Tuesday, June 25, 2024

The Pre-Reading for the Show - Enrichment, Suspense & Curiosity!

 

The Pre-Reading for Show- 

 

  • There is an annual climate comedy contest called “Inside the Greenhouse” hosted by some professors at the University of Colorado. There are also some examples of books on the topic.  
  • Stay Cool: Why Dark Comedy Matters in the Fight Against Climate Change  

 

  • Greta-Thunberg, the famous Swedish activist who started the School Strikes for Climate movement back in 2018, is on the autism spectrum and describes it as her “Superpower”.   

 


CLIMATE SCIENCE BASICS

  • Much of the shortwave radiation that comes from the sun (but not all) is in the visible light part of the spectrum. 
  • The Earth’s surface emits thermal radiation that is far longer in wavelength than what comes from the sun – far beyond the spectrum of visible light in the infrared direction.
  • The balance between the Longwave Radiation leaving the earth and the shortwave radiation from the sun determines whether the Earth is experiencing global warming or global cooling. 
  • Radiating this heat into outer space is the only way that our planet can cool down. 
  • Greenhouse gasses allow solar radiation to pass through the atmosphere but stop some of the infrared thermal radiation from going back out into the atmosphere, sending some of it back to the surface. 
  • Too many greenhouse gasses causes an increasing amount of heat to be trapped near the earth’s surface – aka global warming.  

 

  • There are some organizations elsewhere in the country that are working at the intersection of LGBTQ+ and climate activism from their own unique angles, some of which are compiled here. But not any that are known in the twin cities.  
  • There have been some groups of Conservatives who Vocally Support Clean Energy such as Debbie Dooley who led the Green Tea Party in coalition with the Sierra Club. 
  • Nitrous Oxide, abbreviated as NO2 and also known as laughing gas, is the third most well-known greenhouse gas. Carbon Dioxide, abbreviated as CO2 is the most well known and methane, abbreviated as CH4 is the second. 
  • Former President Donald Trump asked oil industry executives to donate $1 billion to aid his campaign to retake the White House, three people familiar with the conversation told POLITICO — a request that campaign finance experts said appeared troubling but is probably legal.
  • During the Trump Administration, we saw

·        The authorities reprimand a park head after tweeting about climate 

·        The authorities cover up a Chemical health assessment (goes beyond climate)

·        “631 federal scientists were ordered to omit the phrase “climate change” from their work. According to the same survey, 703 federal scientists chose to self-censor and keep a low profile rather than risk the wrath of the administration.” 

·        Even More Stories! 

·        https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/08/florida-banned-terms-climate-change-global-warming  

·        https://www.nrdc.org/experts/christina-swanson/pruitt-purges-independent-scientists-epa-advisory-boards 

·        https://grist.org/article/scientist-who-resisted-censorship-of-climate-report-lost-her-job/

 

  

 

  • In response to an interview question about what moves one from despair into action about climate, Greta Thunburg responded “The best medicine against that concern and sadness is to do something about it, to try to make a change.”

 

  • The trapped air bubbles in ice that scientists take cores, or samples of, provide a way to calculate how modern amounts of carbon dioxide and methane compare to those of the past, since there is a way to tell how long ago an air bubble was trapped. Scientists then compared past concentrations of greenhouse gases to temperature and found a strong correlation. 
  • Because trees are sensitive to local climate conditions, such as rain and temperature, they give scientists some information about that area's local climate in the past. For example, tree rings usually grow wider in warm, wet years and they are thinner in years when it is cold and dry.

 

  • “Tar Sands” are referred to as an unconventional fossil fuel because they are much more difficult to extract than conventional fossil fuels and also cause much greater environmental destruction where they are extracted as well as in oil spills, because they are mixed with toxic chemicals to flow through a pipe.   

 

  • Back in 2013 and 2016, the vast majority of actively publishing climate scientists – 97 percent – agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change. The number is even higher today. 

 

  • Climate models calculate the physical interactions between the earth’s atmosphere, land, ocean, and sea ice based on several inputs to best predict the impacts of climate change in coming years. Climate models are so high resolution and so sophisticated that you need the world’s fastest supercomputers to run them and even then it can take them months to run a single simulation!
  • A floe is a smaller chunk of ice floating in a large body of water that broke off from a larger body of ice. 
  • The hottest years on record have all been recent. There has not been a cooler than average year since 1985.
  • Gas Utilities around the country, including CenterPoint right here with their Builders Club North program, have been giving bribes and kickbacks to installers of gas appliances in newly constructed housing. 

 

  • The fossil gas (aka Natural gas) industry has for decades promoted gas as ‘a bridge fuel to a renewable future because gas plants can change their output quicker than coal and nuclear plants to better match up with variable wind and solar. 
  • When there is no pipeline to capture natural gas that occurs near oil drilling sites, it is burned as a flare which shows up in nighttime satellite images.  
  • If even a small amount of fugitive methane unintentionally leaks out pipeline infrastructure, natural gas could cancel out the climate benefits of retiring coal plants. 
  • “James Hanson – A Climate Scientist who testified to congress in June of 1988 and turned global warming out of obscurity and into common discussion. 
  • James Lovelock” – postulated Gaia theory of earth as a living being. 

 

  • Around 2019- 2021, there were reports that we had only 11 years left to prevent irreversible damage from climate change. It does not mean that the world will turn instantly apocalyptic at that point but means it will hit a tipping point. 
  • A basic rule of climate science is that the atmosphere can hold more moisture as it warms. 
  • There have been efforts to stop Nestle from privatizing groundwater resources. Nestle extracted groundwater in California during a drought as well as in the Columbia River Gorge in Cascade Locks Oregon, and even spotted near Flint Michigan of all places, pumping 200 gallons of fresh water every minute.
  • The ocean conveyor belt, also known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), transfers heat from the warm tropics to the cold polar regions like Norway. If the currents in the ocean conveyor belt were to stop completely due to global warming, then the average temperature of coastal Europe would cool 5 to 10 degrees Celsius. This was the plotline of the climate disaster popular film, the Day after Tomorrow. 
  • In the 1970s, scientists discovered that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), a chemical used in many products including aerosol sprays, were accumulating in the environment and depleting the ozone layer.  As a result, ozone-depleting chemicals have been banned from consumer aerosol products made in the U.S.
  • Permafrost is a thick subsurface layer of soil that remains frozen throughout the year, occurring chiefly in polar regions. A thawing permafrost layer from global warming causes trouble for soil, plants and vegetation above it. As permafrost thaws, microbes begin decomposing this material. This process releases greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere.

 

  • The Business-As-Usual (BAU) scenario describes the development of the concentration of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere under the assumption that no further efforts to reduce emissions will be made.

 

  • The Seventh Generation Principle is based on an ancient Haudenosaunee (Iroquois)* philosophy that the decisions we make today should result in a sustainable world seven generations into the future.

 

  • The cryosphere is the part of the earth's surface characterized by the presence of frozen water; so it refers to earth’s ice in all its forms. Permafrost, in contrast, is also often considered part of the geosphere because it contains rocks and soils.

 

  • The “Conference of the Parties” abbreviated as COP, is the supreme decision-making body of the United Nations Climate Change Conference often called global climate summits. It is when a Convention of representatives of all nations join to reach an agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The COP meets every year, unless the Parties decide otherwise. The first COP meeting was held in Berlin, Germany in March, 1995. The latest was COP 28 which took place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from 30 November until 12 December 2023. 

 

  • Mercury expands and contracts in a mercury thermometer as the temperature changes, causing the mercury to move up or down the thermometer's glass tube. This is because mercury's particles vibrate and move more when it gets hotter, increasing the distance between them and expanding the volume of the material.

 

  • An increase in greenhouses gases like carbon dioxide leads to not just global warming but a cooling in the upper atmosphere. This can cause the ionosphere to shrink, similar to how a balloon shrinks when placed in a freezer. This is because when air cools, it contracts. 
  • Internalizing an externality is what economics call the process of incorporating the external environmental costs or benefits of an certain industrial activity into the decision-making process of the parties involved. That way, the economic actor who creates these caused had to pay them all. Environmentalists often refer to this as the Polluter Pays Principle.
  • Fossil fuel divestment is not to be confused with completely stopping the burning of fossil fuels. It is the shifting of money around. There are ongoing public pressure campaigns to coax financial decision makers to dis-invest from companies that are currently involved in fossil fuel extraction projects to invest in renewable energy and to instead to accelerate the transition to renewable power and fossil fuel projects often by stigmatizing the fossil fuel companies. Fossil Fuel front groups like ALEC have tried to fight divestment legislatively and punish banks who divest. 
  • The Heartland Institute is an American conservative and libertarian 501(c)(3) nonprofit public policy think tank known for its rejection of both the scientific consensus on climate change and the negative health impacts of smoking. The Heartland Institute has held its own counterfeit climate summits to bring together those who "dispute that the science is settled on the causes, consequences, and policy implications of climate change" starting back in 2008. 
  • Networked Geothermal is an approach to renewable power that describes the connection of several ground-source heat pumps to one another to form a shared loop network. This means connecting nearby homes and businesses together to form a system or network of heat pumps. A District energy system distributes thermal heating and cooling energy to multiple buildings in a neighborhood. These systems typically consist of a heating and cooling center, and a thermal network of pipes connected to a group of buildings.
  • Enbridge Energy Partners LLC is a company that manages pipelines that transport tar sands oil. Their slowness to respond to a ruptured pipeline caused a massive oil spill near the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. 
  • A UN report warns that unless global greenhouse gas emissions fall by 7.6 per cent each year between 2020 and 2030, the world will miss the opportunity to get on track towards the 1.5°C temperature goal of the Paris Agreement. That number goes up to 15% upon delay. 
  • Climate adaptation is the process of adjusting to the current and future effects of climate change. Climate mitigation means preventing or reducing the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) into the atmosphere to make the impacts of climate change less severe.

 

  • The 11th Hour is a 2007 Climate documentary featuring Leonardo DiCaprio. 
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Monday, December 12, 2022

My Speech that I delivered on Xcel's 21% rate hike proposal

 

Back in May of 2019, at the early stages of their resource planning process, then Xcel CEO Ben Fowke said their proposed changes wouldn't lead to significantly higher customer utility bills beyond the cost of inflation. Now that I see Xcel’s increase request of 21.2% (or $677.3 million) over a three-year period, that makes me wonder what’s changed.

Having attended numerous rate case hearings, I have seen the pattern of what is at play here:

It is the industry standard for the utility to ask for a far bigger rate hike than they could justify, as a negotiating tactic to move the goalposts in their direction. And like clockwork, just because the PUC eventually doesn’t grant the utilities’ FULL request, the media will spin this eventual outcome as “a win for the people” while the utility gets what they actually intended to all along. 

It is true that we can’t take energy for granted, and it is true that Xcel does need some capital to provide upgrades and reliable service. 

But what Xcel does not need is an increase in their guaranteed shareholder profit to 10.2% — up from 9.06% currently while 1 in 8 residential Xcel customers are currently behind on their bills. The increase in profit for shareholders alone costs Minnesota $87 million just in the first year and more in following years.

Xcel experienced an 8.4% profit growth last year, reporting 1.6 billion in record profits, having the 8th highest paid executive in MN last year, and the 2nd highest CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio among US utilities (139 to 1) apparently at the same time as disconnecting 16,693 residential customers due to an inability to pay.

Why should we pay an average of $140-$240 more per year or ~$15 to $21 per month when Xcel hasn’t paid federal income taxes in over 14 years as CBS News reported? 

In evaluating what Xcel CEO Bob Frenzel should be rewarded for, as the electric utility for at least Minneapolis and much of the west metro, Xcel would have great business savvy and expand its rate base by supporting beneficial electrification efforts taking some market share away from our gas company. But the CEO sits on the board of the American Gas Association which had a conference in Minneapolis last month and is specifically targeting the High-Efficiency Electric Home Rebate Act in its ongoing campaign against electrification.  

The company has claimed back in 2013 that being able to promise profits is needed to attract top talent. We should limit the lining of Xcel’s shareholders pockets unless the company shows equal enthusiasm for making actual updates to the grid that would allow for Minnesotans to participate in and own clean energy, efficiency, and storage. 

Here is the prism for which the PUC to view whether Xcel’s capital costs are responsible and prudent: 

If Xcel simply spends more on replacing old equipment rather than upgrading it, then it locks in an outdated system that I fear can't accommodate local clean energy for decades. 

In my comments on Xcel’s 15-year integrated resource plan, I recommended that an approach of strategically sizing and siting new renewable power generation to fit within the existing capacity of each adjacent substation as a way to save customers money by making fewer million dollar per mile high voltage transmission lines necessary. 

Such a distributed approach to renewable power would even out supply, increase reliability and thereby make gas plants less necessary and thereby be a save for customers but it was not fully reflected in their recent integrated resource plan. Xcel has had opposing incentives to this distributed model because it would make it harder for Xcel to keep new renewable power under their market share, while new HVT lines and gas plants are infrastructure that utilities get guaranteed profits on. 

This increase in total residential electric bills by an average of $140-$240 per year can really make a difference for a household on electric heat who can no longer afford to increase the temp in their house above 64 degrees, are on a fixed income and in a drafty home that needs repairs.

On Thursday of last week, I attended a hearing at the PUC where the commissioners passed up an opportunity that would have helped make these very same needed home repairs more accessible to a greater number. We had a room full of community members and organizations who all wanted more resources for low-income energy efficiency, but sharply disagreed on whether to pilot a new inclusive financing approach or to only expand existing CIP programs. So, the PUC settled things by finding a way to let everyone down.  

Because of a need for a social safety net, it’s hard to argue for any benefits of increasing rates until I am more assured the PUC is willing to be an ally in relieving energy burden. 

I’d recommend rejecting at least the 15-18% increase in the flat monthly fixed fee because it cannot be reduced by using less energy. This monthly base charge for residents would make residential and lower income customers bear a disproportionate share of the increase compared to commercial/industrial customers and harm low-wealth households disproportionately.

Xcel may argue that this unprecedented rate increase is a necessary reward for the company’s mission to add renewables and meet carbon free pledges. I have to be careful in how I address that because building more renewable capacity will actually raise rates less than doubling down on the status quo. 

We are coming to an inflection point in our decades-old social contract. Utilities are wanting to obligate ratepayers to pay off the stranded costs of the old system at the same time as investing in the new. Organizations like the Center for the American Experiment will try to use that to make an inaccurate claim that adding more renewables are responsible for rate hikes when they overlook the whole other half of the ratemaking equation. In contrast, Xcel’s spokespeople have rightly pitched renewable power as a way to keep rates low. 

 I am curious why Xcel’s political action committee is contributing heavily to state level candidates who oppose legislation holding other utilities accountable to the carbon free standards they laud as good for Xcel. This makes it hard to know who to trust. The PAC is paid voluntarily by upper lobbyist level Xcel employees who ultimately get paid from our ratepayer dollars. 

I’d say reject much of this rate increase until Xcel comes back with a proposal that updates our electricity grid in ways that will actually be useful, affordable, and accessible to communities and the clean energy transition we know is needed to shield us against unstable fossil fuel costs, and climate change.

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Saturday, August 27, 2022

The Inflation Reduction Act Delivers Long-Awaited Federal Action on Clean Energy & Climate

 After a year of fits and starts, after many months of breakthroughs and reversals, the US Senate has passed long-awaited federal action on clean energy back on August 7th. That was a dramatic reversal from mid-July of 2022, when climate activists were in near total despair suspecting that all hope was thought to be lost. This legislation, which started as “Build Back Better” and has since been retitled as the “Inflation Reduction Act” was also passed by the US House and Signed into law by President Biden on August 16th.

It was passed as a reconciliation bill so as to avoid needing to clear the legislative filibuster. While clean energy and emissions reductions standards could not get into a budget reconciliation bill, clean energy investments could. So it has a lot of carrots and few regulatory sticks.

The Bipartisan infrastructure package from Nov of 2021 was a bit different. The IRA is more of a tax and spend bill whereas the Bipartisan Infrastructure package was a capital bonding bill. The IRA involves about 10 times more carbon reduction capacity.

When Build Back Better first started, Budget Committee Chair Bernie Sanders wanted 6.5 Trillion for it. Then Biden proposed 3 trillion instead. Then Senator Joe Manchin said he would only accept 1.5 trillion. The IRA is about 10th of this original amount. However, the climate provisions from BBB are the only part of the package that crossed the finish line intact thanks to public pressure.

Tax credits for clean energy is essentially the same as Gov’t spending. While there is no tax credits for E-bikes, just about about everything in the way of clean energy and climate gets one- Wind, Solar batteries, nuclear power, heat pumps, clean vehicles, insulation, low income families switching appliances and upgrading electric panels etc.

Some of these clean energy federal tax credit expired 3 times in 10 years. Now the Tax credits of around 30% are extended until 2032 which has potential to put the energy transition on steroids.

It is estimated to save households $50 Million on electric bills.

As for clean vehicles, the incentive will now be at the point of sale rather than a buyer having to pay the full costs of the Eclectic Vehicle up front and then filing taxes to get it the incentive.

After close to 30 years of trying to put a price on carbon and other ways to make fossil fuels more expensive, the political resolution ended up being to make the clean stuff cheap rather than the dirty stuff expensive.

 

Read the full statement from MN350 on the IRA here.

 

The IRA has got its fair share of critique lately, namely because a raft of provisions that makes it easier to site harmful facilities in environmental justice communities and promote more oil, gas, and coal extraction. This was the result of the political sausage making process and it is no consolation to front line activists who have been maintain top removal in Appalachia or fighting a pipeline.

One deal was that if we could use the public lands for Renewable Energy then fossil fuel companies should also get leases for drilling on public lands. The side deal, which was agreed to in principle but not in formal bill involves enabling fossil fuel infrastructure to be build more easily, along with reform on easing of permitting for renewable energy infrastructure.

 Because the economics of fossil fuels is becoming increasingly grim, the worst-case scenarios for pipelines and fossil fuel extraction from the bill will not likely happen. But we are trying to drive down the demand for fossil fuel consumption.  

 We are already seeing (for example) many cases of oil and gas leases opening with no bidders, or bidders who ultimately conduct no extraction. For every ton of carbon increased as the result of the IRA, it would be coupled with 25 units of carbon going down.

 The IRA could have gone further in protecting environmental justice communities who have long borne the brunt of dirty energy pollution and climate risk, despite some limited funding for environmental justice projects. It falls short of 40% going to disadvantaged EJ communities. That is below what Build Back Better and Justice 40 would have given.

It is regrettable to see local communities impacted by fossil fuels and climate change are understandably incensed at once again being a bargaining chip sacrificed to make progress on climate. To dig more into the things about the bill that throw impacted communities under the bus and fail to address the root causes of climate change, read this summary in the Guardian or this direct response to the bill from the Indigenous Environmental Network.

Despite it being far from perfect, the IRA is still the single largest federal investment in climate solutions and clean energy action in US history, which is not exactly a high bar. It could be a long-awaited game changer for community-based renewable energy projects:

  • For the first time ever, the federal government has ever made an extension of clean energy investment tax credits to be longer than 2-3 years. The Investment Tax Credit cannot be used to help cover the cost of clean energy project is extended long-term through the early 2030. This will create predictability for clean energy developers in helping plan projects for the long term.
  • While the base level of the Investment Tax Credit available to any clean energy project regardless of type drops dramatically, the value is increased from 26% to 30% for any project that:
    • Is under 1MW AC and thereby supports development of more local and community-scale energy.
    • Meets prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements (even if it is over 1MW), which supports family-sustaining jobs and increases racial equity in the workforce.
  • There are bonus credits of 10% for projects that are located in designated low-income communities or 20% for projects that deliver at least half of their benefits to low-income residents. Projects that stack these aspects together will qualify for a 40-50% tax credit, which is a major win for ensuring equitable access to clean energy.
  • Most importantly, solar tax credits will become refundable, meaning Clean Energy Developers can receive the value of the tax credit directly rather than having to go through an expensive, extended, and uncertain process of trying to find a private investor to partner with to use the tax credits. This will make the process of financing solar projects dramatically cheaper and easier in the years to come.

Overall, what President Biden said at Glasgow was that we will cut our emissions by 53% by 2030.

But the goal is getting emissions to zero most likely closer to 2040 than 2050.  

The bill gives us a chance but is not an endgame. Biden could declare a national climate emergency.

But it is humanity’s best chance to solve the problem.

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