Archive for the ‘Coastlines’ Category

19 May

GAO Grapples With Climate Change’s Impact on Infrastructure

Posted by plohnes in Climate Change, Coastlines, Development, Emergency Planning, Environmental Valuation, GAO, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Oceans, Weather Control.

Photo by Wikimedia Commons

Photo by Wikimedia Commons

While the extractive industries and their political handmaidens continue to press the notion that climate change is nothing but a hoax, the actual scientific evidence that it is real continues to mount as inexorably as arctic ice melts and temperatures rise around the globe. Those greedy scientists who invented The Great Climate Change Hoax to get rich off grant money are now telling us that even the ice on Mount Everest which provides a water basin for more 1.5 billion people is melting.

As the “controversy” grinds on, the General Accounting Office and the National Research Council are not sitting idly by, waiting for the last skeptic to be won over. According to a newly released GAO report,  the U.S. already spends billions of dollars every year on infrastructure, but much of that infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, wastewater systems, even NASA centers are vulnerable to climate change. By way of example, the GAO points out that within 15 years segments of Louisiana State Highway 1—providing the only road access to a port servicing 18 percent of the nation’s oil supply – will be inundated by tides an average of 30 times annually due to sea level rise, effectively the port.

The report criticizes national and state decision makers for failing to systematically consider climate change in infrastructure planning. Replacing aging bridges and highways is an expensive and time-consuming task made no easier by piling climate change on top. But such planning is both essential and doable.  The GAO points by way of example to Milwaukee’s efforts to manage the risk of greatly increased rainfall by enhancing its natural systems’ abilities (including local wetlands) to absorb runoff.

The GAO report makes numerous recommendations, including the establishment of an executive agency to work with other state and federal agencies to identify and mitigate future disruptions and provided guidance on how agencies should address such disruption. Amidst all the hand-wringing and sleight-of-hand political distractions surrounding climate change, the report makes for refreshingly direct and level-headed reading. You can find the whole thing here.

8 Mar

Energy and Environmental Bills in the Washington Legislature

Posted by John Renehan in Climate Change, Coastlines, Oceans.

Gray wolf. Photo by uhuru1701, some rights reserved.

Today, we’ll look at energy and environmental bills being considered closer to home, in the Washington State Legislature. Energy and climate bills are center stage, but wildlife and land use bills are also on the agenda.

SB 5802 would authorize the Governor to contract with an independent organization to evaluate greenhouse gas reduction strategies and declare an emergency related to greenhouse gases. Its companion bill in the House went to executive session in the House Committee on Environment on Wednesday. Business advocates, however, are concerned that unilateral action in Washington will put state businesses at a competitive disadvantage nationally, and Republicans have proposed a substitute bill that removes “absolute” language on climate change and ocean acidification.

Among this session’s more high-profile bills is SB 5547, does not address climate change directly but rather confronts the ocean’s rising acidity. It would create a Marine Resources Protection Council in the Governor’s Office to consider how to tackle increased acidity and its effect on reef development and marine life. The Washington Farm Bureau, for its part, has pointed to lack of definitive evidence relating local industrial activities to rising acidity, and the bill did not move out of committee.

Another set of bills address energy use. SB 5297, SB 5298, HB 1221, and HB 1222 would allow utilities to purchase coal transition power while still meeting the reduced cost cap for renewable energy investments, and to lower the obligations under I-937 that state utilities gradually increase the amount of new renewable resources in their electricity supply. HB 1301 promotes renewable energy by adjusting incentives. It modifies a tax credit to encourage energy consumers to meet on-site electricity demands by installing renewable energy systems, and would establish a fund to encourage clean energy manufacturing in the state.

On the other side of the mountains, Eastern Washington legislators are apparently very concerned about gray wolves. A total of ten senate and house bills have been proposed that for the most part would expand the ability of ranchers and counties to lawfully kill wolves that have killed livestock. Most of these bills are not making progress, though.

Finally, SB 5295, designed to reduce the burden of permit applications mandated by the Shoreline Management Act, is stalled in committee.

1 Mar

The Challenges to Offshore Wind

Posted by John Renehan in Coastlines, Development, Government Contracts, Public Utilities, Renewable Energy, Subsidies, Wind Power.

Photo by Rob Farrow, some rights reserved.

Mother Jones has a succinct piece on the challenges facing offshore wind projects, challenges that explain why the U.S. still doesn’t have a single offshore wind turbine. The UK has 870, and Germany has 416, for comparison. Now that has Congress extended the wind Production Tax Credit (after a long battle detailed here and here) and outgoing Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he is optimistic that the Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound will begin construction in 2013, it is a good time to look at the roadblocks that remain.

Though offshore projects benefit from the Production Tax Credit, worth $1 billion a year, and the Incentive Tax Credit, which pays 30% of wind projects’ constructions, higher construction and transmission costs make electricity from offshore turbines twice the price of electricity from more traditional sources. While in the U.S., states and utilities are understandably hesitant to embrace it, Germany, for example, fully subsidizes the offshore wind system.

The opponents of offshore wind that have gotten the most press are “stakeholders” in areas near potential projects, those who organize groups like the Alliance for Nantucket Sound in opposition to the Cape Wind project, which to date has fought a dozen lawsuits over the turbines’ effect on interfering with boat traffic, desecrating sacred sites, and harming avian and marine life (the GM has covered this here and here). Not surprisingly, these wildlife worries have been hijacked by waterfront homeowners; meanwhile, the National Wildlife Federation, Greenpeace, and the Sierra Club are all in favor of the project.

The strangest problem offshore wind is facing is a 1920 law requiring ships sailing between ports in the U.S. to be U.S.-flagged. This is apparently a problem because the small fleet of ships capable of installing a 400-foot turbine in the ocean floor is based mostly in Europe – and once one of those ships installs the foundation for a turbine, it qualifies as a ‘port,’ and cannot proceed to dock in the U.S. A shipbuilder in New Jersey is building a turbine-installation ship, but until its completion at earliest in 2014, the cost of bringing in ships from abroad can be prohibitive.

Finally, our beloved federal system of government means that states award utility contracts, while the Interior Department manages the deep water where wind turbines can be built. Developers worry that even if they get a contract with a state to buy their power, Interior could award the ‘land’ rights to someone else.

30 Nov

National Flood Insurance and Jersey Shore Demographics

Posted by John Renehan in Climate Change, Coastlines, Construction, Development, Environmental Justice, FEMA, Flooding, Global Warming, Market-Based Rates, Natural Disasters, Real Estate, Subsidies.

Photo by U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, some rights reserved.

Back in 1968, Congress stepped into the flood insurance market to provide coverage where private insurers would not. Today, taxpayers back $527 billion of assets in coastal flood plains insured by the National Flood Insurance Program. Run by the Federal Emergency Agency, the program paid out $16 billion of claims for Katrina; Sandy-related claims could reach $12 billion. The program is already $18 billion in debt, as sum the government acknowledges will probably never be covered by higher premiums.

Besides the program’s cost, what is the issue? In New York alone, 200,000 people live less than four feet above the high tide level. Nationwide, the number of people living in flood-prone areas has been increasing, so each natural disaster damages more property and displaces more people than the last. An op-ed in Thursday’s New York Times opines that the time for the federal government to subsidize the insuring of homes and businesses in high-risk flood zones is long past. If property owners cannot find flood insurance on the private market, which in many cases they cannot, they should bear that risk instead of transferring it to the federal government.

One of the implications of changing federal flood insurance would be increased cost of living in coastal areas. Another Times article covers how Sandy and the coming National Flood Insurance Program rate hikes will make “seaside living, once and for all, a luxury only the wealthy can afford.” Building requirements for homes in newly mapped flood hazard zones could effect a demographic shift in the northeast, because much of the development encouraged by subsidized insurance would only be affordable to wealthy buyers.

The wisdom of subsidizing status quo demographics on the Jersey Shore to the tune of $18 billion aside, the point of reducing or eliminating federal flood insurance would be to end the cycle of natural disaster and expensive rebuilding without internalizing the risks of development in flood-prone coastal areas, which in light of recent events are certainly expanding. This is a step toward affordable environmental risk-management most people can back in good conscience.

7 Sep

Wave-Energy Generation: The Beginning

Posted by John Renehan in Coastlines, Oceans, Renewable Energy, Technology.

A lot of energy in every wave. Photo by David Spinks, some rights reserved.

Many words are written on developments in the wind and solar energy industries day in and day out, but this week another alternative energy source is making waves. The New York Times reported Monday that the first commercially licensed grid-connected wave-energy device in the country will be launched in October. The New Jersey-based company, Ocean Power Technologies, is sending a barge to carry a 260-ton generator to its anchorage off the central coast of Oregon.

The Pacific coastline from Northern California through Washington State is particularly well-suited for wave-energy generation due to consistent swell from never-ending northern Pacific winds. The weather, though, presents a problem of its own: stormy seas in the winter. Just 15 years ago, in fact, one of the first test-buoy generators sank shortly after it was launched off the Oregon coast.

Wave-energy technology is so new that OPT engineers and observers do not know what exactly to expect. The buoy has an onboard computer that collects input from ‘wave riders’ floating farther out in the ocean to adapt the generator to each incoming wave, as well as to gather data to help engineers understand the tiny differences between waves. While the OPT buoy floats on the surface, there are other ways to generate electricity from waves – other concepts have put generators on the ocean floor or rising vertically through the surface.

The near future of energy development could also hinge on the OPT buoy’s success. The federal permit issued last month approved up to 10 generators, which would produce enough energy to power 1,000 homes, but more important perhaps is the potential for future investment. Big power companies have mostly stood on the sidelines while smaller companies worked on wave energy generation, so Ocean Power Technologies has relied on grant money from public and private sources. If OPT proves the concept, private investment could flow into the industry, not just in the Pacific Northwest but in other spots with long fetch for ocean swell like parts of the coast of Western Europe and South America.

17 Aug

Cape Wind Gets FAA Approval, Again.

Posted by John Renehan in Coastlines, FAA, Power Plants, Public Utilities, Renewable Energy, Wind Power.

The Cape Wind turbines won’t be this close. Photo by Morten A. Mitchell Larød, some rights reserved.

The FAA announced Wednesday that the 130-turbine Cape Wind project off the Massachusetts coast posed no danger to air travel. The FAA’s approval means that Cape Wind is fully permitted, with federal and state approval, a commercial lease and construction and operations plans, and power purchase agreements with utilities in Massachusetts – the only offshore wind farm so close to construction. Massachusetts, then, is about to add to its fast-growing use of renewables.

The approval does not come without controversy, however. Republican lawmakers want to investigate the possibility that the Obama administration put pressure on the agency to approve the project despite safety concerns. Even with that threat looming, the project is the subject of numerous legal challenges.

Last year, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound challenged the FAA’s previous approval of the project, and the DC Circuit overturned that approval, ordering the agency to review its findings. Cape Wind must also set aside $15 million to address any issues with the radar systems used to locate aircraft in the area, but because the turbines, at 440 feet, are below a 500-foot threshold, the FAA does not expect them to obstruct pilots. Boston.com has the story here.

For those of us who might have been following this story since the George W. Bush administration, this storyline might sound familiar. That’s because this is actually the FAA’s fourth no-hazard determination, an approval that must be reviewed if construction does not begin within 18 months. Maybe the fourth time is the charm on the high seas of Nantucket Sound.

16 May

The Most Beautiful Beaches in the World Are in Danger!

Posted by Kyle Hargus in Coastlines, Oceans.

Photo by fmschmitt. Some rights reserved.

Troubling news for the U.S. tourism industry arrived this week in the form of a new report filed by the United States Geological Survey on the Historical Shoreline Change in the Hawaiian Islands. The report monitors shoreline changes on Kauai, Oahu, and Maui, Hawaii’s three most densely populated islands, over the last century. In this time,  9% (about 14 miles) of the coastline of these islands has disappeared, and 70% of their beaches show signs of retreat. Maui is showing the highest rate of decay, with 81% of its beaches showing signs of erosions.  The study reports varying rates of erosion depending on the island and the beach; the range runs the gamut from a few inches per year up to a few feet per year, depending on a multitude of factors including degree of tourism in the area, vulnerability to coastal storms, and the ever-increasing rise of sea level.

“The inevitable fate of the Hawaiian Islands millions of years into the future is seen to the northwest in the spires of French Frigate Shoals and the remnants of other once mighty islands, ancestors of today’s Hawaii, but now sunken beneath the sea through the forces of waves, rivers, and the slow subsidence of the seafloor,” explained USGS Director Marcia McNutt in an agency press release.

So what’s the solution? Obviously the findings of this report hold a great significance to the future of the Hawaiian way of life, both the indigenous Polynesian culture and the booming tourism industry of the islands. The common practice of re-building beaches with imported sand is also dicey in the Hawaiian islands as, because of its geographical remoteness, imported sand is 10 times more expensive than the global average. William J. Aila Jr., Chairperson of Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources recommends, above all else, moving commercial construction and infrastructure away from the beaches and towards the mainland. ”This will vastly improve upon public safety and will ensure that Hawaii’s beautiful beaches will be protected from inappropriate shoreline development.”

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