van Dongen, the man behind the curtain, who coordinates very effective lobbying of our elected officials.  The Gang of Six include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Federation of Independent Business, the National Restaurant Association, and Van Dongen’s own National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors.

Who Stole the American Dream? makes for compelling reading, and at the end, Smith offers up a grassroots-centered strategy for reclaiming the dream – restoring balance to our economy and re-building a healthy middle-class.  The video above will give you a summary understanding of what is well detailed in his book.

Corporate lobbyists funnel billions of dollars to our elected officials each year. Recent studies show that for every dollar spent lobbying, business receives over $220 back in legislation that favors the business.

On climate change alone, 770 companies hired 2,340 lobbyists, up 300% in past 5 years. Most of those companies have vested interests in fossil fuels and benefit from delay of legislation that would speed the transition to clean energy.

In 2011 private companies and special interest groups spent $3.32 billion lobbying their agendas. In 2010, they spent even more at $3.54 billion. From 2008 to 2010, 30 Fortune 500 companies spent more money on lobbying than they did on taxes.

In an unusual moment of candor, here’s what Senator Dick Durbin had to say about corporate money and politicians:

I think most Americans would be shocked, not surprised, but shocked if they knew how much time a United States Senator spends raising money.
And how much time we spend talking about raising money, and thinking about raising money, and planning to raise money.” Dick Durbin, 30 March 2012

Depending on status and influence, our elected officials in Congress typically raise about $5,000 to $30,000 per day. They spend a good part of each day dialing for dollars, asking businesses to send them money.  It is against the law (the Hatch Act) to make those calls from government property, so they walk to call centers located conveniently just a few minutes from Capitol Hill.

Money in Politics

For more on how corporations and our elected officials are joined at the hip, see the excellent series on Money in Politics.  Here’s an excerpt from that series:

So senators and congressmen go across the street to private rooms in nongovernmental buildings, where they make call after call, asking people for money.
In other words, most of our lawmakers are moonlighting as telemarketers.

“If you walked in there, you would say, ‘Boy, this is the about the worst looking, most abusive looking call center situation I’ve seen in my life,'” says Rep. Peter Defazio, a Democrat from Oregon. “These people don’t have any workspace, the other person is virtually touching them.”

There are stacks of names in front of each lawmaker. They go through the list, making calls and asking people for money.

The fundraising never stops, because everyone needs money to run for re-election. In the House, the candidate with more money wins in 9 out of 10 races, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics. In the Senate, it’s 8 out of 10.

It’s not uncommon for congressmen to average three or four hours moonlighting as telemarketers. One lawmaker told me if it was the end of the quarter and he really needed to make his numbers, he’d be there all day long.

The fox is in the hen house.  Time to get the big money out of politics. Surely our elected representatives don’t want to do this demeaning begging for money. Surely they would like to start making laws and setting public policy based on the merits of an issue. Right?

Recommended Reading

Who Stole the American Dream? by Hedrick Smith

When Does the Wealth of a Nation Hurt its Wellbeing? by Jay Kimball

Income Inequality: A Congressional Report Card by Jay Kimball

Money in Politics part of the NPR Planet Money series

Fair Elections Now Act is legislation to get big money out of Federal elections and replace it with grassroots public funding.  More details here and here.

 

The Price of Civilization by Jeffrey Sachs

Jeffrey Sachs, The Price of Civilization
click image for book info

Jeffrey Sachs has a outstanding new book out called The Price of Civilization. The title of the book refers to remarks made by US Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who spoke of the need for citizens of a country, who enjoyed the benefits of living in that country, to pay the price to support that civilization.

Sachs provides a thoughtful, cogent analysis of challenges facing America, and how to address those challenges. The book has a clean straightforward jargon-free narrative that is balanced and has elements that will appeal to conservatives, independents and progressives alike – though each group will find things to disagree with, there is much that will be embraced.

Sachs looks at the nature of America, through the lens of democracy, fairness, civic virtue, compassion, and happiness, and asks the question “What is our role in the 21st century?”

Sachs is the Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University.

Here’s Sachs being interviewed by Charlie Rose, about The Price of Civilization.

Here’s Sachs in the middle of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, taking questions from reporters. Sachs is articulate, plain speaking and clearly frustrated with the faltering state of the nation and the cozy monied relationship between government and big business.

On a related note, Charles M. Blow had an excellent graphic from the Bertelsmann Stiftung foundation report “Social Justice in the OECD — How Do the Member States Compare?” It helps give some context to issues driving the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations and challenges facing America.

Social Justice in the OECD
click for larger image

Recommended Reading

Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet by Jeffrey Sachs

When Does the Wealth of a Nation Hurt its Wellbeing? by Jay Kimball

What feeds a revolution? by Jay Kimball

Solar is the Fastest-Growing Industry in the US

solar statistics 2011 Q1Some good jobs news: “Solar is the fastest-growing industry in the US” according to Rhone Resch, President of  The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), during his remarks accompanying release of the quarterly report “US Solar Market Insight.”  The report was jointly prepared and released by SEIA and Greentech Media (GTM).

The graphic at right summarizes the stunning growth of the solar industry. Here are highlights from the report:

Solar Driving Jobs Creation

Rhone Resch said that the solar industry employs 100,000 Americans and that that number could double in the next two years. Within a few years, the US will be the world’s largest solar market, according to SEIA.

While California, New Jersey, and Arizona remained the top three states for solar installations, Pennsylvania jumped to the number 4 position, from number 8 in the rank last year. Maryland made the biggest move from 16th to 8th in the ranks.

Solar Growing Fast

Solar electric installations surpassed one gigawatt for the first time, and the US shows signs of being one of the top, if not the top global market for solar in the coming years. New solar photovoltaic (PV) installations for Q1 2011 grew 66% over Q1 2010. Total growth of the US solar market was up 67% in 2010, over 2009.

Solar industry manufacturing growth exceeded 31%, compared to less than 4% for overall manufacturing in the US in 2010.

Solar Pricing Continues To Improve

In Q1 2011 for the solar industry, jobs were up, installations were way up for PV and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP), manufacturing growth was up and prices are coming down. Solar system pricing is down 15 percent from Q1 2010.

While fossil fuels continue getting more and more expensive and extraction of oil, gas and coal becomes more and more toxic, the much cleaner renewable energy sector, including the solar industry, pricing is getting cheaper and cheaper.

Key Details

Photovoltaics (PV):

  • Grid-connected PV installations in Q1 2011 grew 66% over Q1 2010 to reach 252 MW.
  • Cumulative grid-connected PV in the U.S. has now reached over 2.3 GW.
  • Cumulative grid-connected solar electric (PV and CSP) has now reached 2.85 GW.
  • The top seven states installed 88% of all PV in Q1 2011, up from 82% in 2010.
  • Commercial installations in Q1 2011 more than doubled over Q1 2010 in 10 of the top 21 states.
  • U.S. module production increased by 17% relative to Q4 2010, from 297 MW to 348 MW. While production from export-oriented firms and facilities dipped materially because of soft demand in the key feed-in tariff markets of Germany and Italy, plants that serve the domestic market enjoyed far healthier utilization of manufacturing capacity.
  • After a year of flat-to-increased pricing for some PV components in 2010, annual beginning-of-year feed-in tariff cuts and depressed global demand in Q1 2011 resulted in substantial price declines. Wafer and cell prices dropped by around 15% each, while module prices fell around 7%.

Concentrating Solar Power (CSP):

  • The 500-MW Blythe CSP plant obtained a $2.1 billion DOE loan guarantee.
  • Construction is underway on the-30 MW Alamosa CPV plant, with expected completion in 2011.
  • There is a concentrating solar (combined CSP and CPV) pipeline of over 9 GW in the U.S.; more than 2.4 GW have signed power purchase agreements.
  • In total, 1,100 MW of CSP and CPV are now under construction in the U.S.

All Solar Markets:

  • The total value of US solar market installations grew 67 percent from $3.6 billion in 2009 to $6.0 billion in 2010.
  • Solar electric installations in 2010 totaled 956 megawatts (MW) to reach a cumulative installed capacity of 2.6 gigawatts (GW), enough to power more than half a million households.

Solar PV installations continue their exponential growth.

US PV Installations
US PV Installations 2005 through Q1 2011

The extraordinary growth of solar makes sense. Think of sunlight as free oil. It’s all around us every day, available for collection. No need for drilling and no threat of oil spills or toxic emissions. Solar panels convert the free energy into electricity or heat. And they do it with remarkable efficiency. It takes energy to produce energy, and to my mind, one of the most important ways to measure the energy performance of something is by calculating the Energy Returned on Energy Invested (ERoEI) – which measures how much energy it takes to produce the energy. The higher the ERoEI, the better. Here’s a chart showing the ERoEI for various energy sources.

ERoEI

 

Oil ERoEI TrendSolar and wind have the highest ERoEI of all sources of energy, and they are trending higher. Meanwhile, looking at oil, the easy oil has been extracted, what remains is increasingly expensive and difficult to get to, and toxic to extract and process. It takes much more energy to produce a barrel of oil today than it did just 50 years ago. Oil’s ERoEI has plummeted from about 100:1 in the 1950’s to about 10:1 today.

In the US Energy Information Administration’s most recent Monthly Energy Review, they show that domestic production of renewable energy has surpassed that of nuclear power.

During the first quarter of 2011, renewable energy sources (note that this includes biomass/biofuels, geothermal, solar, water, wind):

  • Provided 11.73 percent of U.S. energy production.
  • Delivered 5.65 percent more than that from nuclear power.
  • Energy from renewable sources is now 77.15 percent of that from domestic crude oil production.

Looking at just the electricity sector, according to the latest issue of EIA’s Electric Power Monthly, for the first quarter of 2011, renewable energy sources (biomass, geothermal, solar, water, wind) accounted for 12.94 percent of net U.S. electrical generation — up from 10.31 percent during the same period in 2010.

In terms of actual production, renewable electrical output increased by 25.82 percent in the first three months of 2011 compared to the first quarter of 2010. Solar-generated electricity increased by 104.8 percent, wind-generated electricity rose by 40.3 percent, hydropower output expanded by 28.7 percent, and geothermal electrical generation rose by 5.8 percent. Only electricity from biomass sources dropped, by 4.8 percent. By comparison, natural gas electrical output rose by 1.8 percent and nuclear-generated electricity increased by only 0.4 percent, while coal-generated electricity dropped by 5.7 percent.

The chart below is a concise view of the energy flow from various energy sources and destinations. Though it is only current through 2009, it gives a remarkable view into the complex landscape of where our energy comes from and how we use it.

eia energy flow 2009
(source: EIA)

U.S. Solar Market InsightTM Background Materials:

Executive Summary

Details on the reports

The U.S. Solar Market Insight: Year-in-Review 2010

June 16 Press Conference

The Q2 2011 edition of US Solar Market Insight will be available in September 2011.

Other Background Materials:

2010 National Solar Jobs Census

Details on the solar energy companies operating in each state, plus examples of the jobs being created

US Solar Energy Trade Assessment 2010 report finds the US is a net exporter of solar products

Major Solar Projects list

 

Which Energy Industries Would You Subsidize?

Subsidies and tax breaks are a tried and true way of helping a developing industry get up on its feet.

One of the strategies to accelerate a transition to cleaner greener renewable energy sources is to subsidize research development, and production of renewable energy sources, such as wind power, solar power, geothermal, etc.

Free market advocates often say that the emerging renewable energy industry should not be subsidized. What is not widely know though, is that subsidies for well established fossil fuels exceed renewables by almost six to one.

Research by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Environmental Law Institute reveals that the lion’s share of energy subsidies supported energy sources that emit high levels of greenhouse gases (GHGs). The study, which reviewed fossil fuel and energy subsidies for Fiscal Years 2002-2008, showed that the federal government spent about $70 billion on the fossil fuel industry, and about $12 billion on renewables. As the report points out:

Moreover, just a handful of tax breaks make up the largest portion of subsidies for fossil fuels, with the most significant of these, the Foreign Tax Credit, supporting the overseas production of oil. More than half of the subsidies for renewables are attributable to corn-based ethanol, the use of which, while decreasing American reliance on foreign oil, has generated concern about climate effects.These figures raise the question of whether scarce government funds might be better allocated to move the United States towards a low-carbon economy.

energy subsidies fossil fuel, oil, coal, wind, solar, ethanol
Source: Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Department of Energy (Energy Information Administration), Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, Office of Management and Budget, & U.S. Department of Agriculture

N.B. Carbon capture and storage is a developing technology that would allow coal-burning utilities to capture and store their carbon dioxide emissions. Although this technology does not make coal a renewable fuel, if successful it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions compared to coal plants that do not use this technology. The production and use of corn ethanol can generate significant greenhouse gas emissions. Recognizing that the production and use of corn-based ethanol may generate significant greenhouse gas emissions, the data depict renewable subsidies both with and without ethanol subsidies.

Fossil fuel extraction is increasingly toxic (e.g. fracking poisons public water systems) and environmentally destructive (e.g. gulf oil “spill”). And fossil fuel production seems to be hitting a Peak Oil wall. As production lags demand, we should expect oil and gas prices to rise precipitously. Subsidizing oil keeps us addicted to it.

Three of the top 5 biggest companies in the world are oil companies (Exxon, BP, Royal Dutch Shell). Rather than subsidize Big Oil profits and foreign oil nations, we should be taxing fossil fuels to reduce their use.  Tax what we want to reduce, and subsidize what we want to increase. Tax what harms us, and subsidize what helps us. Use the taxes to fund R&D and development of a world class alternative energy industry.

Obviously, that means politicians will need to resist the monied special interests of the Big Oil lobby.

What would you like to see your politicians do?

[polldaddy poll=”4447501″]

Recommended Reading

Top Business Leaders Deliver Clean Energy Plan by Jay Kimball