Al Gore back on the TED stage: Optimism on Climate Change

Ten years after his first TED talk (the first one I ever watched back in 2006!) Al Gore is back on the main stage at TED, reinforcing the urgency of the science of climate change, and also doing a great job of explaining how we're crossing positive tipping points in terms of lower costs for renewable energy and broader support for the kind of climate action we need:




Stay going.

--

F*&k It

It's hard not to feel how Stephen does sometimes... good to see all elements of the media covering the National Climate Assessment report, however.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,The Colbert Report on Facebook,Video Archive

While we are very late in taking meaningful action on climate in the US, it feels as though we might be getting to a place where it will be possible.  The NCA (despite false balance in media coverage) and the recent study about West Antarctica melting being inevitable has caught people's attention.  The EPA rules on power plant emissions coming this summer (reportedly with Obama making it a personal priority) is a real start to controlling carbon pollution.  And maybe most importantly, people are starting to experience a taste of what climate change will bring between Sandy, droughts, San Diego wildfires, the polar vortex, and so much more weird weather... it's not just normal plus a degree or two.

We have so much of the technology we need to dramatically reduce demand for fossil fuels and rapidly phase in alternatives.  Those alternatives are coming down in price and getting more competitive.  There is a groundswell among the youth (and many others!) drawing a line in the sand about the moral injustice climate inaction represents.  All in, the stage is very close to set for real change. 

It's been very tempting to say "F*&k It" for years, but we may now finally be getting close to a real tipping point.

Stay going.
-

Prop 23 & Green Jobs

A friend sent me a recent Opinion piece from the Wall St. Journal titled "Prop 23 and the Green Jobs Myth" by T.J. Rodgers - founder and CEO of Cypress Semiconductor, which acquired SunPower Corp - one of our country's largest solar companies - in 2003.

Image source: Solar Richmond, www.solarrichmond.net

In the piece, Rodgers supports the fossil-fuel industry-backed Prop 23 by essentially trying to tie it to California's economic troubles, and claiming it will hurt job growth.  I can appreciate the position that putting a direct price on pollution can look like an added cost, but I hold that it's correcting a market distortion - we are and will continue to pay the costs of extracting and burning fossil fuels whether we do so directly (by pricing carbon) or indirectly (through healthcare, destruction of personal property & infrastructure, loss of life, undermining ecosystem services, etc.).  

Image source: The 6th Extinction

Attempts to tie a direct line from AB 32 (California's climate change legislation) to the state's current economic woes are disingenuous. First, the law hasn't gone into effect yet.  Second, the initial targets of AB 32 are so easy to meet, that the costs will be more than offset by cost savings from efficiency upgrades and better processes.  I know Econ 101 tells us that business would already have realized all of those cost-savings if the potential was there, but businesses are run by people, and as we know people aren't always perfect - the vast majority of businesses have huge unrealized opportunities for cost-savings with little or no upfront investment.

For example, EDF's Climate Corps program hires MBA students to help big companies identify efficiency opportunities - this year 50 interns generated $350 million in savings for these companies. Starting to send the price signal to the correct source - which AB 32 will do, and which Prop 23 is trying to stop - will accelerate these efforts and further innovations to make our economy more efficient, more effective, and more competitive. 

At Cisco Systems, fellow Emily Reyna developed a plan
for installing energy-saving devices in R&D labs that
could save an estimated $8 million per year (with an
18-month payback) and reduce Cisco’s greenhouse
gas emissions by 3%. Source: EDF

I also disagree with the suggestion that the green jobs that AB 32 (and other policies like it) will promote, are a false promise.  I do think most reports on both sides of this topic require a lot of assumptions and aren't perfect.  Still, here's one that finds that policies that incentivize more efficient energy use -- it looks at the case of California, where energy efficiency policies from 1977-2007 created 1.5 million jobs while eliminating fewer than 25,000: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/20/business/20green.html.  An overview of some other studies that show the expected job growth impacts of AB 32 is available in this Climate Progress post. 

In his piece, Rodgers talks about how SunPower moved manufacturing offshore because of the "high cost and red tape" of manufacturing in the US.  This opens up another whole conversation, but I think this rationale eludes the basic point -- labor's inexpensive in places like the Philippines and Malaysia (where their plants are) because wages and the general standard of living is very low.  That's obviously not what we want for California and Californian workers. More to the point, the piece only talks about the jobs manufacturing solar panels -- the real appeal of green jobs is that most of them can't be outsourced - the jobs installing and maintaining the solar panels (as well as financing the solar panels, weatherizing houses, lighting retrofits, installing green roofs, farming local foods, etc. etc.) 

SunPower's Malaysian fab plant.
Image source: EngineerLive

The piece also claims European subsidies that have helped support the market for renewable energy there have had a net-negative impact on jobs. Here is a White Paper from the National Renewable Energy Lab refuting the study cited to support this claim.  Much of the growth in the solar market (and presumably SunPower's revenue) over the past 5 years can be attributed to these policy structures of the major solar markets in Germany and Spain.  In 2003, when Cypress acquired SunPower it was losing money - outsourcing jobs likely had some impact in turning that around, but I'd wager a much stronger driver was the solar market exploding over that time -- due in no small part to these policies and Europe's cap & trade system, as well as the awareness building that hundreds of groups have done on the true costs and impacts of fossil fuels.

Of course, it's surprising to read a piece supporting Prop 23 authored by the Chair of solar company, as it's so clearly bad for the company's growth.  It reminds me of Tony Hayward who said when he took over BP: "We had too many people trying to save the world" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-grandia/bp-ceo-hayward-we-had-too_b_585610.html) -- he promptly went to work trying to turn that around, getting super-efficient in a traditional, linear sense, and cutting corners to disastrous effect. 

Here are a few of yesterday's headlines from Point Carbon, that covers the full-fledged carbon market that has been in effect in Europe for 5 years.  The second one makes a very flexible system even more flexible -- the companies impacted by this will likely make a lot more money than they currently are as a result.  The third one removes any legitimacy of trying to tag cap and trade as a "tax".  

• Market praises California's cap-and-trade design Published: 29 Oct 2010 California's cap-and-trade system will spur investment in clean energy, market sources said.
• California boosts offset limit in cap-and-trade system Published: 29 Oct 2010California emitters can use offsets to meet 8 per cent of their compliance obligation.
• California to give away majority of allowances Published: 29 Oct 2010California will hand out most of its allowances at the start of its cap-and-trade programme.

Here's another good take on Proposition 23 from Thomas Friedman: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/opinion/06friedman.html?_r=2&ref=opinion

I respect Mr. Rodger's leadership of SunPower Corp, and hope he will come around and see how policies like AB 32 (or anything that puts a price on carbon) will help his company, and create jobs and improve efficiency and competitiveness.

Finally, the piece states: "While our state government frets over issues like... the habitat of the red-legged frog, our economy—the habitat of homo sapiens—is a disaster."  This brings up the most essential point. We need to really internalize the reality that the economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the biosphere.  The red-legged frog's habitat and our habitat are one and the same.  Without policies like AB 32 we will degrade that habitat to the point where it won't be able to support our civilization - and at that point it won't matter how many jobs we were or weren't able to create in the short-term.  Luckily, these policies will create jobs and create a whole new economy that is sustainable for the long term.

Californians, please vote "no" on Prop 23 on Tuesday.

Stay going. 

The Eye of the Wind

We’re on vacation visiting family in Vancouver, British Columbia and had the rare treat to go to the top of a wind turbine on Grouse Mountain.  The 1.5 megawatt turbine provides about 25% of the electricity the mountain needs to operate, and it makes a beautiful, powerful statement on the top of this urban ski mountain.

But the owners of Grouse have taken it one step further, and installed a custom-built, glassed in viewing pod at the top of the turbine – The Eye of the Wind – the world’s first elevator-accessible viewPOD.  For $25, you take an elevator to the top and take in spectacular views of the city, ocean, and surrounding mountains. 

The thrill of some slight vertigo along with the chance to learn all about wind power and see the area from a really unique perspective makes it well worth the price of admission.  One section of the floor is see-through glass, and demands some courage and faith-in-engineering to step on. 

Each pane of the glass wall has some fun-facts about how the turbine works and the local area.  A flatscreen provides real-time data about wind speed, electricity generation, carbon avoided, etc. (unfortunately the wind wasn’t blowing at a sustained rate of over 9 km/hr while we were there, so the blades weren’t turning, and they’re still addressing the final hurdles before they can tie in to the grid).  

Grouse rents out the pod for corporate functions and the like, and have done a great job of maximizing the value of their wind turbine.   The turbine was built by Leitwind out of Italy, a division of the company that builds some of their chairlifts, and the pod was custom built using components from 10 different countries.

While the folks back home in Massachusetts, have been arguing over the impacts on tourism of the Cape Wind project, this project pushed ahead and has shown that turbines themselves can be a revenue-generating tourist attraction.  I’d sign up right away for a boat tour through the first offshore wind farm in the US – not only to see those beautiful turbines up close, but to be a part of history, experiencing the early steps of creating a safe, independent, clean energy system. 

Stay going.