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Professor Jeremy Michalek talks carbon pricing, batteries, and why we shouldn't be subsidizing your Tesla Roadster
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Please click here to access the "Energy Efficiency and Rebound Effects" paper.
Please click here to access the Nature commentary.
Jeremy Michalek and his CEDM colleagues' research on plug-in vehicles, supported by CEDM, was recently featured in an interview with Megan McArdle. Ms. McArdle is the business, economics, and public policy correspondent for the Daily Beast, which is the digital home of Newsweek Magazine, which is now an online-only publication.
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"WASHINGTON - Halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, on a former cattle ranch and gypsum mine, NRG Energy is building an engineering marvel: a compound of nearly a million solar panels that will produce enough electricity to power about 100,000 homes."
"The project is also a marvel in another, less obvious way: Taxpayers and ratepayers are providing subsidies worth almost as much as the entire $1.6 billion cost of the project. Similar subsidy packages have been given to 15 other solar- and wind-power electric plants since 2009."
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"Bill Kelley Sr., and his son, Bill Jr., have expanded their equipment-rental business, Taylor Rental, and now sell hard-to-find items to the gas companies. The senior Mr. Kelley said it has grown 40 percent in each of the last three years. His wife runs her own bustling business, PJ's Cafe, a smoky roadhouse where off-shift gas workers congregate."
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"The study by Tom Wigley, who is a senior research associate at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), underscores the complex and sometimes conflicting ways in which fossil fuel burning affects Earth's climate. While coal use causes warming through emission of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, it also releases comparatively large amounts of sulfates and other particles that, although detrimental to the environment, cool the planet by blocking incoming sunlight."
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"The six massive silos standing beside this industrial port in northeastern China hold seemingly contradictory promises: They could help improve the quality of China's polluted air, but they might also contribute to faster global warming.
The silos, which are scheduled to start operation in July, are designed to blend cleaner-burning imported coal with China's own high-polluting domestic coal, which is contaminated with sulfur and dust.
Coal blending will produce a mixture that will help electric utilities meet China's steadily tightening environmental regulations. It will also increase the efficiency of coal-fired plants by slightly reducing the quantity of coal needed. Burning less coal means less greenhouse gases emitted.
But critics argue there is a darker side to cleaner coal."
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"Lighter-coloured crops, aerosols in the stratosphere and iron filings in the ocean are among the measures being considered by leading scientists for "geo-engineering" the Earth's climate, leaked documents from the UN climate science body show."
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"In April, Gov. Jerry Brown made headlines by signing into law an ambitious mandate that requires California to obtain one-third of its electricity from renewable energy sources like sunlight and wind by 2020. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia now have renewable electricity mandates. President Obama and several members of Congress have supported one at the federal level. Polls routinely show strong support among voters for renewable energy projects - as long as they don't cost too much.
But there's the rub: while energy sources like sunlight and wind are free and naturally replenished, converting them into large quantities of electricity requires vast amounts of natural resources - most notably, land. Even a cursory look at these costs exposes the deep contradictions in the renewable energy movement."
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"Recycling is in vogue. But what about re-using carbon emissions? While it may sound far-fetched, governments around the globe are looking into it."
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Below is a list of stories currently in the news regarding climate and energy.
Fed's Tarullo hints at higher capital requirements
"Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo suggested that major financial institutions could be required to hold as much as 14% of assets as capital to help prevent another crisis. 'The regulatory structure ... should discourage systemically consequential growth or mergers unless the benefits to society are clearly significant,' Tarullo said." The Wall Street Journal (tiered subscription model) <http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/cVymDynWocdHAxrAfCzfgwfCsFeh?format=standard> (6/4)
Governments might need to burst commodity-price bubble, U.N. says
"A United Nations report suggests a bubble in some commodity prices might require government intervention. 'The changing r… Read more »
Below is a list of stories currently in the news regarding climate and energy.
EPA Reportedly Ready to Seek Two-Month Delay for Draft GHG Rules
"Sources familiar with internal EPA operations say the agency plans to delay draft GHG emissions limits for power plants beyond the current July 26 deadline, Bloomberg reported. The news service said the agency had entered into an agreement with three environmental groups, 11 states and the District of Columbia and New York City to promptly issue the findings, but was now intent on seeking a two-month delay 'to evaluate information from companies affected by the rule.' A final rule is still expected Nov. 16.
Bloomberg wrote that the emissions regulations 'would have the biggest effect on utilities that mostly burn coal to generate electricity.' The possibility of a postponement was also reported by the National Journal, which wrote: 'Multiple sources tell National Journal that EPA could delay for at least two … Read more »
"There is more to life than the cold numbers of GDP and economic statistics - This Index allows you to compare well-being across countries, based on 11 topics the OECD has identified as essential, in the areas of material living conditions and quality of life."
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"After years of being outgunned by Japanese rivals, the American auto industry has made small cars a central part of its strategy, seeking to capitalize on a fundamental shift in the preferences of consumers in an era of fast-rising gas prices."
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"The Windy City is preparing for a heat wave - a permanent one. Climate scientists have told city planners that based on current trends, Chicago will feel more like Baton Rouge than a Northern metropolis before the end of this century."
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"Exelon Corp.'s $7.9 billion bid to buy Constellation Energy builds on a series of recent deals meant to create profitable electric power companies that burn less coal, use more natural gas and combine existing nuclear fleets."
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"New results from a drilling project in Greenland suggest that the ice sheet there may be more stable-and Antarctica's may be less stable-than previously thought."
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"Chris DiAndreth was mulling over the list of course offerings when the name of a certain Carnegie Mellon University professor caught his eye: Ed Rubin.
What an opportunity, he thought. A chance to learn firsthand from a Nobel Laureate."
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"In a sweeping legal settlement, the Tennessee Valley Authority has agreed for the first time to reduce its overall capacity to generate coal-fired electricity, promising to close 18 of its coal-burning generators over the next six years while spending $3 billion to $5 billion on pollution controls on any remaining units that use coal."
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"ON THURSDAY March 31st Richard Muller of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory gave evidence to the energy and commerce committee of America's House of Representatives on the surface temperature record."
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"More than one third of Germany's 21,500 wind turbines are located in the nation's east. This concentration of generating capacity regularly overloads the region's electricity grid, threatening blackouts."
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"A decision by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sets the stage for conflict with the state, which seeks to shut the 40-year-old plant down."
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"The IPCC is the leading international scientific body studying climate change. Despite criticism - much of it manufactured by climate-change deniers - the panel has for more than a decade provided rigorous and balanced information to policy makers to help guide their efforts to prevent and mitigate the potentially disastrous effects of global warming."
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"Just weeks after regulators approved the last of nine multibillion-dollar solar thermal power plants to be built in the Southern California desert, a storm of lawsuits and the resurgence of an older solar technology are clouding the future of the nascent industry."
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House Republicans and 13 Democrats passed a measure last night eliminating the salaries of President Obama's international climate change envoy and other top officials, a defiant GOP challenge that will further complicate tough budget negotiations looming with Senate Democrats.
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"BRUSSELS - Connie Hedegaard embodies the way the European Commission would like to be perceived in the 21st century."
"Ms. Hedegaard, 50, leads the commission's efforts on climate change, an issue with global resonance, and she is a confident and telegenic communicator, helping dislodge the commission's image as a haven for graying politicians who settle fights over fish quotas."
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"The White House continued efforts today to beef up investment in nuclear and renewable energy technologies in its $29.5 billion fiscal 2012 spending request for the Department of Energy."
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"Reps Posey, Adams and Bishop Join Colleagues in Calling on House Leaders to Reprioritize NASA for Human Space Flight Missions, Drop Climate Change"
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"Here Come a Bunch of Bills Aimed at Blocking EPA's Ability to Regulate Greenhouse Gas Emissions
The Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) unveiled draft legislation to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The bill caps a rough week for the EPA in Congress, reports Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones."
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Researchers report in the journal Science that the 2010 drought was more widespead than in 2005 - the last big one - with more trees probably lost.
The 2005 drought had been termed a "one in a century" event.
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The Environmental Protection Agency revoked the permit for one of the nation’s largest mountaintop-removal coal mining projects on Thursday, saying the mine would have done unacceptable damage to rivers, wildlife and communities in West Virginia. It was the first time the agency had rescinded a valid clean water permit for a coal mine.
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A federal appeals court on Wednesday lifted a stay granted to Texas last month to keep the Environmental Protection Agency from taking over greenhouse gas permitting in the state. Texas had asked the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to block the E.P.A. from taking over the permits until the court could review the state’s suit to stop the agency from instituting a plan to regulate greenhouse gases.
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The new global carbon budget and carbon trend analyses including 2009 from the Global Carbon Project have been published. For further information, please click on the sites below:
"At a recent meeting in Tianjin, there's been intriguing discussion about where the host country, China, is going on climate change. And where it's going is, it seems, towards national legislation to restrict the growth of greenhouse gas emissions."
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For climate change activists, a new Yale study entitled Americans’ knowledge of climate change might make the heart sink. Their worst fears appear to have been met with the results showing that 52 per cent of over 2000 Americans surveyed scored below 60 per cent on the knowledge test, earning them a lowly F grade.
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The Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements (Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School) has produced a new policy brief on International Climate Change Regimes.
"The failure of the Copenhagen conference to adopt a new legal agreement on climate change is blamed by some on poor chairing or other transitory factors. But the problems with the UN climate-change negotiations are more fundamental and are unlikely to go away anytime soon. Rather than putting all of our eggs in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) basket or listening to the siren song of a new legal agreement, states should seek to address climate change in additional forums and through additional means."
Read the full policy brief here
"Spain's overly ambitious plan to cut its dependence on foreign oil and create green jobs by spurring development of solar generation has left the country with almost $176 billion in obligations to renewable-energy investors that it is hard pressed to meet, Bloomberg reported. "
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"EPA waived a limitation on selling fuel that is more than 10 percent ethanol for model year 2007 and newer cars and light trucks. The waiver applies to fuel that contains up to 15 percent ethanol". Find out more here