22 Feb

Opinions on Rising Oil Prices and the GOP Effort to Use Them as a Campaign Weapon

Posted by kyle hargus in Iran, Nuclear Power, Oil and Gas Sector.

Photo by dynamosquito. Some rights reserved.

New York Times political correspondent Michael Shear took an in-depth look yesterday at the GOP’s effort to spin rising gas prices against the Obama administration in anticipation of attacking the administration’s economic policies at large in the looming general election. Current oil prices are hovering somewhere around $105 a barrel and #3.58 per gallon at the pumps (up 40 cents from where it was a year ago at this time), with those prices expected to spike somewhere over the $4 mark before the summer arrives. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was quick to deflect these prices away from the President, stating that “there are no magic solutions to rising oil prices” and highlighting the fact that American oil production is at the highest level that it has been in eight years.

In his piece, Shear is quick to point at the rising conflict in Iran, and international concern over its nuclear weapons arsenal. Earlier this week, Iran announced that it would cut off oil shipments to Britain and France in response to their tougher sanctions against them, and experts have also linked the U.S.’s warnings against Israel’s hostilities towards Iran as responsible for the rising oil prices.

But growing concerns over nuclear war are not the only reason for these high domestic prices (thank God). Economists have also highlighted the recent surge in the U.S. economy as perhaps equally responsible. Shear also appeared this week on PBS’s News Hour alongside John Kilduff, founding partner at the hedge fund Again Capital. Kilduff had this to say about how the improvement in the economy could negatively affect gas prices for the American consumer:

“The U.S. employment picture in particular and a lot of the coincident economic indicators, the various Federal Reserve reports that have come out over the past couple of months now have all indicated a growing U.S. economy, which speaks directly to increased gasoline demand… There’s no doubt that there’s investors of all stripes right now betting on the fact that there’s going to be a conflict with Iran, that the global economy is going to outpace available oil demand and push the price up ahead of time.”

Meanwhile, Shear goes on to speculate how the GOP will end up using these high oil prices as ammunition against Obama in the coming election:

[Republicans] think that, you know, the gas prices both affects people in the short term. And if they can, you know, blame President Obama for what people feel like when they go and pay $60 to fill up their car, that’s a winner.

He also remarks that he’s unsure how much Iran will come up specifically on the Republican side of the conversation:

“…It’s in their interests from a political perspective to talk less about kind of the underlying economic factors that are maybe outside of the president’s control, and focus more on what they claim the president could do or is not doing to fix this situation.”

Environmental blog Treehugger points out, on the other hand, that expanding American drilling efforts will do nothing to temper oil prices in the short term, because of the time it takes to approve, develop, and transport from new operations, making very little difference in the context of the larger global oil market. As so many conservationists have pointed out, this may in fact be an opportunity for Obama and Democrats to get on message about the impossibility of relying on fossil fuels in these tumultuous times.

21 Feb

The Wind May Keep Blowing, Just Not From Congress

Posted by John Renehan in Public Utilities, Renewable Energy, Tax Credits, Wind Power.

Image by Chris Winters. Some rights reserved.

The American wind energy industry has long relied on a production tax credit (PTC) that returns 2.3 cents per kilowatt-hour produced as a tax credit to investors. Following the PTC’s expirations in 1999, 2001, and 2003, the industry’s installed capacity fell each time by three-quarters or more. In the past few months as the industry lobbied Congress to pass an extension to 2016 – the year the solar PTC expires – it has presented two arguments.

First, the industry has increasingly turned to domestic manufacturing for its components, sourcing 60% of its parts from American manufacturers in 2011 compared to 25% at the time the PTC was allowed to lapse at the turn of the century. Second, the industry is at such a scale that the cost of wind energy is decreasing, and a PTC effective through the 2013-2016 window would allow the industry to “finish the job,” in the words of American Wind Energy Association Denise Bode, quoted in a Greentechmedia article.

But Congress left the PTC, which had been tucked away in the payroll tax cut bill, out of the final version of the legislation. A standalone bill to extend the PTC is unlikely to pass, but some expect a lame-duck Congress to pass an extension after November’s elections. For now, it is a race for developers to get their turbines up and running before year’s end, when the tax credit ends.

The industry expects to see frantic building in anticipation of the deadline, but for construction to stall after the summer as uncertainty over the credit’s future intensifies. Business leaders say many projects that cannot be accelerated to completion in 2012 will have to be cancelled or delayed as land leases, interconnection agreements, and other permits expires. Inexpensive natural gas in addition to generally weak demand for electricity is prompting manufacturers to look to areas with strong government support for business, including Southeast Asia, Turkey, and much of Latin America.

This does not paint a rosy picture for the industry. Where can wind look for hope? To the states, for now, perhaps. On the same day that Congress appeared to leave the wind industry to its fate, Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick announced a major step forward for Cape Wind, which is aiming to be the first offshore wind project in the United States. Massachusetts utility NSTAR agreed to purchase 27.5% of the proposed project’s capacity. In December, New England utility National Grid, agreed to a power purchase agreement for 50% of Cape Wind’s capacity.

With the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s acceptance of the Department of Public Utilities’ approved price, the project can begin financing for its estimated $2.6 billion cost. The turbines will be five to thirteen miles off Cape Cod in Nantucket Sound, and construction will take 2.5 years. By then, who knows how the wind industry will look.

18 Feb

Last Week in Environmental Impact Statements: Identifying Lands Suitable for Renewable Energy Development

Posted by Hester Serebrin in Environmental Impact Statements.

While Federal agencies are required to prepare Environmental Impact Statements in accordance with 40 CFR Part 1502, and to file the EISs with the EPA as specified in 40 CFR 1506.9, the EPA doesn’t yet provide a central repository for filing and viewing EISs electronically. Instead, each week they prepare a digest of the preceding week’s filed EISs, which is published every Friday in the Federal Register under the title, “Notice of Availability” (NOA).

We’ve done the dirty work for you. Below, we’ve located and linked to the EISs referenced in last week’s NOA. Please note that some of these documents can be very large, and may take a while to load.

You can read any available EPA comments on these EISs here.

* * *

EIS No. 20120031, Final EIS, DOE, GA, ADOPTION—Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, Unit 3 and 4, Issuance a Loan Guarantee to Support Funding for Construction, Burke County, GA, Review Period Ends: 03/19/2012, Contact: Matthew McMillen 202–586–7248 The Department of Energy has adopted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s FEIS 20080322 filed 08/15/2008 and FSEIS 20110088 filed 03/18/2011. DOE was not a Cooperating Agency on the above FEIS and FSEIS. Under Section 1506.3(b) of the CEQ Regulations, the FEIS must be recirculated for a 30-day Wait Period.

EIS No. 20120032, Final EIS (Appendices), NOAA, 00, Amendment 18A to the fishery Management Plan for the Snapper-Grouper Fishery of the South Atlantic Region, To Limit Participation and Effort in the Black Sea Bass Pot Fishery, South Atlantic Region, NC, SC, FL, and GA, Review Period Ends: 03/19/2012, Contact: Dr. Roy E. Crabtree 727–824–5305.

EIS No. 20120033, Draft EIS, BLM, AZ, Restoration Design Energy Project, Identifying Lands Across Arizona Suitable for Renewable Energy Development, AZ, Comment Period Ends: 05/16/2012, Contact: Kathy Pedrick 602–417–9235.

EIS No. 20120034, Draft EIS, USFS, CA, Harris Vegetation Management Project, To Improve Forest Health and Restore Fire-Adapted Ecosystem Characteristic on National Forest System Land, Implementation, Shasta-McCloud Management Unit, Shasta-Trinity National Forest, Siskiyou County, CA, Comment Period Ends: 04/02/2012, Contact: Emelia Barnum 530–926–4511.

EIS No. 20120035, Draft EIS, USACE, NC, US 64 Improvements, Widening from Columbia to US 264 and Replacement of Lindsey C. Warren Bridge, USCG Bridge Permit, Tyrrell and Dare Counties, NC, Comment Period Ends: 04/02/2012, Contact: Bill Biddlecome 910–251–4558. (Not currently available online. Check back here for updates.)

EIS No. 20120036, Draft EIS, FHWA,TN, SR–126 (Memorial Boulevard) Corridor Improvement Project, from East Center Street to Interstate 81, Funding, USACE Section 404 Permit, Sullivan County, TN, Comment Period Ends: 04/02/2012, Contact: Charles J. O’Neill 615–781–5770.

 

Amended Notices

EIS No. 20110353, Draft EIS, USFS, UT, Fishlake National Forest Oil and Gas Leasing Analysis Project, To Exploration, Development, and Production of Mineral and Energy Resources and Reclamation of Activities, Beaver, Garfield, Iron, Juab, Millard, Piute, Sanpete, Sevier, and Wayne Counties, UT, Comment Period Ends: 04/02/2012, Contact: Diane Freeman 435–896–1050.
Revision to FR Notice Published 10/21/2011: Re-opening Comment Period to End 4/2/2012 due to two appendices that was inadvertently not included in the Draft EIS.

EIS No. 20110438, Draft EIS, USFS, ID, Scriver Integrated Restoration Project, Improve Watershed Conditions by Reducing Road-Related Impacts to Wildlife, Fish, Soil, and Water Resources and Restoration of 2010 Forest Plan Vegetation Conditions, Emmett Ranger District, Boise National Forest, Boise and Valley Counties, ID, Comment Period Ends: 03/05/2012, Contact: Melissa Yenko 208–373–4245.
Revision to FR Notice Published 02/30/2011: Extending Comment Period from 2/13/2012 to 3/5/2012.

17 Feb

The Agencies Align for Nuclear

Posted by John Renehan in Department of Energy, Investment, NRC, Nuclear Power, Power Plants.

Secretary Chu. Photo by NNSA News. Some rights reserved.

Last Thursday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved Southern Co.’s construction of a nuclear reactor near Waynesboro, Georgia, the first new reactor to be approved since the 1978 construction of the Shearon Harris plant in North Carolina. (The Hill covers the approval in more detail here). The story of the next year’s accident at Three Mile Island and its drag on the nuclear industry has been well told, and in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, an Obama-mandated task force calling for sweeping improvements to the NRC’s “patchwork” of regulatory requirements threatened to extend what has been decades of regulatory delays. Combined with financing problems, the industry has struggled to build new reactors. On both fronts, this week’s developments point to good news for the industry.

The Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s trade group, touts NRC’s approval as recognition that nuclear energy can contribute to a low-carbon future and a diversified energy supply, while critics say that the project should face additional scrutiny and environmental review after the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant. Those events have prompted the NRC to consider new rules to better protect the country’s 104 reactors from earthquakes and floods, but did not deter the Commission, which voted 4-1 in favor of approval. The Commission’s chairman, Gregory Jaczko, was the lone dissenter, highlighting that reactor operators have made no assurances they will incorporate lessons learned from Fukushima into their operations.

The government also has an instrumental role in financing the new plant. The Energy Department announced this week that it is finalizing an $8.3 billion taxpayer-backed loan to build the reactors. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said that though the project still has to meet a number of conditions, the loan is nearing final approval, as reported in this article from The Hill. No surprise to anyone following the story behind another government-backed loan to an alternative-energy company, that company’s subsequent bankruptcy, and a year-long House investigation, the DOE’s loan is not without its own controversy.

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Massachusetts, in his opposition to the plant, pointed to anger over a $535 million loan to California solar firm Solyndra, which House Republicans of the Energy and Commerce Committee have been investigating for more than a year, alleging that administration officials missed warning signs and mishandled taxpayer funds. Markey wants the Committee to open an inquiry into Southern Co.’s new loan, noting that it is worth fifteen times more than Solyndra’s ill-fated loan, and describing it as “exponentially riskier.” Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Florida, who heads the oversight panel, says the renewable energy loan guarantees that his panel is investigating are at a higher risk than the “proven [nuclear] industry” with its “established record.”

While the tentacles of politics are wrapped around every bit of this story, it illustrates some of the major hurdles alternative- and clean-energy projects face in the future, from regulatory uncertainty to evaluating risk in financing such projects. The Green Mien has posted about significant progress in financing clean energy, but we predict that Knowledge Mosaic’s tools in navigating the regulatory landscape will not prove obsolete anytime soon.

16 Feb

Monsanto’s Shiny New Corn, or, Losing Faith in the Democratic Process

Posted by Hester Serebrin in GM Foods, Pipelines, USDA.

Photo via photozou.jp. Some rights reserved.

Facebook, my email inbox, and the internet generally are awash today with pleas to “Tell Walmart to Reject Monsanto’s GE Sweet Corn!”

The questionable healthfulness of genetically engineered foods aside, this tactic made me a little sad. Despite 250 comments submitted directly to Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (part of the USDA), 229 of which begged the agency not to approve the corn, APHIS went ahead and granted Monsanto’s petition for nonregulated status for “MON 87460,” Corn Genetically Engineered for Drought Tolerance.

It’s sad, but true, I guess: the democratic process works most effectively when putting your money where your mouth is. “Whether you shop at Walmart or not, they are the largest U.S. food retailer, and if they won’t sell genetically engineered sweet corn, it’s likely that farmers won’t plant it,” points out Food & Water Watch, organizer of the most vocal campaign against the corn.

These kinds of campaigns use short, succinct summaries of the issues to grab attention and inform consumers, but if you’re interested in the details of process – how did we get here? – you can find a lot of the background information on Knowledge Mosaic.

A search for Monsanto corn on the Federal Register in Knowledge Mosaic’s Laws, Rules, and Agency Materials page gives you more than 100 documents to sift through. If you sort them to show the newest documents first, two parallel, but related, proceedings become clear.

The first is the aforementioned petition to grant MON 87460 nonregulated status: the initial notice of Monsanto’s petition came in early May of 2011, with a call for comments. It was seven months later that APHIS published their determination “that a corn line developed by the Monsanto Co. […], which has been genetically engineered for drought tolerance, is no longer considered a regulated article under our regulations .”

The second, perhaps scarier, thread shows how EPA regulations were changed to increase “the established tolerance for residues of glyphosate in or on corn.” Why? The Federal Register final rule says it plain as day: “Monsanto Company requested this tolerance under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.”

Are we, as consumers, not being loud enough, at the right time? If APHIS had received 62,364 comments expressing discontent (the number of e-signatures on Food & Water Watches petition at the time of writing) instead of only 229*, could we have nipped GE corn in the bud? APHIS did extend the comment period on the Monsanto petition, after all. Or does APHIS only answer to Monsanto?

Food for thought.

 

* To be fair: Three of the submitted comments opposing a determination of nonregulated status included electronic attachments that consisted either of: (1) A single letter signed by numerous people (6,335 signatures), (2) many letters containing identical material (16,742 letters), or (3) a consolidated document of comments (22,500 comments).

15 Feb

Selenium, the Snake River, and the Two-Headed Trout

Posted by kyle hargus in Clean Water Act, Fish & Wildlife Service, Uncategorized.

Photo by gharness. Some rights reserved.

A federally prompted US Fish and Wildlife Service study released earlier this month took a close look at selenium contamination in Idaho’s Snake River as a result of the nearby Smoky Canyon phosphate mine. Selenium is a chemical that can be toxic in large amounts, often created as a bi-product in the synthesis of other elements. Last year, the J.R. Simplot Company, owner of the Smoky Canyon Mine, requested that restrictions surrounding selenium disposal be loosened, which is authorized by Idaho water quality laws and the federal-level Clean Water Act, so long as it can be proven that relaxing these restrictions would not cause any harm to the health of nearby humans and animals.

Environmentalist outcries over this request prompted the US Senate to request an official USFWS study, which in turn found that, indeed, increasing the amounts of selenium in the Snake River would negatively affect its population of “prize-winning” brown trout. Toxicologists involved in the study found that many trout died as a result of selenium poisoning, while others birthed larval fish with two heads, a mutation that would most likely prove fatal in the wild. The percentage of affected fish was found to be quite high, nearing 70% for trout alone, without considering other animals in the surrounding environment that may feed on this affected fish population.

The USFWS study concludes that “it seems highly doubtful that the proposed site-specific criterion would comply with the Clean Water Act’s mandate to protect wildlife,” and while Simplot Company has argued that loosening the desired constrictions surrounding selenium would open up room in their budget to contribute financially to clean up and other environmental efforts, environmentalists argue that making an exception in this case could lead to a snowball effect in dealing with similar cases in the future.

14 Feb

Responding to Emergencies at Marcellus Shale Sites

Posted by Hester Serebrin in Emergency Planning, Fracking, Hydraulic Fracturing, Marcellus Shale.

Photo by Steve Partridge. Some rights reserved.

The Pennsylvania legislature recently passed a short but sweet bill (SB 995) requiring emergency response information to be posted at the entrance to each “unconventional” well site in the area.

In this case, “unconventional” is a roundabout way of saying “fracking”. Or, more technically, as explained by Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney in a related alert last week:

The term “unconventional well” is defined to mean a natural gas well for production of gas from an unconventional formation. An “unconventional formation” is one below the base of the Elk Sandstone formation, or its equivalent, where natural gas cannot generally be produced economically except when the well bores are stimulated by hydraulic fracturing, use of multilateral well bores, or other techniques to expose more of the formation of the well bore.

The bill, which was signed by PA Governor Tom Corbett on February 2, requires such well sites to develop an emergency response plan, register the unique GPS coordinate address of the site with the Dept of Environmental Protection, and post a reflective sign at the entrance to each site with its address, emergency contact number and “other such information” deemed “necessary.”

Marcellus Connection quotes State Rep. Brandon Neuman as saying, “It’s very important for our local first responders to know where the drilling is going on […] a lot of the wells are in uncharted territory.”

11 Feb

Last Week in Environmental Impact Statements: Meeting Wastewater Management Needs

Posted by Hester Serebrin in Environmental Impact Statements.

While Federal agencies are required to prepare Environmental Impact Statements in accordance with 40 CFR Part 1502, and to file the EISs with the EPA as specified in 40 CFR 1506.9, the EPA doesn’t yet provide a central repository for filing and viewing EISs electronically. Instead, each week they prepare a digest of the preceding week’s filed EISs, which is published every Friday in the Federal Register under the title, “Notice of Availability” (NOA).

We’ve done the dirty work for you. Below, we’ve located and linked to the EISs referenced in last week’s NOA. Please note that some of these documents can be very large, and may take a while to load.

You can read any available EPA comments on these EISs here.

* * *

EIS No. 20120027, Final EIS, FERC, CA, Eagle Mountain Pumped Storage Hydroelectric Project, Licensing Application for Eagle Mountain Mine, near the Town of Desert Center, Riverside County, CA, Review Period Ends: 03/12/2012, Contact: Kenneth Hogan 202–502–8434.

EIS No. 20120028, Draft EIS, USACE, CA, Clearwater Program, To Meet the Wastewater Management Needs of the Joint Outfall System (JOS) Through the Year 2050, near San Pedro, Section 404 Permit, Los Angeles County, CA, Comment Period Ends: 03/26/2012, Contact: Dr. Aaron O. Allen 805–585–2148.

EIS No. 20120029, Final EIS, FHWA, NC, Mid-Currituck Bridge Study, Transportation Improvements in the Currituck Sound Area, US–158 and NC 12, USACE Section 404 Permit, Currituck and Dare Counties, NC, Review Period Ends: 03/12/2012, Contact: John Sullivan 919–856–4346.

EIS No. 20120030, Final EIS, FHWA, AL, Helena Bypass Construction, from Shelby County Road 52 in Helena to State Route 261 near Bearden Road, Funding, USACE Section 404 Permit, Shelby County, AL, Review Period Ends: 03/12/2012, Contact: Mark D. Bartlett 334–274–6350.

10 Feb

Bonneville and a Battery-Powered Future

Posted by John Renehan in Bonneville Power Administration, Department of Energy, Hydroelectric Dams, Renewable Energy, Technology.

Bonneville Dam, on the Columbia River 40 miles east of Portland, OR. Photo by Ann Larie Valentine, some rights reserved.

We’ve written previously about the dispute between the Bonneville Power Administration and owners of wind facilities in the Pacific Northwest. The BPA, when storms create a simultaneous surplus of wind and rain and threaten to overwhelm the grid, has to give away free power. Sometimes, it has had to resort to essentially unplugging wind turbines connected to the grid because the hydroelectric equivalent, routing excess water around the dams, could harm salmon by creating excess bubbles. (You can read more about the ongoing controversy in this alert from Stoel Rives).

At the recent National Electricity Forum, Energy Department Secretary Steven Chu addressed the issue of unpredictable surges and deficits in power generation, which is likely to emerge more widely as installations of renewable energy projects expand. One of Chu’s suggestions was to use batteries, storing extra energy generated during times of peak production for use at times of low production. Currently, a battery needed to store one kilowatt hour, the amount electricity needed to run a window air-conditioner for an hour, costs $350. Compared to the $0.11 that amount of energy costs, paying  for such a battery may seem ridiculous.

So what to do about it? The Obama Energy Department as part of its clean energy research strategy has been creating “hubs” to promote advanced research on areas of particular interest since 2010, aiming to bring together teams of scientists and engineers across disciplines to rapidly accelerate scientific discoveries and speed the transition between laboratory and commercial deployment.

On Wednesday, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced plans to launch an Energy Innovation Hub, the fourth such hub, for research on batteries and energy storage with an investment of up to $120 million over five years. It will focus on electrochemical energy storage for transportation and the electric grid, including utility-scale storage, hoping to improve reliability and efficiency of the electrical grid, to better integrate clean technologies in our electrical systems, and for use in electric vehicles.

9 Feb

Canada’s Environmental Monitoring Plan for Oil Sands Development

Posted by Hester Serebrin in Canada, Keystone, Oil Sands, Tar Sands.

Photo by Martin Loader. Some rights reserved.

Oil sands, now synonymous with the infamously stalled Keystone Pipeline, have an inexorable future in Canada, regardless of Keystone’s fate. And our neighbors to the north aren’t denying it: a recent newsletter from law firm Gowlings reports on steps the Governments of Canada and Alberta are jointly taking to enhance monitoring systems that would track “cumulative effects and environmental change” in the oil sands area.

The Government of Alberta’s web page on oil sands monitoring is cautiously optimistic about development in the region – “Albertans have high expectations that we excel at both energy production and environmental protection – we can have it both ways.”

It appears that the Joint Canada-Alberta Implementation Plan for Oil Sands Monitoring is just one part of an attempt to provide, well, disinfectant through sunlight. By offering coordinated and comprehensive information to the public about oil sands development, the two governments hope to “enhance our ability to detect environmental change and manage cumulative effects.”

Some of the planned improvements to existing (and currently disparate) monitoring programs are as follows:

  • the number of sampling sites will be higher and over a larger area;
  • the number and types of parameters being sampled will increase;
  •  the frequency (how many times) that sampling occurs each year will be significantly increased; and
  • the methodologies for monitoring for both air and water will be improved

The plan not only describes the increased monitoring efforts to be phased in over the next three years, but also the development of an integrated data management system to host all the data – the Oil Sands Data Management Network. The new “OS_DMN” will presumably replace or supplement the existing Government of Alberta Oil Sands Information Portal, a “one-window source for information on the environmental impacts of oil sands development.”

While response to the plan is reportedly positive, The Calgary Herald points out a few glaring omissions:

[one] thing that stands out is the upfront acknowledgment that “this plan does not deal with implementation issues like funding and responsibilities of existing organizations or institutions.”

The plan speculates that “the total cost of enhanced monitoring beyond what the two governments currently spend would be up to $50 million per year.”

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