An American utility and a French nuclear reactor manufacturer will study whether they can build a reactor in southern Ohio, at a moribund plant for enriching uranium, officials of both companies and the state of Ohio announced on Thursday.
The Portsmouth plant, in Piketon, Ohio, was built by the Atomic Energy Commission and ran from 1954 to 2001. The enrichment business was later spun off by the federal government into a private company, the United States Enrichment Corporation. U.S.E.C. is trying to develop a new kind of centrifuge to enrich uranium for use in nuclear power plants. But it has had trouble finding financing, and is competing against well-established companies that already use centrifuges.
Ohio officials, though, hope for a “clean energy park” with a reactor and the enrichment plant. Because the old enrichment process used so much electricity, the site has strong grid connections, and cooling water is available. It is also in a region hungry for industrial development.
Duke Energy will study the site with Areva, the French reactor vendor.
At the announcement, the chief executive of Duke, Jim Rogers, said, “We face the indisputable fact that our nation and our world are transitioning to a low-carbon future.”
“Today, with the creation of this clean energy park demonstration project, the partners in this alliance, the state of Ohio and our country, are edging a little further across the bridge to that future,” he said.
Some utility industry officials say they are unlikely to be able to build without federal loan guarantees. In 2005, Congress authorized $18.5 billion in loan guarantees that would cover 80 percent of the building of reactors, but that now appears likely to pay for only a handful of them. Nuclear supporters in Congress do not appear to have the votes to authorize additional guarantees.
But Mr. Rogers, in a telephone interview, said, “I’m confident I can fund it. Most of our fleet in Ohio, which is coal-fired, will be retired over the next 15 to 20 years, and we’re going to need to replace it, and this plant will be a good candidate to replace that capacity,” he said.
The plant would be built as a regulated generator, not a merchant generator, and state approvals will allow the company to begin collecting money before it is finished, he said. Duke is looking for additional partners. He would not specify a target price or a target date for breaking ground. “This is the beginning of the beginning,” Mr. Rogers said. “It’s a very long process to build a plant in this country but if you don’t get started, you won’t get it done.”
Anne Lauvergeon, the chief executive of Areva who was in Ohio for the announcement, said in a telephone interview that nuclear power was the only choice for reliable, low-carbon energy, but that the financing was an issue for Areva’s customers, not for Areva itself. The plant would provide 4,000 to 5,000 construction jobs and 500 to 700 permanent jobs, she said.
Michael Rencheck, chief executive of Areva’s American subsidiary, said, “There’s a very good workforce here, a solid, firm foundation of people that know how to build and construct big industrial complexes, as well as operate and maintain them.”
If built, the reactor would be one of a series of plants planned by UniStar, a joint venture to build Areva plants, formed by Constellation Energy and
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
The Green New Deal
The financial crisis has stoked widespread concern that momentum toward policies on climate change and sustainability is about to stall.
European governments are among those that are using the crisis as an excuse to ease back on the pace at which they had promised to tackle climate change.
Now, leading figures in environmentalism and conservation are fighting to make the case that saving the planet also will save the economic system.
Earlier this week, Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, told me governments should consider requiring bankers and financiers to check whether their investments faced climate-related liabilities like pending lawsuits or legislation related to global warming.
Mr. de Boer said that loans that aren’t vetted for climate liabilities are just as vulnerable as the poorly vetted real estate loans for new houses responsible for triggering the current crisis. He said governments could implement the new rules when they sold many of the banks they have taken into public ownership back into private hands.
On Wednesday Achim Steiner, the executive secretary of the United Nations Environment Program, launched an initiative in London called the Global Green New Deal in a deliberate echo of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s plan to tackle the Great Depression.
The New Deal “set the stage for the biggest economic growth the world has seen,” said Mr. Steiner. “Today we need similar vision, urgent action and strong political engagement to direct financial flows and manage markets to deal with the even greater global challenges of our time,” he said.
Mr. Steiner’s message is that massive government investment into industries creating jobs to tackle climate change is the same medicine that could help prevent a prolonged descent into economic misery and reduce bills for imported energy.
Other business opportunities include clean-tech ventures, sustainable agriculture, conservation, and the intelligent management of the planet’s ecosystems.
Mr. Steiner’s organization is proposing to spend $4 million on a study of these ideas, led by Pavan Sukhdev, the head of the global markets business in India for Deutsche Bank, with most contributions toward the cost of the study coming from Norway, Germany and the European Commission.
The research should be completed in two years, but it is a fair bet the final report will make the case that governments should invest more money in creating green jobs, as well as protecting forest lands and other parts of the so-called “ecosystem infrastructure.”
European governments are among those that are using the crisis as an excuse to ease back on the pace at which they had promised to tackle climate change.
Now, leading figures in environmentalism and conservation are fighting to make the case that saving the planet also will save the economic system.
Earlier this week, Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, told me governments should consider requiring bankers and financiers to check whether their investments faced climate-related liabilities like pending lawsuits or legislation related to global warming.
Mr. de Boer said that loans that aren’t vetted for climate liabilities are just as vulnerable as the poorly vetted real estate loans for new houses responsible for triggering the current crisis. He said governments could implement the new rules when they sold many of the banks they have taken into public ownership back into private hands.
On Wednesday Achim Steiner, the executive secretary of the United Nations Environment Program, launched an initiative in London called the Global Green New Deal in a deliberate echo of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s plan to tackle the Great Depression.
The New Deal “set the stage for the biggest economic growth the world has seen,” said Mr. Steiner. “Today we need similar vision, urgent action and strong political engagement to direct financial flows and manage markets to deal with the even greater global challenges of our time,” he said.
Mr. Steiner’s message is that massive government investment into industries creating jobs to tackle climate change is the same medicine that could help prevent a prolonged descent into economic misery and reduce bills for imported energy.
Other business opportunities include clean-tech ventures, sustainable agriculture, conservation, and the intelligent management of the planet’s ecosystems.
Mr. Steiner’s organization is proposing to spend $4 million on a study of these ideas, led by Pavan Sukhdev, the head of the global markets business in India for Deutsche Bank, with most contributions toward the cost of the study coming from Norway, Germany and the European Commission.
The research should be completed in two years, but it is a fair bet the final report will make the case that governments should invest more money in creating green jobs, as well as protecting forest lands and other parts of the so-called “ecosystem infrastructure.”
Buying Into the Green Movement
HERE’S one popular vision for saving the planet: Roll out from under the sumptuous hemp-fiber sheets on your bed in the morning and pull on a pair of $245 organic cotton Levi’s and an Armani biodegradable knit shirt.
Stroll from the bedroom in your eco-McMansion, with its photovoltaic solar panels, into the kitchen remodeled with reclaimed lumber. Enter the three-car garage lighted by energy-sipping fluorescent bulbs and slip behind the wheel of your $104,000 Lexus hybrid.
Drive to the airport, where you settle in for an 8,000-mile flight— careful to buy carbon offsets beforehand — and spend a week driving golf balls made from compacted fish food at an eco-resort in the Maldives.
That vision of an eco-sensitive life as a series of choices about what to buy appeals to millions of consumers and arguably defines the current environmental movement as equal parts concern for the earth and for making a stylish statement.
Some 35 million Americans regularly buy products that claim to be earth-friendly, according to one report, everything from organic beeswax lipstick from the west Zambian rain forest to Toyota Priuses. With baby steps, more and more shoppers browse among the 60,000 products available under Home Depot’s new Eco Options program.
Such choices are rendered fashionable as celebrities worried about global warming appear on the cover of Vanity Fair’s “green issue,” and pop stars like Kelly Clarkson and Lenny Kravitz prepare to be headline acts on July 7 at the Live Earth concerts at sites around the world.
Consumers have embraced living green, and for the most part the mainstream green movement has embraced green consumerism. But even at this moment of high visibility and impact for environmental activists, a splinter wing of the movement has begun to critique what it sometimes calls “light greens.”
Critics question the notion that we can avert global warming by buying so-called earth-friendly products, from clothing and cars to homes and vacations, when the cumulative effect of our consumption remains enormous and hazardous.
“There is a very common mind-set right now which holds that all that we’re going to need to do to avert the large-scale planetary catastrophes upon us is make slightly different shopping decisions,” said Alex Steffen, the executive editor of Worldchanging.com, a Web site devoted to sustainability issues.
The genuine solution, he and other critics say, is to significantly reduce one’s consumption of goods and resources. It’s not enough to build a vacation home of recycled lumber; the real way to reduce one’s carbon footprint is to only own one home.
Buying a hybrid car won’t help if it’s the aforementioned Lexus, the luxury LS 600h L model, which gets 22 miles to the gallon on the highway; the Toyota Yaris ($11,000) gets 40 highway miles a gallon with a standard gasoline engine.
It’s as though the millions of people whom environmentalists have successfully prodded to be concerned about climate change are experiencing a SnackWell’s moment: confronted with a box of fat-free devil’s food chocolate cookies, which seem deliciously guilt-free, they consume the entire box, avoiding any fats but loading up on calories.
The issue of green shopping is highlighting a division in the environmental movement: “the old-school environmentalism of self-abnegation versus this camp of buying your way into heaven,” said Chip Giller, the founder of Grist.org, an online environmental blog that claims a monthly readership of 800,000. “Over even the last couple of months, there is more concern growing within the traditional camp about the Cosmo-izing of the green movement — ‘55 great ways to look eco-sexy,’ ” he said. “Among traditional greens, there is concern that too much of the population thinks there’s an easy way out.”
The criticisms have appeared quietly in some environmental publications and on the Web.
GEORGE BLACK, an editor and a columnist at OnEarth, a quarterly journal of the Natural Resources Defense Council, recently summed up the explosion of high-style green consumer items and articles of the sort that proclaim “green is the new black,” that is, a fashion trend, as “eco-narcissism.”
Paul Hawken, an author and longtime environmental activist, said the current boom in earth-friendly products offers a false promise. “Green consumerism is an oxymoronic phrase,” he said. He blamed the news media and marketers for turning environmentalism into fashion and distracting from serious issues.
“We turn toward the consumption part because that’s where the money is,” Mr. Hawken said. “We tend not to look at the ‘less’ part. So you get these anomalies like 10,000-foot ‘green’ homes being built by a hedge fund manager in Aspen. Or ‘green’ fashion shows. Fashion is the deliberate inculcation of obsolescence.”
He added: “The fruit at Whole Foods in winter, flown in from Chile on a 747 — it’s a complete joke. The idea that we should have raspberries in January, it doesn’t matter if they’re organic. It’s diabolically stupid.”
Environmentalists say some products marketed as green may pump more carbon into the atmosphere than choosing something more modest, or simply nothing at all. Along those lines, a company called PlayEngine sells a 19-inch widescreen L.C.D. set whose “sustainable bamboo” case is represented as an earth-friendly alternative to plastic.
But it may be better to keep your old cathode-tube set instead, according to “The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook,” because older sets use less power than plasma or L.C.D. screens. (Televisions account for about 4 percent of energy consumption in the United States, the handbook says.)
“The assumption that by buying anything, whether green or not, we’re solving the problem is a misperception,” said Michael Ableman, an environmental author and long-time organic farmer. “Consuming is a significant part of the problem to begin with. Maybe the solution is instead of buying five pairs of organic cotton jeans, buy one pair of regular jeans instead.”
For the most part, the critiques of green consumption have come from individual activists, not from mainstream environmental groups like the Sierra Club, Greenpeace and the Rainforest Action Network. The latest issue of Sierra, the magazine of the Sierra Club, has articles hailing an “ecofriendly mall” featuring sustainable clothing (under development in Chicago) and credit cards that rack up carbon offsets for every purchase, as well as sustainably-harvested caviar and the celebrity-friendly Tango electric sports car (a top-of-the-line model is $108,000).
One reason mainstream groups may be wary of criticizing Americans’ consumption is that before the latest era of green chic, these large organizations endured years in which their warnings about climate change were scarcely heard.
Much of the public had turned away from the Carter-era environmental message of sacrifice, which included turning down the thermostat, driving smaller cars and carrying a cloth “Save-a-Tree” tote to the supermarket.
Now that environmentalism is high profile, thanks in part to the success of “An Inconvenient Truth,” the 2006 documentary featuring Al Gore, mainstream greens, for the most part, say that buying products promoted as eco-friendly is a good first step.
“After you buy the compact fluorescent bulbs,” said Michael Brune, the executive director of the Rainforest Action Network, “you can move on to greater goals like banding together politically to shut down coal-fired power plants.”
John Passacantando, the executive director of Greenpeace USA, argued that green consumerism has been a way for Wal-Mart shoppers to get over the old stereotypes of environmentalists as “tree-hugging hippies” and contribute in their own way.
This is crucial, he said, given the widespread nature of the global warming challenge. “You need Wal-Mart and Joe Six-Pack and mayors and taxi drivers," he said. “You need participation on a wide front.”
It is not just ecology activists with one foot in the 1970s, though, who have taken issue with the consumerist personality of the “light green” movement. Anti-consumerist fervor burns hotly among some activists who came of age under the influence of noisy, disruptive anti-globalization protests.
Last year, a San Francisco group called the Compact made headlines with a vow to live the entire year without buying anything but bare essentials like medicine and food. A year in, the original 10 “mostly” made it, said Rachel Kesel, 26, a founder. The movement claims some 8,300 adherents throughout the country and in places as distant as Singapore and Iceland.
“The more that I’m engaged in this, the more annoyed I get with things like ‘shop against climate change’ and these kind of attitudes,” said Ms. Kesel, who continues her shopping strike and counts a new pair of running shoes — she’s a dog-walker by trade — as among her limited purchases in 18 months.
“It’s hysterical,” she said. “You’re telling people to consume more in order to reduce impact.”
For some, the very debate over how much difference they should try to make in their own lives is a distraction. They despair of individual consumers being responsible for saving the earth from climate change and want to see action from political leaders around the world.
INDIVIDUAL consumers may choose more fuel-efficient cars, but a far greater effect may be felt when fuel-efficiency standards are raised for all of the industry , as the Senate voted to do on June 21, the first significant rise in mileage standards in more than two decades.
“A legitimate beef that people have with green consumerism is, at end of the day, the things causing climate change are more caused by politics and the economy than individual behavior,” said Michel Gelobter, a former professor of environmental policy at Rutgers who is now president of Redefining Progress, a nonprofit policy group that promotes sustainable living.
“A lot of what we need to do doesn’t have to do with what you put in your shopping basket,” he said. “It has to do with mass transit, housing density. It has to do with the war and subsidies for the coal and fossil fuel industry.”
In fact, those light-green environmentalists who chose not to lecture about sacrifice and promote the trendiness of eco-sensitive products may be on to something.
Michael Shellenberger, a partner at American Environics, a market research firm in Oakland, Calif., said that his company ran a series of focus groups in April for the environmental group Earthjustice, and was surprised by the results.
People considered their trip down the Eco Options aisles at Home Depot a beginning, not an end point.
“We didn’t find that people felt that their consumption gave them a pass, so to speak,” Mr. Shellenberger said. “They knew what they were doing wasn’t going to deal with the problems, and these little consumer things won’t add up. But they do it as a practice of mindfulness. They didn’t see it as antithetical to political action. Folks who were engaged in these green practices were actually becoming more committed to more transformative political action on global warming.”
Stroll from the bedroom in your eco-McMansion, with its photovoltaic solar panels, into the kitchen remodeled with reclaimed lumber. Enter the three-car garage lighted by energy-sipping fluorescent bulbs and slip behind the wheel of your $104,000 Lexus hybrid.
Drive to the airport, where you settle in for an 8,000-mile flight— careful to buy carbon offsets beforehand — and spend a week driving golf balls made from compacted fish food at an eco-resort in the Maldives.
That vision of an eco-sensitive life as a series of choices about what to buy appeals to millions of consumers and arguably defines the current environmental movement as equal parts concern for the earth and for making a stylish statement.
Some 35 million Americans regularly buy products that claim to be earth-friendly, according to one report, everything from organic beeswax lipstick from the west Zambian rain forest to Toyota Priuses. With baby steps, more and more shoppers browse among the 60,000 products available under Home Depot’s new Eco Options program.
Such choices are rendered fashionable as celebrities worried about global warming appear on the cover of Vanity Fair’s “green issue,” and pop stars like Kelly Clarkson and Lenny Kravitz prepare to be headline acts on July 7 at the Live Earth concerts at sites around the world.
Consumers have embraced living green, and for the most part the mainstream green movement has embraced green consumerism. But even at this moment of high visibility and impact for environmental activists, a splinter wing of the movement has begun to critique what it sometimes calls “light greens.”
Critics question the notion that we can avert global warming by buying so-called earth-friendly products, from clothing and cars to homes and vacations, when the cumulative effect of our consumption remains enormous and hazardous.
“There is a very common mind-set right now which holds that all that we’re going to need to do to avert the large-scale planetary catastrophes upon us is make slightly different shopping decisions,” said Alex Steffen, the executive editor of Worldchanging.com, a Web site devoted to sustainability issues.
The genuine solution, he and other critics say, is to significantly reduce one’s consumption of goods and resources. It’s not enough to build a vacation home of recycled lumber; the real way to reduce one’s carbon footprint is to only own one home.
Buying a hybrid car won’t help if it’s the aforementioned Lexus, the luxury LS 600h L model, which gets 22 miles to the gallon on the highway; the Toyota Yaris ($11,000) gets 40 highway miles a gallon with a standard gasoline engine.
It’s as though the millions of people whom environmentalists have successfully prodded to be concerned about climate change are experiencing a SnackWell’s moment: confronted with a box of fat-free devil’s food chocolate cookies, which seem deliciously guilt-free, they consume the entire box, avoiding any fats but loading up on calories.
The issue of green shopping is highlighting a division in the environmental movement: “the old-school environmentalism of self-abnegation versus this camp of buying your way into heaven,” said Chip Giller, the founder of Grist.org, an online environmental blog that claims a monthly readership of 800,000. “Over even the last couple of months, there is more concern growing within the traditional camp about the Cosmo-izing of the green movement — ‘55 great ways to look eco-sexy,’ ” he said. “Among traditional greens, there is concern that too much of the population thinks there’s an easy way out.”
The criticisms have appeared quietly in some environmental publications and on the Web.
GEORGE BLACK, an editor and a columnist at OnEarth, a quarterly journal of the Natural Resources Defense Council, recently summed up the explosion of high-style green consumer items and articles of the sort that proclaim “green is the new black,” that is, a fashion trend, as “eco-narcissism.”
Paul Hawken, an author and longtime environmental activist, said the current boom in earth-friendly products offers a false promise. “Green consumerism is an oxymoronic phrase,” he said. He blamed the news media and marketers for turning environmentalism into fashion and distracting from serious issues.
“We turn toward the consumption part because that’s where the money is,” Mr. Hawken said. “We tend not to look at the ‘less’ part. So you get these anomalies like 10,000-foot ‘green’ homes being built by a hedge fund manager in Aspen. Or ‘green’ fashion shows. Fashion is the deliberate inculcation of obsolescence.”
He added: “The fruit at Whole Foods in winter, flown in from Chile on a 747 — it’s a complete joke. The idea that we should have raspberries in January, it doesn’t matter if they’re organic. It’s diabolically stupid.”
Environmentalists say some products marketed as green may pump more carbon into the atmosphere than choosing something more modest, or simply nothing at all. Along those lines, a company called PlayEngine sells a 19-inch widescreen L.C.D. set whose “sustainable bamboo” case is represented as an earth-friendly alternative to plastic.
But it may be better to keep your old cathode-tube set instead, according to “The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook,” because older sets use less power than plasma or L.C.D. screens. (Televisions account for about 4 percent of energy consumption in the United States, the handbook says.)
“The assumption that by buying anything, whether green or not, we’re solving the problem is a misperception,” said Michael Ableman, an environmental author and long-time organic farmer. “Consuming is a significant part of the problem to begin with. Maybe the solution is instead of buying five pairs of organic cotton jeans, buy one pair of regular jeans instead.”
For the most part, the critiques of green consumption have come from individual activists, not from mainstream environmental groups like the Sierra Club, Greenpeace and the Rainforest Action Network. The latest issue of Sierra, the magazine of the Sierra Club, has articles hailing an “ecofriendly mall” featuring sustainable clothing (under development in Chicago) and credit cards that rack up carbon offsets for every purchase, as well as sustainably-harvested caviar and the celebrity-friendly Tango electric sports car (a top-of-the-line model is $108,000).
One reason mainstream groups may be wary of criticizing Americans’ consumption is that before the latest era of green chic, these large organizations endured years in which their warnings about climate change were scarcely heard.
Much of the public had turned away from the Carter-era environmental message of sacrifice, which included turning down the thermostat, driving smaller cars and carrying a cloth “Save-a-Tree” tote to the supermarket.
Now that environmentalism is high profile, thanks in part to the success of “An Inconvenient Truth,” the 2006 documentary featuring Al Gore, mainstream greens, for the most part, say that buying products promoted as eco-friendly is a good first step.
“After you buy the compact fluorescent bulbs,” said Michael Brune, the executive director of the Rainforest Action Network, “you can move on to greater goals like banding together politically to shut down coal-fired power plants.”
John Passacantando, the executive director of Greenpeace USA, argued that green consumerism has been a way for Wal-Mart shoppers to get over the old stereotypes of environmentalists as “tree-hugging hippies” and contribute in their own way.
This is crucial, he said, given the widespread nature of the global warming challenge. “You need Wal-Mart and Joe Six-Pack and mayors and taxi drivers," he said. “You need participation on a wide front.”
It is not just ecology activists with one foot in the 1970s, though, who have taken issue with the consumerist personality of the “light green” movement. Anti-consumerist fervor burns hotly among some activists who came of age under the influence of noisy, disruptive anti-globalization protests.
Last year, a San Francisco group called the Compact made headlines with a vow to live the entire year without buying anything but bare essentials like medicine and food. A year in, the original 10 “mostly” made it, said Rachel Kesel, 26, a founder. The movement claims some 8,300 adherents throughout the country and in places as distant as Singapore and Iceland.
“The more that I’m engaged in this, the more annoyed I get with things like ‘shop against climate change’ and these kind of attitudes,” said Ms. Kesel, who continues her shopping strike and counts a new pair of running shoes — she’s a dog-walker by trade — as among her limited purchases in 18 months.
“It’s hysterical,” she said. “You’re telling people to consume more in order to reduce impact.”
For some, the very debate over how much difference they should try to make in their own lives is a distraction. They despair of individual consumers being responsible for saving the earth from climate change and want to see action from political leaders around the world.
INDIVIDUAL consumers may choose more fuel-efficient cars, but a far greater effect may be felt when fuel-efficiency standards are raised for all of the industry , as the Senate voted to do on June 21, the first significant rise in mileage standards in more than two decades.
“A legitimate beef that people have with green consumerism is, at end of the day, the things causing climate change are more caused by politics and the economy than individual behavior,” said Michel Gelobter, a former professor of environmental policy at Rutgers who is now president of Redefining Progress, a nonprofit policy group that promotes sustainable living.
“A lot of what we need to do doesn’t have to do with what you put in your shopping basket,” he said. “It has to do with mass transit, housing density. It has to do with the war and subsidies for the coal and fossil fuel industry.”
In fact, those light-green environmentalists who chose not to lecture about sacrifice and promote the trendiness of eco-sensitive products may be on to something.
Michael Shellenberger, a partner at American Environics, a market research firm in Oakland, Calif., said that his company ran a series of focus groups in April for the environmental group Earthjustice, and was surprised by the results.
People considered their trip down the Eco Options aisles at Home Depot a beginning, not an end point.
“We didn’t find that people felt that their consumption gave them a pass, so to speak,” Mr. Shellenberger said. “They knew what they were doing wasn’t going to deal with the problems, and these little consumer things won’t add up. But they do it as a practice of mindfulness. They didn’t see it as antithetical to political action. Folks who were engaged in these green practices were actually becoming more committed to more transformative political action on global warming.”
How Green Is a Nudist Vacation?
With summer upon us, how many green vacationers’ fancies will turn to thoughts of nudism?
Going without clothes on beaches and other vacation spots is commonly called naturism — a description that implies helping the planet, as some practitioners claim to be doing.
Spending more time with nothing on stems waste and pollution in all sorts of ways, according to an article by Kathy Blanchard on The Naturist Society’s Web site.
“Living more hours naked each day results in a dramatic drop in my laundry, which in turn reduces my water and energy use (along with my related bills),” Ms. Blanchard wrote. “It also reduces the amount of soap I release, in my case, into the Puget Sound.”
She also advocates naturist holidays — staying close to home wherever possible, to cut down on fuel usage — but sometimes traveling to places where it is possible to leave the car behind and backpack or paddle naked into the wild.
“For those few days, we use virtually no fuel, our diet is minimal with low ecological impact, and we return healthier,” she wrote, adding that the “trips are coolly green clothes-free vacations.”Where to go? France is already a top destination for “textilists” (a term some naturists use to describe clothes-wearers) but also seems to be one of the most appealing spots for vacationing in the buff. According to the tourist authority in the Aquitaine region on the French Atlantic coast, “ ‘green’ naturism is growing fast in popularity.”
Of the 1.5 million people who practice naturism in France, nearly a third come to Aquitaine, while “foreign naturists” account for more than half of vacationers in the centers and campsites across the region. (Presumably their fossil fuel use in transportation could cancel any climate benefits of going clothes-free.)
In the Swiss Alps, nude hiking in winter seems to be a growing phenomenon — although some locals are trying to outlaw the practice, as my colleague John Tagliabue wrote this year.
The prospect of winter raises another issue: for people going without clothes, global warming may have a fringe benefit. Michael Hewitt says in an article in the article in The Independent that a few nudists seem happy that the demise of winter may be in the offing. However, others may side with groups like EcoNudes, which believes that living in the buff has “a positive effect on global warming, climate change and society.”
Going without clothes on beaches and other vacation spots is commonly called naturism — a description that implies helping the planet, as some practitioners claim to be doing.
Spending more time with nothing on stems waste and pollution in all sorts of ways, according to an article by Kathy Blanchard on The Naturist Society’s Web site.
“Living more hours naked each day results in a dramatic drop in my laundry, which in turn reduces my water and energy use (along with my related bills),” Ms. Blanchard wrote. “It also reduces the amount of soap I release, in my case, into the Puget Sound.”
She also advocates naturist holidays — staying close to home wherever possible, to cut down on fuel usage — but sometimes traveling to places where it is possible to leave the car behind and backpack or paddle naked into the wild.
“For those few days, we use virtually no fuel, our diet is minimal with low ecological impact, and we return healthier,” she wrote, adding that the “trips are coolly green clothes-free vacations.”Where to go? France is already a top destination for “textilists” (a term some naturists use to describe clothes-wearers) but also seems to be one of the most appealing spots for vacationing in the buff. According to the tourist authority in the Aquitaine region on the French Atlantic coast, “ ‘green’ naturism is growing fast in popularity.”
Of the 1.5 million people who practice naturism in France, nearly a third come to Aquitaine, while “foreign naturists” account for more than half of vacationers in the centers and campsites across the region. (Presumably their fossil fuel use in transportation could cancel any climate benefits of going clothes-free.)
In the Swiss Alps, nude hiking in winter seems to be a growing phenomenon — although some locals are trying to outlaw the practice, as my colleague John Tagliabue wrote this year.
The prospect of winter raises another issue: for people going without clothes, global warming may have a fringe benefit. Michael Hewitt says in an article in the article in The Independent that a few nudists seem happy that the demise of winter may be in the offing. However, others may side with groups like EcoNudes, which believes that living in the buff has “a positive effect on global warming, climate change and society.”
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
California solar-power subsidy program approaches its limit
Lis Sines of Hermosa Beach loves watching her electric meter run backward.When that happens, she knows that the 20 solar panels on her roof are producing more power than she needs to run her 3,800-square-foot home. The excess electricity flows to the electric company's grid, and she gets its full retail value credited to her utility bill.
Sines' electric bill has plunged since she and her husband, William, installed a photovoltaic system on their roof three months ago. In June the bill totaled just $1.26, compared to about $100 a year earlier.But the Sineses' subsidy may not be available to future solar-power users for long.The state's $3.3-billion solar subsidy program has become so popular that the state utilities are approaching the legal limit for how much power they can buy from customers.
The limit could be reached in parts of northern and central California served by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. by the end of this year. The state's other two investor-owned utilities, Southern California Edison Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric Co., are proceeding somewhat more slowly. Eager to keep the program growing, the solar industry is pushing for approval of legislation in Sacramento that would quadruple the amount allowed. The state's for-profit utilities oppose the higher cap in the bill AB 560 by Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley).A key Senate utilities committee vote on the measure is expected this week. Currently, utilities are limited by state law from buying from its customers more than 2.5% of a utility's maximum generating capacity. Skinner's bill would lift the cap to 10%. All three companies oppose Skinner's bill. They do not want lawmakers to raise the limit until next year at the earliest, after the California Public Utilities Commission tallies up the program's costs and benefits.Utilities say they strongly support solar power but want more information about whether it's fair to further increase financial incentives for solar-panel ownership. Such incentives, they point out, would come at the expense of most of the utilities' other customers, who don't want or can't afford to invest in the costly panels."We want to make sure there isn't an unfair level of cost-shifting," said Jennifer Briscoe, a spokeswoman for San Diego Gas & Electric.Fairness issues were also raised in a report on Skinner's bill by the staff of the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee, which will review the bill this week. The report pointed out that California solar-panel owners already benefit from a variety of subsidies approved in recent years -- even without this "net metering" program, which allows people to sell power to the utilities.Solar power users get a state subsidy of about 20% of the purchase and installation cost and a federal income tax credit of 30%. Adding more incentives could be going too far, the committee staff analysis suggested. The staff report also takes issue with the amount of credit that solar users get when they sell power to the utilities. "By compensating the solar or wind customer at the full retail rate" for energy sold to the grid, "the utility is using ratepayer funds to pay the solar or wind customer at a rate well above the value of the generated power, which is about one-third of the total cost of a typical residential customer's bill," it said. The other two-thirds of the bill covers utilities' fixed expenses for building power plants and transmission lines, buying electricity from independent generators and meeting a variety of state mandates, including the cost of subsidizing low-income customers and solar-power system owners.Supporters of solar-power systems say the net metering program and other subsidies are essential. And many would like to see no caps at all. "Without net metering we're not going to see a lot more people" buy expensive solar systems, said Adam Browning, executive director of the Vote Solar Initiative, a San Francisco advocacy group. "If we hit the net metering cap, the California solar industry grinds to a halt."Caps are an impediment to fully developing solar power's potential and its ability to provide clean energy that can be tapped in urban areas, where it is most needed, during peak demand on hot summer afternoons, Browning said. Eighteen states allow net metering without any caps, he noted.The appeal of lower electric bills appears to be persuading more people to go solar. Legislation, approved in 2007 and known as the Million Solar Roofs program, has spurred the production of solar-generated electricity to rise 78%. That's equivalent to the power generated by a modern power plant, the Public Utilities Commission reported last week. Consumer demand continues to grow despite the recession. Applications for state subsidies hit a record high in May, the commission said.The commission's first solar program assessment recommends raising the net metering cap "to prevent a stall in the solar market," and the commission endorses the Skinner bill. One solar booster is Harry Pope, a retired Edison executive who bought a large system for his Long Beach home after the energy crisis of 2000-01. He said he needs the state's incentives to make his investment pay off."I probably put in $30,000 and got half back. Maybe over 15 years I might achieve total payback," he said. Without people like him, Pope said, the state will have to build more power plants. "I'm preventing the utilities from having to build that next-generation power plant . . . the most expensive power plant you ever saw."
Sines' electric bill has plunged since she and her husband, William, installed a photovoltaic system on their roof three months ago. In June the bill totaled just $1.26, compared to about $100 a year earlier.But the Sineses' subsidy may not be available to future solar-power users for long.The state's $3.3-billion solar subsidy program has become so popular that the state utilities are approaching the legal limit for how much power they can buy from customers.
The limit could be reached in parts of northern and central California served by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. by the end of this year. The state's other two investor-owned utilities, Southern California Edison Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric Co., are proceeding somewhat more slowly. Eager to keep the program growing, the solar industry is pushing for approval of legislation in Sacramento that would quadruple the amount allowed. The state's for-profit utilities oppose the higher cap in the bill AB 560 by Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley).A key Senate utilities committee vote on the measure is expected this week. Currently, utilities are limited by state law from buying from its customers more than 2.5% of a utility's maximum generating capacity. Skinner's bill would lift the cap to 10%. All three companies oppose Skinner's bill. They do not want lawmakers to raise the limit until next year at the earliest, after the California Public Utilities Commission tallies up the program's costs and benefits.Utilities say they strongly support solar power but want more information about whether it's fair to further increase financial incentives for solar-panel ownership. Such incentives, they point out, would come at the expense of most of the utilities' other customers, who don't want or can't afford to invest in the costly panels."We want to make sure there isn't an unfair level of cost-shifting," said Jennifer Briscoe, a spokeswoman for San Diego Gas & Electric.Fairness issues were also raised in a report on Skinner's bill by the staff of the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee, which will review the bill this week. The report pointed out that California solar-panel owners already benefit from a variety of subsidies approved in recent years -- even without this "net metering" program, which allows people to sell power to the utilities.Solar power users get a state subsidy of about 20% of the purchase and installation cost and a federal income tax credit of 30%. Adding more incentives could be going too far, the committee staff analysis suggested. The staff report also takes issue with the amount of credit that solar users get when they sell power to the utilities. "By compensating the solar or wind customer at the full retail rate" for energy sold to the grid, "the utility is using ratepayer funds to pay the solar or wind customer at a rate well above the value of the generated power, which is about one-third of the total cost of a typical residential customer's bill," it said. The other two-thirds of the bill covers utilities' fixed expenses for building power plants and transmission lines, buying electricity from independent generators and meeting a variety of state mandates, including the cost of subsidizing low-income customers and solar-power system owners.Supporters of solar-power systems say the net metering program and other subsidies are essential. And many would like to see no caps at all. "Without net metering we're not going to see a lot more people" buy expensive solar systems, said Adam Browning, executive director of the Vote Solar Initiative, a San Francisco advocacy group. "If we hit the net metering cap, the California solar industry grinds to a halt."Caps are an impediment to fully developing solar power's potential and its ability to provide clean energy that can be tapped in urban areas, where it is most needed, during peak demand on hot summer afternoons, Browning said. Eighteen states allow net metering without any caps, he noted.The appeal of lower electric bills appears to be persuading more people to go solar. Legislation, approved in 2007 and known as the Million Solar Roofs program, has spurred the production of solar-generated electricity to rise 78%. That's equivalent to the power generated by a modern power plant, the Public Utilities Commission reported last week. Consumer demand continues to grow despite the recession. Applications for state subsidies hit a record high in May, the commission said.The commission's first solar program assessment recommends raising the net metering cap "to prevent a stall in the solar market," and the commission endorses the Skinner bill. One solar booster is Harry Pope, a retired Edison executive who bought a large system for his Long Beach home after the energy crisis of 2000-01. He said he needs the state's incentives to make his investment pay off."I probably put in $30,000 and got half back. Maybe over 15 years I might achieve total payback," he said. Without people like him, Pope said, the state will have to build more power plants. "I'm preventing the utilities from having to build that next-generation power plant . . . the most expensive power plant you ever saw."
Colorado town's wildfire law called intrusive
Until its trees started dying, the Colorado ski resort town of Breckenridge stayed out of the business of telling residents how to defend their homes against wildfire.But with trees ravaged by a mountain pine beetle epidemic that has left large rust-tinged swaths of forest vulnerable to a catastrophic fire, town officials decided this year they had to act.
Breckenridge, with a population of 3,500, recently passed an ordinance requiring residents to thin vegetation around their homes -- creating "defensible space" in firefighting lingo -- a move authorities say could help stanch a spreading blaze and aid firefighters in protecting homes.But the new law has infuriated many residents, who call it an encroachment on their rights and demand its repeal."This country has always been based on the idea of private property ownership. It's a sacred thing. The town's ordinance pretty well tramples on that," said Ed Nolan, 65, whose home is surrounded by 37 trees that firefighters say should go.
"If cutting these trees saves my life or my wife's life or a firefighter's life, then it's worth it," countered John Quigley, 59, who has hired a crew to thin some of the 185 trees on his land.California long has required residents in wildfire-prone areas to trim vegetation, and Nevada lawmakers recently approved a similar law for homes in the Tahoe Basin, but other Western states have generally skirted such directives, instead employing public education campaigns to coax residents into doing so. In recent years, many Colorado counties began requiring homeowners in new developments to create defensible space before building permits are issued. But there's nothing authorities can do to compel them to maintain the clearance after they receive their permits, said Kevin Klein, director of the Colorado Division of Fire Safety.Breckenridge's tactic could signal a newly aggressive approach, he said, one that other communities may adopt as Colorado grapples with an infestation that has destroyed thousands of acres of trees and that fire officials fear will contribute to a conflagration."It's a pretty dramatic shift from what we've been doing," said Breckenridge Councilman Jeffrey Bergeron.Surrounded by the White River National Forest, Breckenridge for years has focused more on making hillside homes blend in with their environs by encouraging landscaping around homes, Councilman Dave Rossi said.Then came the beetles. When the town passed a law requiring residents to cut down infected trees, Rossi said few residents objected. But fire officials thought such measures weren't enough. Too many homes were surrounded by brush and trees, said Gary Green, chief of the Red, White and Blue Fire District.Some residents regarded the proposal to require defensible space as necessary to protect the community. Relying on volunteers isn't enough, Quigley said. "If you do it and your three adjoining neighbors don't do it, you haven't accomplished anything," he said.But others have objected to the mandate, citing the expense of removing healthy trees and shrubs and lowered property values."I now have trees that protect the master bedroom from a view of road," Nolan said. "I'm going to pay to lessen the value of my property by taking out these trees."Opponents are circulating a petition seeking to compel the council to repeal the ordinance or put the matter on the ballot. They say they've collected more than the 330 signatures needed to qualify such a measure.The opponents also contend there's scant evidence that the town's approach would be effective against a massive blaze, a criticism the fire chief disputes.They have found a sympathetic ear in Rossi, one of two council members who voted against the ordinance.Though Rossi believes residents should trim vegetation, he questions how effective the strategy can be in one town if neighboring communities don't take the same approach."I'm not sure it gets us where we need to be," said Rossi, noting that the town has not taken other important steps, such as requiring fire-resistant roofing materials.But Bergeron, who was among five council members who supported the ordinance, rejects the argument that the town has overstepped its bounds."I sympathize with people who don't want to cut trees. I'm a tree hugger," he said. "But what I don't buy is the argument that the government can't tell me what to do on my property even if it saves lives and the property of my neighbors.".
Breckenridge, with a population of 3,500, recently passed an ordinance requiring residents to thin vegetation around their homes -- creating "defensible space" in firefighting lingo -- a move authorities say could help stanch a spreading blaze and aid firefighters in protecting homes.But the new law has infuriated many residents, who call it an encroachment on their rights and demand its repeal."This country has always been based on the idea of private property ownership. It's a sacred thing. The town's ordinance pretty well tramples on that," said Ed Nolan, 65, whose home is surrounded by 37 trees that firefighters say should go.
"If cutting these trees saves my life or my wife's life or a firefighter's life, then it's worth it," countered John Quigley, 59, who has hired a crew to thin some of the 185 trees on his land.California long has required residents in wildfire-prone areas to trim vegetation, and Nevada lawmakers recently approved a similar law for homes in the Tahoe Basin, but other Western states have generally skirted such directives, instead employing public education campaigns to coax residents into doing so. In recent years, many Colorado counties began requiring homeowners in new developments to create defensible space before building permits are issued. But there's nothing authorities can do to compel them to maintain the clearance after they receive their permits, said Kevin Klein, director of the Colorado Division of Fire Safety.Breckenridge's tactic could signal a newly aggressive approach, he said, one that other communities may adopt as Colorado grapples with an infestation that has destroyed thousands of acres of trees and that fire officials fear will contribute to a conflagration."It's a pretty dramatic shift from what we've been doing," said Breckenridge Councilman Jeffrey Bergeron.Surrounded by the White River National Forest, Breckenridge for years has focused more on making hillside homes blend in with their environs by encouraging landscaping around homes, Councilman Dave Rossi said.Then came the beetles. When the town passed a law requiring residents to cut down infected trees, Rossi said few residents objected. But fire officials thought such measures weren't enough. Too many homes were surrounded by brush and trees, said Gary Green, chief of the Red, White and Blue Fire District.Some residents regarded the proposal to require defensible space as necessary to protect the community. Relying on volunteers isn't enough, Quigley said. "If you do it and your three adjoining neighbors don't do it, you haven't accomplished anything," he said.But others have objected to the mandate, citing the expense of removing healthy trees and shrubs and lowered property values."I now have trees that protect the master bedroom from a view of road," Nolan said. "I'm going to pay to lessen the value of my property by taking out these trees."Opponents are circulating a petition seeking to compel the council to repeal the ordinance or put the matter on the ballot. They say they've collected more than the 330 signatures needed to qualify such a measure.The opponents also contend there's scant evidence that the town's approach would be effective against a massive blaze, a criticism the fire chief disputes.They have found a sympathetic ear in Rossi, one of two council members who voted against the ordinance.Though Rossi believes residents should trim vegetation, he questions how effective the strategy can be in one town if neighboring communities don't take the same approach."I'm not sure it gets us where we need to be," said Rossi, noting that the town has not taken other important steps, such as requiring fire-resistant roofing materials.But Bergeron, who was among five council members who supported the ordinance, rejects the argument that the town has overstepped its bounds."I sympathize with people who don't want to cut trees. I'm a tree hugger," he said. "But what I don't buy is the argument that the government can't tell me what to do on my property even if it saves lives and the property of my neighbors.".
EPA makes move to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a finding today that six greenhouse gases cause air pollution that may endanger public health or welfare. The finding also found that emissions from motor vehicles contribute to the concentration of three of those gases, which contributes to climate change.
Air pollution is regulated under the federal Clean Air Act, so this finding is a step toward the EPA implementing regulation of carbon dioxide, which it the primary gas responsible for global warming.
This is a big deal for New Mexico, as the proposed Desert Rock coal-fired power plant in the Four Corners region received an air quality permit from the EPA under the Bush administration, despite protests by the state of New Mexico, environmental organizations and local citizens of the Navajo Nation that the EPA had not considered the impact of carbon dioxide released from the plant into the atmosphere. The the leadership of the greater Navajo Nation itself strongly supports the project.
That air quality permit is currently being appealed by the state of New Mexico.
The six gases are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride.
According to the EPA news release, science “clearly shows” that these gases are at unprecedented concentration levels as the result of human emissions, and that these levels are “very likely” the cause of increased climate temperatures.
The finding states that “In both magnitude and probability, climate change is an enormous problem. The greenhouse gases that are responsible for it endanger public health and welfare within the meaning of the Clean Air Act.”
The EPA statement also said science shows a link between climate change and negative effects on human health. These impacts included higher concentrations of ground-level ozone; increased drought; more heavy downpours and flooding; more frequent and intense heat waves and wildfires; greater sea level rise; more intense storms; and harm to water resources, agriculture, wildlife and ecosystems.
Additionally, the statement said, new EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson took into account the disproportionate impact of these impacts on the health of certain groups of people, “…such as the poor, the very young, the elderly, those already in poor health, the disabled, those living alone and/or indigenous populations dependent on one or a few resources.”
The EPA also stated that global warming is a national security issue as resources like water become more scare forcing mass migrations into more stabilized regions.
This announcement results from a review by the Obama administration of the findings from a prior EPA scientific review ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007, looking at whether or not greenhouse gases harm the environment. EPA scientists said they did, but the Bush administration suppressed those results, and never acted to regulate the greenhouse gases.
Obama ordered the review shortly after taking office, which was widely expected.
The finding will now be placed in the federal register, and the public has 60 days from that point to provide comments to the EPA. A final rule will be made after that.
Air pollution is regulated under the federal Clean Air Act, so this finding is a step toward the EPA implementing regulation of carbon dioxide, which it the primary gas responsible for global warming.
This is a big deal for New Mexico, as the proposed Desert Rock coal-fired power plant in the Four Corners region received an air quality permit from the EPA under the Bush administration, despite protests by the state of New Mexico, environmental organizations and local citizens of the Navajo Nation that the EPA had not considered the impact of carbon dioxide released from the plant into the atmosphere. The the leadership of the greater Navajo Nation itself strongly supports the project.
That air quality permit is currently being appealed by the state of New Mexico.
The six gases are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride.
According to the EPA news release, science “clearly shows” that these gases are at unprecedented concentration levels as the result of human emissions, and that these levels are “very likely” the cause of increased climate temperatures.
The finding states that “In both magnitude and probability, climate change is an enormous problem. The greenhouse gases that are responsible for it endanger public health and welfare within the meaning of the Clean Air Act.”
The EPA statement also said science shows a link between climate change and negative effects on human health. These impacts included higher concentrations of ground-level ozone; increased drought; more heavy downpours and flooding; more frequent and intense heat waves and wildfires; greater sea level rise; more intense storms; and harm to water resources, agriculture, wildlife and ecosystems.
Additionally, the statement said, new EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson took into account the disproportionate impact of these impacts on the health of certain groups of people, “…such as the poor, the very young, the elderly, those already in poor health, the disabled, those living alone and/or indigenous populations dependent on one or a few resources.”
The EPA also stated that global warming is a national security issue as resources like water become more scare forcing mass migrations into more stabilized regions.
This announcement results from a review by the Obama administration of the findings from a prior EPA scientific review ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007, looking at whether or not greenhouse gases harm the environment. EPA scientists said they did, but the Bush administration suppressed those results, and never acted to regulate the greenhouse gases.
Obama ordered the review shortly after taking office, which was widely expected.
The finding will now be placed in the federal register, and the public has 60 days from that point to provide comments to the EPA. A final rule will be made after that.
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