What’s Missing from the New Clean Energy Agenda?

Nuclear power, biofuels, clean coal: These are the Obama administration’s answers to climate change. The 2011 budget, released this week, promised new loans for the construction of nuclear power plants, and on Wednesday the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), White House, and other departments detailed steps to encourage ethanol and clean coal production.

These initiatives may garner support from conservatives, but their ascendancy comes at a price. Support for renewable fuel sources, like wind and solar, has dwindled. President Barack Obama did encourage Senate Democrats to pass a climate change bill, but some moderates are bucking the cap-and-trade provisions that could tamp down carbon emissions. Those moderates are pushing for legislation that leaves carbon caps out entirely.

It hasn’t been a good week for climate advocates. On top of the Obama administration’s overtures to crusty, old energy industries, Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has had to fend off pressure to resign. The IPCC published a report with a badly sourced fact about the rate at which Himalayan glaciers are melting, and when scientists pointed out the error, Pachauri would not cop to the mistake. (If you missed the beginning of this to-do, Mother Jones‘ Kate Sheppard covered the controversy back in January.)

Given this country’s weak efforts to tamp down carbon emissions, though, perhaps the IPCC’s prediction that those glaciers likely will disappeared by 2035 will turn out to be accurate.

New nuclear plants—but at what cost?

Obama’s budget, as Sheppard reports at Mother Jones, is upping funding for nuclear plant development, even though previous nuclear projects have run wildly over budget. The president has always supported increased nuclear production. As an Illinois Senator, Obama had Exelon Corporation, the country’s largest nuclear operator, in his constituency. The company continued to support him as a presidential candidate. The proposed funding runs in the neighborhood of $54.5 billion in loan guarantees for nuclear projects. That’s good news for an industry that’s in need of cash. As Sheppard explains, without governmental backing, these plants would have little chance of being built.

“Even as public opinion toward nuclear power has warmed, projected construction costs for new plants have soared, with a single reactor now estimated to cost as much as $12 billion,” she writes. “In fact, the outlook for nuclear plants looks so dire that even Wall Street banks have balked at financing them unless the government underwrites the deal.”

The Obama administration is also backing research into nuclear waste disposal, a prerequisite for nuclear expansion. No matter how “green” nuclear energy production might be, so far there’s no safe, sustainable way to deal with its by-products. Finding a long-term solution for nuclear waste disposal will not come cheaply.

Biofuels move us backwards

The administration’s support for biofuels was bigger slap in the face to environmentalists, though. Just a few years ago, ethanol made from corn or switchgrass ranked high on the list of renewable fuels that could spring America from its Middle East oil addiction. In practice, however, biofuels have proven more environmentally destructive and less efficient than advocates had hoped. With farmers in the Midwest knee-deep in corn marked for ethanol production, though, backing away from biofuels is politically dicey.

The consequences are more than political, however. At Grist, Tom Philpott argues that support for biofuels will ultimately drive global carbon emission up, rather than down.

“As ethanol factories continue sucking in more and more corn, plantation owners in places like Brazil and Argentina will put more grassland and even rainforest under the plow to make up for the shortfall, resulting in huge carbon emissions,” Philpott writes. “That dire effect of our ethanol program, known as indirect land-use change, likely nullifies any scant climate benefits from ethanol.”

It’s not just corn and switchgrass that pose a problem, either. As Gina Marie Cheeseman reports at Care2, algae farms, another potential source of biofuel, face their own challenges. Algae demands high energy input and could release more carbon dioxide emissions that it would save, according to a new report from the University of Virginia.

There’s more research to be done before writing algae energy production off, however. In January, the Department of Energy said it would sink $44 million into work on algae pools. Industry players like ExxonMobile are also underwriting research on the subject, Cheeseman writes.

No room for innovation

Moving towards energy sources like nuclear power and ethanol does take the country a step closer to responsible energy production. But right now, the Obama administration is not leaving room for new or ambitious ideas that could do more. Wind and solar, which would form the best foundation for a sustainable energy future, have few advocates in Congress. They also seem to have no role in the near-term energy plan.

Ethanol was the Midwest’s first green industry, for instance, but there are other possibilities for juicing up the region’s clean energy production. In The Nation, Lisa Margonelli lays out the case for “gray power,” which is recycled energy produced by the old, dirty smokestacks that ring cities like Cleveland.

In this vision, twentieth century industry can produce twenty-first century energy. Waste energy, Margonelli argues, “can be profitably “recycled” onto the grid to create power as clean as that from solar and wind but far cheaper.”

“In fact, energy now lost as steam and gases by the region’s manufacturing plants, as well as municipal and agricultural waste, could create as much energy as sixty-nine nuclear power plants, according to figures commissioned by the Environmental Protection Agency,” she says. “This power could strengthen the region’s electrical grid and preserve jobs by making local manufacturing plants more economically stable, while making the region a leader in greener technology.”

A project like Margonelli imagines, however, would require significant commitment and vision from the federal government, both of which are lacking right now.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

by Random_foto via Flickr/creative commons
By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

resignd C.

4:37PM PDT on Jul 3, 2010

http://www.care2.com/causes/environment/blog/biodegradable-plastic/

This is another article from Care 2 about biodegradable plastic made from bio fuels like algae. We need this now.

send a green star

4:34PM PDT on Jul 3, 2010

http://www.care2.com/causes/environment/blog/biodiesel-fuel-movement/

Check out this previous article in Care 2 about bio fuels and algae. The photo shows the ideal way to grow it instead of on a pond as you get hundred times more fuel for the space or more. These companies need our support and preferably keep ExxonMobile out of it. You know they will gouge everyone with lies about the cost when they are being subsidized by gvmt to develop it. They are already the 2% most wealthy in the world who own 80% of everything. Tell them no more of this.

4:27PM PDT on Jul 3, 2010

Meant to end that last sentence with a "?". Also didn't finish my thought that the amount of area in New Mexico was speculated to supply the entire country with fuel for cars. We can also make plastics and anything else fossil fuel is made of any the products would biodegrade into something that is not toxic since it is from a plant. I am serious, we need to get our own movement for fuel off the ground and need a safe and protected way to get it started. With a few million to pay in small amounts there would be little risk, and shares would grow. I am sick of the corporations of america running us aground and blaming the public when it is their greed to keep us dependent on their pocket that is corrupting the system.

4:23PM PDT on Jul 3, 2010

The algae that I have seen in tests are in closed tubing so how can they be adding pollution into the environment. Besides, I thought plants added oxygen. My money is on algae, which they have speculated could be grown in a corner of New Mexico where the sun shines all day, there is little population and the property is pretty cheap. We need to have a peoples' owned energy supply where we buy shares that help the business get off the ground. To heck with waiting for MobileExxon to get it started. Those fat cats have been playing games with us long enough. The people can do it much cheaper and the costs would be a nth of what they would charge us. Why not have a publicly owned algae growing and producing plants/

Elizabeth V.

8:03AM PDT on Mar 14, 2010

thanks

3:16PM PST on Mar 2, 2010

Jeanette,
It may surprise you, but I do agree that we need to do something to clean up or environment, but cap and trade doesn't do anything to accomplish that. We need to keep making stricter pollution standards and make the big polluters cut back on emissions, not let them buy their way out of their responsibility to clean up the environment.
I am also against deforestation, but our rapidly growing population is to blame for that. The larger the population, the more need for wood and land for food, buildings, highways, etc. Our throw away mentality is to blame for the excess demand for products and more pollution. Modern society must have the latest technology and with rapid population growth, the demand for electricity makes it hard for "green" sources of power to be built fast enough to keep up with the demand. We are forcing power companies to keep outdated polluting power plants in operation because of our increasing demands for electricity and our reckless rapid overpopulation of our planet. We as individuals are as guilty of causing any man made climate change as any industry, because the demands of a rapidly increasing population cause many of the environmental problems we are faced with.

Jeanette M.

12:51PM PST on Mar 2, 2010

Roger H - your arguments sound good; but how do you explain the very rapid melting of the polar caps? The plant re-absortion of CO2 (not the only greenhouse gas, by the way) is quite true - but massive deforestation would counter that, don't you think? You are correct about cap and trade in that it can be a licence for large polluters to keep polluting. You are also correct in that sometimes research is faulty. However, that doesn't change the fact that we are suffering significantly higher global temperatures, desertification, habitat loss, a large number of lost plant and animal species and so on and on. Do you really think that we can avoid exercising any possible restraint and reducing our impact on the environment - just in case it really is us causing a large part of this? For the sake of our children and grandchildren, wouldn't it be safer to err on the side of caution? The main beneficiaries of the "climate change isn't happening" camp are - guess who - the big polluters.

2:48PM PST on Feb 24, 2010

Josh,
One thing that is stopping both residential solar and wind power in some areas is Neighborhood Association rules in some neighborhoods. I think that anyone that can afford it should be allowed to install solar or wind power for their residences and all public buildings should have either solar or wind power.

Josh T.

12:27PM PST on Feb 24, 2010

How is solar energy not at the forefront of all of this? It's not hard to have panels installed on your roof, it's put up there, and you forget about it. The sun isn't scheduled to burn out for quite some time last I checked...

8:32AM PST on Feb 22, 2010

Doctor V,
I would have to agree with you. It shows how desperate they can get when legitimate studies prove them wrong about mans' influence on climate change. They covertly manufacture climate change to prove their point and then blame the change on other things with no regard for the health of the human population.