Climate Progress: An insider's view of climate science, politics, and solutions

There are but a few true experts on turkey crap and its potential as an alternative energy source. Climate Progress, however, works hard to keep current on all potential climate solutions (it is a dirty job). Indeed, we have previously blogged on the subject.

So when the Associated Press needs a quote on a new 55-megawatt poop-to-energy plant in Minnesota, they know who to call:

Joseph Romm, a former top Energy Department official under Clinton and author of the global warming book “Hell and High Water,” agreed, saying the plant would be considered greenhouse-gas neutral.

“Obviously there aren’t enough turkeys to generate enough poop to power a nation,” Romm said. “On the scale of things, it’s not a game-changer. … It’s certainly more good than bad.“

So the next time some global warming Denier tells you Climate Progress doesn’t know sh*t, give them this link.

Climate Progress wrote last year about the UK’s important Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. That report concluded avoiding catastrophic climate change might cost countries 1% of GDP (spent largely on clean energy technologies that have many other benefits such as reductions in urban smog), but failing to act could cost up to 20% of GDP as the world must deal with impacts such as massive flooding and hundreds of millions of environmental refugees.

Unsurprisingly, Planet Gore intensely dislikes the Stern Review. In Sterling Burnett’s recent post that misrepresented both the MIT report and CBO report on climate costs — to perversely argue that the media’s neglect of those reports is evidence of pro-warming bias — he writes:

By comparison, the now thoroughly discredited Stern report and the recent IPCC report on the costs of combating climate change were front page news.

As is typical on PG, he uses the phrase “now thoroughly discredited,” without a single link to an article or study. Such articles do exist, since the economic community in particular criticized certain assumptions in the Review. They especially don’t like his choice of a low discount rate. Boo-hoo! Stern places a higher value on future generations than many economists or conservatives. I’m shocked, shocked I tell you.

In fact, the Stern Review is not thoroughly discredited nor was its choice of discount rate flawed, as argued here and here in some detail. This issue of the Stern Report and the discount rate is sufficiently important that I will return to it in future posts.

Read all about it on Grist’s blog.

This story deserves singling out because it is on an important but too-neglected subject — the connection between energy and water.

Climate change puts nuclear energy into hot water – International Herald Tribune. Key point: Nuclear power “requires great amounts of cool water to keep reactors operating at safe temperatures. That is worrying if the rivers and reservoirs which many power plants rely on for water are hot or depleted because of steadily rising air temperatures.”

Factoid of the day: “During the extreme heat of 2003 in France, 17 nuclear reactors operated at reduced capacity or were turned off.”

An Australian report noted that there are “few seaside sites available” for siting nuclear plants but warned “that building nuclear plants inland would be a major threat to water supplies in a country already stricken by drought.”

Probably half of all the media queries I get these days concern hydrogen — thanks to my last book, The Hype about Hydrogen. Today’s New York Times Magazine has an exceedingly long article, “The Zero-Energy Solution,” on a solar-hydrogen home. The author refers to me as “an environmental pragmatist,” no doubt because I don’t automatically embrace every environmental solution that comes along, but judge each on its technical and practical merit.

I have written a number of articles arguing hydrogen has been wildly overhyped as an energy and climate solution, when in fact it holds little promise of being a cost-effective greenhouse gas reduction strategy for at least the first half of the century, if not forever. Since ten years ago I ran the Federal office that does all the hydrogen research, I am one of the go-to guys for a skeptical quote or two.

This article is no exception, and the author accurately writes, Romm “says he believes that the problems of global warming are urgent and that hydrogen technologies are too remote in time to be of any real help.”

Somewhat annoyingly, the author focuses on my concerns about hydrogen safety, which I think are quite genuine for home hydrogen production — but which pale in comparison to the basic technical, cost, and practical considerations for a solar hydrogen home. Still, I stand by every statement, including, “The last thing you want is somebody making hydrogen in his garage.” I did add, though it didn’t make publication, that “I wouldn’t want someone making gasoline in their garage either.”

The article has some hype but is still worth a read as it presents both sides.

Popularized by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the term “Californication” actually refers to the surge of Californians migrating up the West Coast following the opening of a major highway. In this context, we’re hoping we can Californicate the state’s climate change and energy policies to the rest of the Union.

Since the 1970s, California has kept its per capita energy use at a level rate, using primarily energy efficiency programs. Over time and with minimal spending, the cost of electricity under the programs is 1.4 cents per kilowatt-hour. That’s an outstanding rate compared to traditional or even carbon-free energy sources.

I discuss California’s unique route in Chapter 7 of Hell and High Water. You can access the information from the California Energy Commission or this PowerPoint with graphics.

When our country gets serious about addressing climate change and energy dependence, we need active national attention and proliferation of California’s policies.

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A good op-ed on an important policy measure with bipartisan support. Quotable Quote:

The low carbon fuel standard differs significantly from President Bush’s proposal to indiscriminately expand “alternative fuels” without paying attention to their environmental consequences. His plan would likely bring us coal-based liquid fuels and more of today’s corn-based ethanol, but it does not provide the incentives and rules needed to transform these technologies so that they can compete in energy markets that take climate change seriously.