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Government lets BP keep shut Gulf well despite seepage
by Agence France-Presse.
NEW ORLEANS -- The U.S. government authorized BP to keep closed the busted Gulf of Mexico oil well for 24 more hours to allow tests Monday even though experts detected seepage from the surrounding seabed.
Admiral Thad Allen, the Obama administration's pointman on efforts to end the worst oil disaster in U.S. history, made the decision after talks with federal scientists and BP to discuss a seep near the well and methane traces.
"I authorized BP to continue the integrity test for another 24 hours and I restated our firm position that this test will only continue if they continue to meet their obligations to rigorously monitor for any signs that this test could worsen the overall situation," Allen said in a statement.
The announcement last week that BP stopped the oil flow with a new cap, as it conducted key pressure tests on the well, had raised hopes of devastated coastal communities that their three-month nightmare may soon be over.
But fresh concerns were raised on Sunday after bubbles were detected at the site, even though BP said it did not believe they were caused by hydrocarbons -- meaning the wellbore reaching deep to the oil reservoir below may be compromised and leaking oil, even as it is choked off at the wellhead.
While Allen stopped short of ordering the immediate removal of the cap, which has halted the gusher of crude for the first time since April, he ordered BP to draw up an emergency plan for the possible reopening of the cap.
And in a letter on Sunday to BP's managing director, he said the firm must inform the government within four hours of when seeps are detected, and raised concern over what he said were "lower than expected pressure readings."
"While we are pleased that no oil is currently being released into the Gulf of Mexico and want to take all appropriate action to keep it that way, it is important that all decisions are driven by the science," Allen told BP's Bob Dudley. "Ultimately, we must ensure no irreversible damage is done which could cause uncontrolled leakage from numerous points on the sea floor."
BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said pressure was rising slowly in the well as expected and touted "encouraging signs" that would allow the new cap to remain on until permanent relief wells can be drilled in August.
"In two different locations we've seen a few bubbles. This is not uncommon but clearly it's important that we check everything very closely so we're monitoring that," Suttles said.
BP has said the valves on the cap would remain shut as long as no leaks are discovered. The start of a two-week operation to plug the well permanently by pumping in heavy drilling fluids and then cement is now less than a fortnight away as engineers have only 100 feet left vertically to drill.
Gulf residents, who have seen the crude tarnish their shorelines and cripple the local economy since a rig leased by BP exploded and killed 11 workers in April, reacted cautiously to news that the cap was holding back oil.
"I don't know if it's going to help. It's still a short-term fix," New Orleans resident and medical researcher Ashok Pullikuth told AFP. "The permanent fix is the relief wells. This cap has saved a month's worth of spill damage."
Measuring devices on BP's latest cap have given steadily increasing high-pressure readings since tests began Thursday on the well bore, which stretches 2.5 miles below the seabed.
Seismic and sonar surveys and video footage filmed by robotic submarines in the murky depths of the Gulf have been monitoring whether any oil or gas was leaking through the rock formations on the sea floor.
Allen did not specify what sort of "seepage" or "anomalies" the testing had found but warned earlier that "ultimately, we must insure no irreversible damage is done which could cause uncontrolled leakage from numerous points on the sea floor."
BP said in a statement Monday that the current $3.95 billion total cost of its response to the spill so far included 67,500 compensation payouts totaling $207 million. It also includes the bill for containing and cleaning spilt crude, relief-well drilling, grants to Gulf states, and money paid to the U.S. federal government, the company said in a statement.
Related Links:
A deepwater drilling moratorium might be a bad idea for Louisiana
Ask Umbra asks readers for an accurate name for the oil spill
How Obama can wean the country off oil without help from Congress
The future of Rust Belt cities in the post-LeBron era
by Jonathan Hiskes.
Contrived news hooks based on LeBron James are so last week, but Aaron Renn at New Geography has a good link between the departing free agent and a struggling Rust Belt city:
In a sense though, Cleveland's disappointment was inevitable. LeBron James was never going to turn around the city. No one person or one thing can. Unfortunately, Cleveland has continually pinned its hopes on a never-ending cycle of "next big things" to reverse decline. This will never work. As local economic development guru Ed Morrison put it, "Overwhelmingly, the strategy is now driven by individual projects. ...This leads to the 'Big Thing Theory' of economic development: Prosperity results from building one more big thing."
... James' departure also fits the narrative of generalized anxiety around "brain drain" and cities losing their best and brightest of each generation.
The skepticism of single Big Things sounds rather Tom-Philpottian -- Grist's food writer often makes the case that farms and foodsheds are more resilient when they don't rely on a single monocrop, and local economies are more resilient when they don't rely on a single employer or commodity.
As it happens, there's some interesting work afoot in Cleveland to find durable ways to improve cities without relying on Next Big Things like downtown megaprojects or superstar forwards. Buffalo State College economics professor Bruce Fisher explains:
This weekend in Cleveland, the Great Lakes Urban Exchange is bringing 100 thinkers, activists, elected officials, and wonks to kick around ideas about how one of the richest but most challenged Great Lakes cities can turn itself around. It's going to be a three-day sequence of sessions on the "urban laboratory" that is underway in Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo, Toledo, and other towns that are struggling with the prospect of global economic irrelevancy.
The participants are going to describe their experiences with policy innovations like land-banking, with block-by-block reinvestment in distressed neighborhoods, with business plans that work, and with policy initiatives that still need work. The program is noticeably focused on how community-based organizations and small-scale investors are achieving increments of success in places that have been synonymous with economic distress for more than a generation.
One somewhat wonky key to successful regional planning is metropolitan planning organizations that look at metropolitan regions as a whole. City and suburban governments don't have jurisdiction over the whole interconnected area of, say, greater Chicagoland, so it's difficult for them to address a whole region's needs. State governments typically give disproportionate representation to rural areas (as the U.S. Senate does) and hence aren't very good at considering the health of metro areas as a whole.
Fisher again:
Of all the metros in all the Great Lakes states, only Indianapolis is actually governed as a metro. Every other one is experiencing what Cornell geographer Rolf Pendall calls "sprawl without growth," and features a hollowed-out central city surrounded by a patchwork quilt of independently governed suburbs that spread ever more expensively and ever farther from the urban core thanks to the dimwit state governors who keep giving them road and sewer money.
On the bright side, the slogan "Less sensible than Indianapolis" is available for any metro area that wants to claim it.
Related Links:
Government lets BP keep shut Gulf well despite seepage
Ten green stories you probably missed this week
Obama cautious on oil ‘good news’
Ten green stories you probably missed this week
by Randy Rieland.
The big story of the week, of course, is that BP, after almost three miserable months, may have finally stopped its Gulf gusher. (Emphasis on "may.") But chances are you missed these greener tales -- from the beauty of pond scum to the bendable bike to the regenerative power of beer.
Scum and get it: It used to be a term reserved for ex-boyfriends and telemarketers, but now pond scum is feeling the love. For all their (sometimes) stench and sliminess, algae are powerful little engines that convert solar energy into an oily material, and that has once again made them hot properties in the biofuels world. Debora MacKenzie tells the story in New Scientist.Beer ... What can't it do? Later this summer, a plant in the U.K. will start converting waste from a local brewery into energy. The waste from about 600 pints of beer can heat a home for a day. Seems like a lot of quaffing will be needed to make this work. No worries there. Brits gulp at least 28 million pints a day. Get a clear-eyed report at Greenbang.
There goes the neighborhood: While you were sleeping, a big chunk of Greenland fell into the sea. Scientists say satellite photos from last week revealed that a piece of the giant Jakonbshavn glacier about an eighth the size of Manhattan cracked away and floated out to sea. Larry O'Hanlon, at Discovery News, has more on what it all means.
And it won the World Cup: Spain passed the U.S. as the largest generator of solar power in the world now that it's opened a massive solar farm in Alvarado in the western part of the country. The operation, as big as 77 soccer fields, means that Spain now has the capacity to produce as much energy through solar power as through a nuclear plant. Stephen Burgen, writing in The Guardian, fills in the details.
What if half a billion trees fall in the woods? New analysis reveals that one kick-ass storm that swept across the Amazon five years ago wiped out as many as 500,000,000 trees. Scientists had blamed drought, but now they're thinking it was one line of severe thunderstorms. And that makes them wonder what will happen as global warming breeds more violent weather. E! Science News assesses the storm damage.
The bend is near: The latest urban travel innovation is a bike you can wrap around a pole. Brit Kevin Scott has designed a bendable bike that allows you to curl your two-wheeler around a post and lock up both tires at once. Brilliant! See for yourself at Discovery News.
All hail the great goby: It's that time of year when we're reminded incessantly that great white sharks are pretty awesome. But what about the bearded goby? The fish is only six inches long, but it lives in toxic mud, takes on stinging jellyfish, and is almost singlehandedly keeping an entire ecosystem off the coast of Africa alive -- plus, it doesn't bite humans. Brandon Keim pays homage to the goby's awesomeness at Wired Science.
Not so frequent fliers: Germany wants more people to get off planes and onto trains, so it's considering a tried and true way to encourage the environmentally-friendly transition: Taxes. The German government hopes to start adding a $33 surcharge to any ticket on all outbound flights. Get the details at GreenBiz.com.
Eat my dust: Scientists have known for awhile that dust storms swirling out of Northwestern Africa are doing damage in the Atlantic Ocean, even to coral reefs as far away as the Caribbean. But new research concludes that the dust problem really intensified beginning in the mid-1800s. That was when people started farming along the southern fringe of the Sahara. Evidence of human activity causing climate change? Could it be? Sid Perkins, writing for ScienceNews, tells the dirty tale.
They've seen the light: So what does a church do about killer energy bills? In Britain, they look to the heavens. British Gas estimates that churches around the country could generate as much as $52 million -- most of it through government incentives -- by installing solar panels on their roofs. Greenbang sheds some light.
Related Links:
Government lets BP keep shut Gulf well despite seepage
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Obama cautious on oil ‘good news’
by Agence France-Presse.
WASHINGTON -- President Obama Friday gave a cautious welcome to the "good news" that BP has halted the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, saying a permanent solution still needed to be put in place.
Obama went out of his way to guard against any euphoria after the new cap was placed on the well by the British-based firm, but said the device would at worst allow most of the oil gushing into the sea to be captured.
"There were a lot of reports coming out in the media that seemed to indicate, 'Well, maybe this thing is done,'" Obama said. "We won't be done until we actually know that we've killed the well and that we have a permanent solution in place. We're moving in that direction, but I don't want us to get too far ahead of ourselves."
Obama noted that BP engineers along with government scientists were now carrying out a battery of tests to determine whether the well could be safely shut down using the new cap, without threatening the structural integrity of the well.
"Even if a shut-in is not possible, this new cap and the additional equipment being placed in the Gulf will be able to contain up to 80,000 barrels a day, which should allow us to capture nearly all the oil until the well is killed," he said.
"The final solution to this whole problem is going to be the relief wells and getting that completed."
Obama, before heading off for a vacation weekend in Maine with his family, stressed that there was still an enormous job to do in cleaning up the huge environmental damage wrought by America's worst environmental disaster.
And he stressed that his administration would keep the pressure on BP in order to ensure that the firm pays for cleanup costs and helps businesses that have been devastated by the disaster.
Watch Obama's speech:
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House Democrats introduce bill to defend PACE clean-energy program
by Jonathan Hiskes.
Thirty House Democrats signed on to a new bill on Thursday that would save Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs, which have been under attack from mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. PACE is a finance tool that helps homeowners afford energy-efficiency retrofits and renewable-energy installations.
The PACE Assessment Protection Act of 2010 would force the government-sponsored corporations to adopt standards that support PACE, based on Department of Energy guidelines.
Yet the bill's author, Rep. Mike Thompson of northern California, hopes the legislation persuades Fannie and Freddie to accept a compromise before it's signed into law.
"I think we can do this without legislation, and I think we should do it without legislation," Thompson said in an interview. "PACE does everything from reducing greenhouse-gas emissions to creating jobs to reduce our reliance on traditionally generated energy. This is something that needs to continue. There are hundreds of jobs that have been created by this program."
The finance tool certainly has a lot of friends. It's been backed by $150 million in Department of Energy stimulus funding, the vice president's Middle Class Task Force, 23 state legislatures, governors such as Arnold Schwarzenegger [PDF], and mayors such as Michael Bloomberg [PDF]. California Attorney General Jerry Brown sued Fannie and Freddie yesterday to defend the PACE programs, the largest of which are in California.
PACE programs let home and business owners pay for rooftop solar arrays, high-efficiency furnaces, insulation, and other improvements through a surcharge on their property tax bills, removing high up-front costs. Fannie and Freddie dislike that those tax assessments have senior lien standing to mortgages, even though analyses and pilot programs have found that energy efficiency and PACE programs can make borrowers more financially secure.
The bill would ban lenders from imposing penalties or stricter criteria on municipalities that use PACE; Fannie and Freddie recently told lenders to do just that. The bill would also prevent lenders from requiring homeowners to pay off assessments before refinancing their mortgages or selling their property.
Thompson said lawmakers and PACE advocates will meet next Tuesday with the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Fannie and Freddie's regulator. He's hopeful they can reach a resolution that lets cities and counties put programs back into action -- which would be much quicker than a lawsuit or passing a bill.
"These guys don't want to pick a fight with Congress," he said of Fannie and Freddie. "There's no value in that. I've been absolutely mystified as to how they've come to the conclusions they've come to, and I'm not sure why they're doing what they're doing. I think they're way off base and I'm hopeful we'll be able to bring them back into this universe."
Cisco DeVries, who designed PACE as chief of staff to the mayor Berkeley three years ago and now runs a company that helps cities and counties set up programs, said the legislation looked to be sound. "The bill looks spot on to us," he said by email.
PACE programs generally focus on cutting energy waste through insulation, leak-sealing, and more efficient furnaces, although some finance rooftop solar and wind as well. More than a third of the nation's carbon dioxide emissions come from buildings, so retrofits are an appealing step in fighting climate change, with the added benefits of creating local jobs and cutting utility bills for property owners.
Thompson said there were no Republican cosponsors of his bill because he hadn't had time to seek them out. More than 15 Republican districts have municipalities using or considering stimulus-funded PACE programs, so it's possible the legislation will pick up Republican support. Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), a cosponsor of the bill, plans to introduce another measure that would promote PACE and complement Thompson's legislation, an aide said.
Related Links:
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BP stops Gulf oil flow for the first time since April
by Agence France-Presse.
NEW ORLEANS, La. -- British energy giant BP stopped the oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday for the first time in three months as it began key tests hoping to stem the spill for good.
Shortly after BP engineers shut down the last of three valves on a giant new cap placed on the blown-out well, Senior Vice President Kent Wells announced that no oil was leaking into the seas.
"I'm very excited to see no oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico," Wells told reporters, but cautioned it was only the start of a testing process set to last 48 hours to analyze the condition of the underground wellbore.
The tests are intended to determine whether the wellbore, which stretches 2.5 miles below the seabed, was damaged during an April 20 explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig.
BP is hoping to choke off the oil flow out of the well, estimated at between 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day. But cutting off the flow of oil from the top could force oil out in new leaks if the wellbore was damaged.
"We would like the result that says there is perfect integrity," Wells said, but cautioned it was too early to say whether the leaking well had been completely choked off.
During the test, engineers will be taking multiple readings from the 30-foot capping stack placed on top of the wellhead on Monday to monitor the pressure inside.
High pressure readings would allow the three valves to remain shut and the well would effectively be sealed, but low readings could mean there is a hole somewhere in the casing of the well where oil is escaping.
"If we have very low pressure readings, it'd be the equivalent of putting your thumb over the garden hose and the water's going someplace else because there's no pressure," said the official in charge of the government response, Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen. "If we get high pressure readings, that'd give us some indication that the wellbore's intact, about the integrity of the casing pipe."
Allen said that after 48 hours the engineers would open up the system again and begin capturing the oil through two surface vessels hooked up to the ruptured pipe, and would carry out a new seismic survey.
"That will tell us, as a result of that testing at high pressure for 48 hours, was there a change in the wellbore, did we have oil leak into the formation and form a pocket that could be a precursor for a breach in the ocean floor, is there methane gas coming up, which could be a precursor as well," Allen said.
The two container vessels at the site capturing the spilling crude were shut down before the test started.
The White House said Wednesday that President Obama was being kept up-to-date.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, is involved in the consultations every six hours during the integrity test, alongside BP and government scientists.
The announcement was the first sign of real hope for desperate Gulf residents who have had their livelihoods ravaged by the worst environmental disaster in the nation's history, now in its 13th week.
Teeming fishing grounds have been closed and tourists have been scared away -- two vital economic lifelines for the southern region still struggling to recover from the 2005 Hurricane Katrina.
Endangered wildlife has also been increasingly threatened by huge ribbons of oil fouling the shores of five states -- Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. The costly, massive clean-up is likely to last years.
The Gulf disaster has so far cost BP some $3.5 billion, and compensation claims from devastated residents of the region could reach 10 times that.
A final solution to the leak is not expected before mid-August, when crews will complete the first of two relief wells, allowing the oil reservoir to be permanently plugged in a "kill" operation.
Related Links:
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Ask Umbra asks readers for an accurate name for the oil spill
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The BP dirty dozen: 12 videos that make you almost miss Tony Hayward
by Randy Rieland.
While waiting, once again, to see if BP's latest plan to plug its Gulf gusher will work, we decided to amuse ourselves by taking a look back at the lighter side of this environmental apocalypse. First (and last) stop: YouTube. Pass the popcorn. Here's a BP dirty dozen:
But I really hate when it gets in your trunks:
Giant hole in the sea floor:
Sing, dummy, sing:
Earth's "diarrhea attack:"
The old BP coffee spill -- can't get enough of this one:
He's Gumby, dammit:
Sometimes oil and water do mix:
Spill kitties to the rescue, sort of:
So sorry, mate, but how 'bout those Beatles?
Ka-ching:
The wonderful world of Fox:
Click to see how BP rebrands itself as Baby Otter Smiles, Inc:
Related Links:
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Beekeepers add buzz to Japanese urban jungle
by Agence France-Presse.
TOKYO -- Tokyo's Ginza district is usually abuzz with shoppers and office workers, but high above its skyscrapers nature-lovers have created a home for real busy bees -- the ones that make honey.
It's part of a project to bring a slice of natural life back to the center of the world's largest urban sprawl, a cityscape home to more than 30 million people that stretches far beyond the horizon.
Eleven stories above the heart of the Tokyo concrete jungle -- with its beehive office partitions and swarms of suit-clad worker-bees -- enthusiasts have stacked up beehives dripping with golden honey.
"Let's enjoy the harvest, but be careful you don't have an accident," urban beekeeper-in-chief Kazuo Takayasu tells his fellow volunteers from behind the protective fine-mesh net covering his face.
Clad in white body suits, the crew gets to work, squeezing out the glistening syrup using a simple centrifugal machine they crank by hand as a cloud of bees breaks free from the honeycombs.
"Don't be scared. They don't sting unless you harm them," says Satoshi Nagai, 49, who has taken a break from his desk at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities. "Try the honey. The scent has a touch of citrus."
The honey is largely organic, he said, because pesticide use has been banned in Tokyo city parks and gardens including the Imperial Palace, about one mile away, where the bees collect much of their nectar.
"Through beekeeping, you get to learn how harmful pesticides are for insects," he said. "It makes you think about your hobby of playing golf on courses which cannot be maintained without pesticides."
The beekeepers may be an odd sight in the Japanese capital, but they are not the only urban farmers -- on a rooftop just blocks away, barefoot farmers were recently wading through almost knee-high mud to plant a wet rice field.
On top of the building of the Hakutsuru Sake Brewing Co., its employees and their spouses and children were screaming with excitement as they stomped barefoot, the mud squelching between their toes.
"Good job, good job! Well done!" said Asami Oda, 56, the vice president of Hakutsuru's Tokyo office, who takes care of the rice paddies every day.
"We harvest 60 kilograms (132 pounds) of rice every year, from which we make 80 liters (21 gallons) of sake. Of course it's organic. I like having a pesticide-free harvest, which is also good for the honey bees," he said.
Projects such as these have gained attention here this year as Japan readies to host a 193-nation international conference on biodiversity, which aims to find ways to stem the world's massive species loss.
The 10th meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity will be held in the central city of Nagoya in October to discuss a pressing environmental issue that has received less attention in recent years than climate change.
Animal and plant species are disappearing around the world at the fastest rate known in geological history, and most of these extinctions are tied to human activity, says the United Nations Environment Program. Species under threat include 21 percent of all known mammals, 30 percent of known amphibians, and 12 percent of known birds, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The Earth is now losing a species about once every 20 minutes, estimates the nonprofit group Conservation International.
Scientists warn that wildlife habitat destruction is destroying ecosystems that give humans "environmental services" such as clean water and air and are vital for climate control and food production.
Honeybees are a case in point in Japan.
The price of honeybees has doubled in recent years after imports were banned to prevent the spread of parasites, and as local populations declined in a phenomenon that beekeepers have blamed on pesticide use.
Because of the shortage of bees that help pollination, farmers have reported that fruits don't grow well enough to satisfy urban consumers.
"We've received a number of complaints from beekeepers that pesticides kill honeybees," said Kazuo Kimura of the Japan Beekeepers Association.
Japanese scientists taking part in the biodiversity meeting have discussed ways to convince Japan's highly urbanized public how important biodiversity is.
"Urban beekeeping and rice growing are good examples of how human beings can reshape their relationship with nature," said Kazuhiko Takeuchi, director of the Institute for Sustainability and Peace at the U.N. University in Tokyo. "Above all, it's effective in changing people's mindsets."
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Utilities are trying to pull off the scam of the decade
by David Roberts.
I'm technically on vacation, but there's an extremely important fight going on in the background right now so I want to weigh in, even at the risk of irritating my long-suffering family.
Here's the deal: Right now, two things are happening in parallel. The first is getting all the attention, but the second is, in practical terms, more significant. Yet the first may screw up the second. Let me explain.
The first thing is, Democrats in the Senate are now talking about passing a limited cap-and-trade system that only covers electric utilities. This is widely seen as a second-best measure, something short of an economy-wide system but better than no CO2 restrictions at all. Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), among others, is working on legislative language for such a system (though he has said he's skeptical it can get to 60 votes). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is apparently going to go for it, including such a system in the coming energy bill, and he's deep in negotiation with various stakeholders about it.
The second thing is, EPA is working on a whole suite of new Clean Air Act regulations. I'm not talking about the much-discussed EPA regulation of greenhouse gases -- I mean tightened standards on traditional ("criteria") air pollutants. The Clean Air Act dictates that EPA regularly revisit pollution standards and update them to reflect the best current science. Needless to say, that wasn't done during the Bush years, so there's a huge backlog of work. Every single criteria pollutant is being revisited. The upshot is, there are tons of new standards either recently released or on their way in the next year or so. (Also relevant are upcoming regulation of coal ash and tightened Clean Water Act standards.)
The utilities see an opening here. Their support will be crucial for getting the energy bill through the Senate. In exchange for their support, they are now asking to be exempted from the EPA's new rules (as they are in Sen. Dick Lugar's [R-Ind.] proposed energy bill). Darren Samuelsohn and Coral Davenport have a great story today on the heated negotiations going on around this issue as we speak.
I've been planning a long post, or even series of posts (whee!), on this subject for a long time. There's a lot of complex history and background that needs to be understood to really get what's going on. But I'm on vacation, dammit, and I'm not going to start writing that post now.
Instead, let me just cut to the core point: A deal to exempt utilities from new Clean Air Act rules in exchange for their support for a utility-only cap-and-trade system would be a terrible deal. Terrible. I've resisted the repeated tendency of greens to say this or that compromise renders the climate bill "worse than nothing," but this deal really would do that: it would make the bill worse than nothing. It would be a step backward, on both climate and health grounds. Any environmental group that supports such a deal should be scorned by progressives and cut off by progressive funders. (I'm extremely gratified to hear Samuelsohn report that green groups are, so far, holding firm on this.)
Why would it be so bad? Because the new Clean Air Act regulations are going to have bigger, faster, and more substantial effects on the power sector than any watered-down utility-only cap-and-trade system. Those regulations will eliminate more pollution, shut down more dirty coal plants, and avoid more greenhouse gases than a utility-only cap-and-trade system.
The power sector is terrified. After putting off needed investments in new, cleaner generation for years and years -- aided and abetted by simpatico regulators in D.C. -- all the sudden they're going to have to start making those investments. And quickly! They might have to scramble, and innovate, and maybe even change their business models! Some of them might even have to ... gasp ... raise rates (which have been artificially suppressed for years)!
Utilities are extremely accustomed to their moldy old business models and practically allergic to innovation, so they're reacting to the coming regulations with the same strategy they've always used: whining to politicians. They're telling politicians that the regulations will force coal plant shutdowns faster than replacement generation can be found. There will be reliability issues. Brownouts! Puppies will freeze! Grandma will bake!
It's bull -- the same bull they've been peddling for years. If they get away with it, it will mark the true devolution of the climate bill into farce.
More, probably much more, when I'm back next week.
Related Links:
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The future of Rust Belt cities in the post-LeBron era
Ten green stories you probably missed this week
California attorney general sues Fannie & Freddie over PACE clean-energy programs
by Jonathan Hiskes.
California Attorney General (and candidate for governor) Jerry Brown sued Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac today for blocking Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs. There's a good chance that Fannie and Freddie's legal costs from defending this suit will add up to more than they ever stood to lose from the clean-energy programs, but here we are. The town of Babylon, N.Y., has also been threatening to sue over the same issue, but Brown was quicker.
Todd Woody reports at the New York Times' Green blog:
The suit alleges that the [actions of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie and Freddie] violated California law, which authorizes PACE programs, and are "severely hampering California's efforts to assist thousands of California homeowners to reduce their energy and water use, help drive the state's green economy, and create significant numbers of skilled, stable and well-paying jobs."
"The actions of these government-sponsored, shareholder-owned private corporations have placed California's PACE programs -- and the hundreds of millions of dollars in federal stimulus money supporting them -- at immediate risk while benefiting their own pecuniary interests," the suit states.
The housing agency said it would mount an aggressive defense. "In keeping with our safety and soundness obligations, the Federal Housing Finance Agency will defend vigorously its actions that aim to protect taxpayers, lenders, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," Edward DeMarco, the agency's acting director, said in a statement.
"Homeowners should not be placed at risk by programs that alter lien priorities and fail to operate with sound underwriting guidelines and consumer protections," he said. "Mortgage holders should not be forced to absorb new credit risks after they have already purchased or guaranteed a mortgage."
Interesting:
The suit's most novel allegation is that the agency violated federal environmental law by not conducting a review of the potential environmental impact of restricting PACE programs.
"F.H.F.A. has effectively precluded PACE programs in California and deprived California and its citizens of the associated residential energy and water efficiency and renewable energy benefits, thereby significantly impacting the human environment, without completing the required environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act," the suit states.
After Fannie and Freddie warned lenders away from PACE, many municipalities froze their PACE programs. But on Tuesday, Sonoma County, Calif., voted to reopen its Energy Independence PACE program, and Missouri's governor signed PACE-enabling legislation (joining at least 22 other states). Clearly many people have confidence that this model will survive once the Fannie/Freddie dispute gets resolved.
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