Is America Willing To Pay For A Cleaner, Safer Energy Future?

In the midst of all the conservative kabuki over the shutdown threat yesterday-- it worked, conservatives got the immense, devastating cuts they wanted-- we also looked at this week's right-wing assault in the EPA. So did the League of Conservation Voters, which points to the EPA's first-ever proposal of national standards for mercury and other toxic air pollution for power plants, as a reason for renewed right-wing fervour.

Every year, tons of pollutants like mercury and arsenic are pumped into the air we breathe, harming our environment and endangering our health.

Unfortunately, it only takes a small amount of toxic air pollution to cause serious, lifelong health complications. Toxic air pollutants-- like mercury from power plants-- cause neurological damage in children exposed in the womb and during early development.

But by implementing these new proposed safeguards, the EPA will be taking significant steps toward protecting our health. These proposed rules will protect us from many airborne toxins including mercury, arsenic, lead, dioxins, acid gas and six dozen other harmful pollutants.

The EPA estimates that these new guidelines-- which are 20 years in the making-- will save as many as 17,000 American lives annually and will prevent up to 120,000 cases of childhood asthma and up to 11,000 cases of acute bronchitis in children.

Additionally, the EPA’s proposed rules are expected to generate anywhere between $60 and $140 billion worth of health cost savings-- that represents a return on investment of between $5 and $14 back for every dollar we spend implementing the new guidelines.

And they point out that Big Oil, Dirty Coal and other dirty energy interests are aggressively working to block the EPA from implementing vital the new clean air standards. This California Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who Blue America has endorsed to replace Jane Harman in Congress, came out swinging about conservatives-- and remember, some of these conservatives are ostensibly Democrats, including Jim Costa right here in California-- attempting to turn the clock back on a clean environment and sidetracking a green future.

[I]f congressional Republicans who take their cues from special interests and dirty energy companies have their way, they’ll cut the legs out from under the EPA plan before it can put us on a path toward a clean energy future.

Just yesterday, the U.S. Senate defeated a Republican effort to try to block the implementation of the EPA’s new clean air rules-- which is unlikely to be their last attempt. And now we’re getting word that House Republicans are trying to make blocking these rules a condition of any budget deal. We simply can't let that happen.

Throughout my career, I’ve made it a top priority to protect the environment and the public’s health, which is one reason why I have been endorsed by the California League of Conservation Voters. As a member of the State Senate, I co-authored AB 1493 to place significant restrictions on tailpipe emissions, as well as AB 32, California’s landmark global warming emissions bill.

Restricting greenhouse emissions and penalizing polluters will protect our health and our environment-- and it will also create incentives for more green jobs, too.

As a member of Congress, I will continue to stand up to the special interests that threaten the quality of our air, water and coastline, and fight for a stronger national energy policy focused on conservation, alternative energy development, and green jobs.

Now is the time to build the green energy infrastructure of tomorrow. And to do that, we’ve got to hold these polluters accountable. Pulling the rug out from under the EPA-- threatening our health and safety-- is the sort of shortsighted, backwards thinking that I will fight to change in Washington.

And then there's nuclear, probably even worse than "dirty." Here in California we have two disasters-in-waiting: San Onofre and Diablo Canyon. This week CALPRIG called on Governor Brown to shut them down, pointing out that there are 8 million residents living within 50 miles of the 2 plants. At least Japan's latest nuclear disaster happened in a relatively remote area.

The news out of Japan continues to be sobering. The reactor core has melted through its containment chamber. There are high levels of radiation in ocean water and in the soil outside the evacuation zone, and no sign of relief in sight.

CALPIRG is calling for a rigorous top-to-bottom safety analysis of our own two plants on the California coast, including much better seismic studies to understand our own earthquake risks. But while seismic studies and safety analyses will help us prepare for an emergency, we still do not have a plan for the safe storage of long-lasting, dangerous nuclear waste.

Gov. Brown must look out for the 8 million of his constituents that live within 50 miles of Diablo Canyon and San Onofre and move California away from nuclear power.

Nothing stands between California and safe, renewable energy except money and political willpower. For the last month my home solar panels have been generating more electricity than I use. Every single home in California should be doing exactly the same thing. That would go a long way towards freeing us from nuclear energy and from the tyranny of the Saudis and the Kochs, equally existential threats to our democracy and our way of life.

Not surprisingly, this week Anzalone Liszt Research found big changes in American support for nuclear energy

The crisis in Japan has caused a significant drop in support for new nuclear plants, with two recent polls finding opposition to new nuclear plants exceeding support for them. After finding the public split on the issue in October (45% favor / 44% oppose), a March Pew poll found the public now opposing new plant construction by a 13-point margin (39% favor / 52% oppose). A recent CBS poll showed a similar trend, with Americans now opposing new plants by a 7-point margin (43% favor / 50% oppose), a sharp departure from their strong support for them back in July, 2008 (57% favor / 43% oppose)

[T]he crisis in Japan is one of the three major news events in the last 40 years that has moved public opinion away from building new nuclear plants. The first of the three, at Three Mile Island in 1979, dropped support for building more nuclear plants from 69% down to 46% in CBS polling, despite no loss of life. The second, the much more catastrophic Chernobyl meltdown in the Ukraine that affected thousands, dropped American support for more nuclear power to 34%, with 59% opposed. Opinion had moved back towards nuclear power in the 25 years between Chernobyl and the tsunami in Japan: according to CBS, support for new nuclear power before the tsunami ranged peaked at 57% in July, 2008.

No telling how this is going to play out over the long term. History tells us that short attention spans and voters increasingly worried about supporting their families' needs will slip back into complacency unless we wind up with forthright and strong leaders instead of the pathetic and conflicted corporate shills our campaign financing system dictates. On the other hand, This week Bloomberg News was reporting that solar power is already rivaling coal and that because of costs of coal-generated energy solar panel installations may surge in the next two years.

Large photovoltaic projects will cost $1.45 a watt to build by 2020, half the current price, Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimated today. The London-based research company says solar is viable against fossil fuels on the electric grid in the most sunny regions such as the Middle East.

“We are already in this phase change and are very close to grid parity,” Shawn Qu, chief executive officer of Canadian Solar Inc. (CSIQ), said in an interview. “In many markets, solar is already competitive with peak electricity prices, such as in California and Japan.”

Chinese companies such as JA Solar Holdings Ltd., Canadian Solar and Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. are making panels cheaper, fueled by better cell technology and more streamlined manufacturing processes. That’s making solar economical in more places and will put it in competition with coal, without subsidies, in the coming years, New Energy Finance said.

“The most powerful driver in our industry is the relentless reduction of cost,” Michael Liebreich, chief executive officer of New Energy Finance, said at the company’s annual conference in New York yesterday. “In a decade the cost of solar projects is going to halve again.”

Installation of solar PV systems will almost double to 32.6 gigawatts by 2013 from 18.6 gigawatts last year, New Energy Finance estimates. Manufacturing capacity worldwide has almost quadrupled since 2008 to 27.5 gigawatts, and 12 gigawatts of production will be added this year. Canadian Solar has about 1.3 gigawatts of capacity and expects to reach 2 gigawatts next year, Qu said.

“You have to get better at it as well,” said Bill Gallo, CEO of Areva SA (CEI)’s solar unit. The French company could shave another 20 percent from the cost of making its concentrating solar thermal technology, and the same proportion from building and deploying plants, he said.

Electricity from coal costs about 7 cents a kilowatt hour compared with 6 cents for natural gas and 22.3 cents for solar photovoltaic energy in the final quarter of last year, according to New Energy Finance estimates.

Comparisons often overstate the costs of solar because they may take into account the prices paid by consumers and small businesses who install roof-top power systems, instead of the rates utilities charge each other, said Qu of Canadian Solar.

“Solar isn’t expensive,” he said “In many areas of the solar industry you’re competing with retail power, not wholesale power.”

Rooftop solar installations also will become cheaper, the executives said.

“System costs have declined 5 percent to 8 percent (a year), and we will continue to see that,” SolarCity Inc. CEO Lyndon Rive said in an interview.

Oh, and by the way, did you contribute anything to the DSCC last year? Their biggest single expense was electing the most Republican-oriented Democrat in the Senate, Joe Manchin (WV), a die-hard foe of a clean-energy future. If you gave a dollar to the DSCC, part of that money went to this:



UPDATE: Americans May Not Be Willing To Pay For A Cleaner Safer Energy Future, But Corporations Are Willing To Pay For Filthy, Dangerous And Brutish One-- And Share The Profits With Their Political Shills

Yesterday Dan Froomkin looked into how the oil lobby greases Washington's wheels and it goes a long way towards explaining what passes for American energy-- and environmental-- policy.

Clout in Washington isn't about winning legislative battles-- it's about making sure that they never happen at all. The oil and gas industry has that kind of clout.

Despite astronomical profits during what have been lean years for most everyone else, the oil and gas industry continues to benefit from massive, multi-billion dollar taxpayer subsidies. Opinion polling shows the American public overwhelmingly wants those subsidies eliminated.

...[T]he oil and gas industry's stranglehold on Congres is so firm that even when the Democrats controlled both houses, repeal of the subsidies didn't stand a chance. Obama proposed cutting them in his previous two budgets as well, but the Senate-- where Republicans and consistently pro-oil Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu had more than enough votes to block any legislation-- never even took a stab at it.

The dozen worst Oil & Gas whores still in Congress (in order of whorishness):

John McCain (R-AZ)- $2,713,824
Kay Bailey Hitchison (R-TX)- $2,141,025
John Cornyn (R-TX)- $1,715,050
Joe Barton (R-TX)- $1,507,280
Jim Inhofe (R-OK)- $1,253,323
Steve Pearce (R-NM)- $1,153,439
Don Young (R-AK)- $1,000,813
David Diapers Vitter (R-LA)- $892,185
Miss McConnell (R-KY)- $879,111
Mary Landrieu (D-LA)- $784,344
Roy Blunt (R-MO)- $693,998
Pete Sessions (R-TX)- $674,414