Ecuador Wants to Save Its Rainforest Redux

I didn’t want to have  a prolonged thread on facebook so I thought this might be a better forum for discussion.

A few days ago there was an article in the Financial Times about an interesting proposition by the government of Ecuador. There’s some oil to be found under the Yasuni National Forest – about $7.2 Billion worth (presumably in today’s money.) What the Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa is saying is: we’ll preserve the rainforest if the world decides to give us 50% of the revenues from the oil that we would forego in the next 13 years. Unless $100 Million of it comes this year, the deal is off the table. There have been some symbolic contributions of about $2 Million, but that’s still far away from the target of 100 Mils.

As the article notes, the country is not seeking money to conserve forests, but money for forgone oil revenues, which is an interesting move. Ecuador is one of Latin America’s major oil exporters, and oil also happens to be its major export. Ecuador’s GDP in 2009 USD is $57.25 Billion. Ecuador currently has a production of about 500,000 barrels per day, and net exports of 300,000 barrels per day. It has run a current account deficit for most of its recent history. Real GDP Growth is projected to be tepid (2-3% range, which is not too much at all comparing to neighboring Peru, Chile, Brazil, etc.)

Given all of the information about, it seems that $3.6 billion in today’s dollars is a decent amount of money. The article states that the Yasuni reserves are about 20% of the country’s known reserves. Currently the oil is untapped. The analysis suggests that the oil is worth $7.2 billion, but I’m unsure of how they’re getting the number. It seems like 840 million barrels of oil being valued at $7.2 billion assumes a value of < $10/barrel, which… doesn’t seem right.

Let’s assume that tapping this field allows Ecuador to boost crude production by 20% (100,000 barrels). That means production would increase to 600,000 barrels. This wouldn’t make any appreciable dent in oil prices, IMO, since I’m sure there will be a thousand different ways to come up with a consumption gain of 100,000 barrels per day in the next year. Let’s also assume that consumption of oil goes up by 20%, so exports also go up by 20% to 360,000 barrels per day. The net gain in exports is of 20,000 barrels per day. At $100 per barrel, this represents a gain of $2 M per day, translating to about $700 M per year. 846 M barrels at 100,000 barrels per day suggests that the oil would last for about 23 years and 2 months. This means my valuation of the annual exports generated by the oil alone must be enough to wipe the current account deficit.

Am I mad or is the analysis lacking? Do companies and governments value oil in the land differently?

DIG marigold!

The baby has started germinating! I hope the photo is not too bad.

Best Links 1/18 edition

Here are some good links that I came across today.

1. From Capital Gains and Games: “Tim Pawlenty Embarrasses himself on the budget.”
2. From Scientific American: “Im-Propaganda: How Effective Are Misinformation Campaigns to Manipulate Public Opinion?” An interesting interview with a sociologists about how misinformation campaigns are typically run and the outcomes.
3. From Discover Magazine Blogs: “Kinkyness beyond Kinky.” Interesting post about the weirdness of duck genitalia.
4. From Joseph Stiglitz via Project Syndicate: “The Harsh Lessons of 2009.” What happened to the economy in 2009 and what we can do in the future. Key lessons: Markets are not self correcting, market failures are always possible, Keynesian policies can have a strong impact and help economies come out of recession better, inflation targeting shouldn’t be the sole focus of the fed and other central banks, and innovation (especially in the financial sector) won’t always make our lives better.
5. From Not Exactly Rocket Science: “Mathematical support for insect colonies as superorganisms.” Apparently the metabolic rate of an organism can be easily calculated from the size; it’s all a simple linear equation. Even in a large colony, where individuals are often assigned specific tasks, considering the colony as a single “superorganism” gives similar results.
6. From Oscillator: “Quotations That Inspire Synthetic Biologists.” An interesting perspective on what inspires synthetic biologists and their work. Hear what Kant, Feynman, Vico, and Von Neumann had to say that motivates them!
7. From VoxEU: “How Green is China?” An interesting analysis of which Chinese cities are green and which aren’t. Studies like this might be a step in the right direction of identifying where in the chain emissions are coming from and where they can be mitigated, etc.
8. From the Official Google Blog: “Go thataway.” Apparently Google India has implemented features in its Google Maps offering that can tell you take a right at the Pan dabba and then take a left at the Irani Hotel and walk 200 feet from the Banyan tree to get to your Hanuman Mandir; well approximately that.

Gautam

India Has Its Own Kind of Power Struggle – WSJ.com

India Has Its Own Kind of Power Struggle – WSJ.com.

NEW DELHI — Seven years ago, more than 50% of the power distributed by North Delhi Power Ltd. wasn’t paid for by customers. Today, the company has cut that to 15%, signaling that one of India’s biggest infrastructure problems can be solved, if tackled aggressively.

Power theft by rich and poor customers as well as businesses has plagued India for decades, hindering foreign and domestic investment that could spark the increase in generating capacity the nation desperately needs.

The experience of North Delhi Power, a joint venture between the Delhi government and Mumbai-based Tata Power Co. Ltd., shows that a broad and sustained effort can make a difference.

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Good stuff. I always wondered about what kind of hits power companies here were taking. I knew it was high, but I’d also read about how good measures were being taken thru PPPs to eliminate power theft. It’s good to hear such heartening news.

Wind Energy or Water?

A bunch of Articles:

From CNN

Oil billionaire Pickens puts his money on wind power

• Story Highlights
• T. Boone Pickens launches plan to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil
• Oilman calls for more use of wind power, switch to natural gas to power vehicles
• Pickens’ company has announced plan to build world’s largest wind farm in Texas
• Wind turbines could supply 20 percent or more of U.S. power needs, Pickens says

(CNN) — Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens is putting his clout behind renewable energy sources like wind power.

The legendary entrepreneur and philanthropist on Tuesday unveiled a new energy plan he says will decrease the United States’ dependency on foreign oil by more than one-third and help shift American energy production toward renewable natural resources.

“The Pickens Plan” calls for investing in domestic renewable resources such as wind, and switching from oil to natural gas as a transportation fuel.

In a news conference outlining his proposal, Pickens said his impetus for the plan is the country’s dangerous reliance on foreign oil.

“Our dependence on imported oil is killing our economy. It is the single biggest problem facing America today,” he said. Watch Pickens discuss plan for wind power »

“Wind power is … clean, it’s renewable. It’s everything you want. And it’s a stable supply of energy,” Pickens told CNN in May. “It’s unbelievable that we have not done more with wind.”

Pickens’ company, Mesa Power, recently announced a $2 billion investment as the first step in a multibillion-dollar plan to build the world’s largest wind farm in Pampa, Texas.

Pickens said Tuesday that if the United States takes advantage of the so-called “wind corridor,” stretching from the Canadian border to West Texas, energy from wind turbines built there could supply 20 percent or more of the nation’s power. He suggested the project could be funded by private investors.

Power from thousands of wind turbines that would line the corridor could be distributed throughout the country via electric power transmission lines and could fuel power plants in large population hubs, the oil baron said.

Fueling these plants with wind power would then free up the natural gas historically used to power them, and would mean that natural gas could replace foreign oil as fuel for motor vehicles, he said.

Using natural gas for transportation needs could replace one-third of the United States’ imported oil and would save more than $230 billion a year, Pickens said.

“We are going to have to do something different in America,” Pickens told CNN. “You can’t keep paying out $600 billion a year for oil.”

His energy plan could be implemented within 10 years if both Congress and the White House treat the current energy situation as a “national emergency and take immediate action,” he predicted.

Pickens, a lifelong Republican, says he is not advising either presidential candidate, but is prepared to work with the next president.

The Web site for the plan urges people to sign up and help spread the word.

Oil analyst Peter Beutel of Cameron Hanover, an energy risk manager, said Pickens’ plan could definitely reduce the country’s dependency on foreign oil.

“The best thing about it is that it’s a definite plan — it’s not something that either party has pitted itself outrightly against. It therefore has a tremendous chance for success on Capitol Hill.”

Analyst Fadel Gheit of Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., an investment firm, added that such a plan “has been on the drawing board for years.”

At least 21 states and the District of Columbia have set deadlines or goals for utilities to obtain electricity from clean, renewable sources instead of fossil fuel-burning plants. See where states stand on renewable resources »

The scramble has triggered construction of large-scale wind farms throughout much of the nation, including proposals for the first U.S. offshore facilities.

Delaware and Galveston, Texas, have offshore projects in the works, although a farm proposed off New York’s Long Island was shelved this year because of high projected construction costs.

In Massachusetts, where utilities are under the gun to obtain four percent of electricity from renewables by 2009, builders await federal approval of a hugely controversial wind farm off historic Cape Cod.

The Cape Wind project envisions 130 wind turbines each rising 440 feet above Nantucket Sound by 2011. State officials said the farm will eliminate pollution equal to 175,000 gas-burning cars.

CNN’s Emily Anderson and Thom Patterson contributed to this report.

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From http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,395304,00.html

Pickens Gives New Meaning to ‘Self-Government’

Thursday , July 31, 2008

By Steven Milloy

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The more you learn about T. Boone Pickens’ plan to switch America to wind power, the more you realize that he seems willing to say and do just about anything to make another billion or two.

This column previously discussed the plan’s technical and economic shortcomings and marketing ruses. Today, we’ll look into the diabolical machinations behind it.

Simply put, Pickens’ pitch is “embrace wind power to help break our ‘addiction’ to foreign oil.” There is, however, another intriguing component to Pickens’ plan that goes unmentioned in his TV commercials, media interviews and web site — water rights, which he owns more of than any other American.

Pickens hopes that his recent $100 million investment in 200,000 acres worth of groundwater rights in Roberts County, Texas, located over the Ogallala Aquifer, will earn him $1 billion. But there’s more to earning such a profit than simply acquiring the water. Rights-of-way must be purchased to install pipelines, and opposition from anti-development environmental groups must be overcome. Here’s where it gets interesting, according to information compiled by the Water Research Group, a small grassroots group focusing on local water issues in Texas.

Purchasing rights-of-way is often expensive and time-consuming — and what if landowners won’t sell? While private entities may be frustrated, governments can exercise eminent domain to compel sales. This is Pickens’ route of choice. But wait, you say, Pickens is not a government entity. How can he use eminent domain? Are you sitting down?

At Pickens’ behest, the Texas legislature changed state law to allow the two residents of an 8-acre parcel of land in Roberts County to vote to create a municipal water district, a government agency with eminent domain powers. Who were the voters? They were Pickens’ wife and the manager of Pickens’ nearby ranch. And who sits on the board of directors of this water district? They are the parcel’s three other non-resident landowners, all Pickens’ employees.

A member of a local water conservation board told Bloomberg News that, “[Pickens has] obtained the right of eminent domain like he was a big city. It’s supposed to be for the public good, not a private company.”

What’s this got to do with Pickens’ wind-power plan? Just as he needs pipelines to sell his water, he also needs transmission lines to sell his wind-generated power. Rights of way for transmission lines are also acquired through eminent domain — and, once again, the Texas legislature has come to Pickens’ aid.

Earlier this year, Texas changed its law to allow renewable energy projects (like Pickens’ wind farm) to obtain rights-of-way by piggybacking on a water district’s eminent domain power. So Pickens can now use his water district’s authority to also condemn land for his future wind farm’s transmission lines.

Who will pay for the rights-of-way and the transmission lines and pipelines? Thanks to another gift from Texas politicians, Pickens’ water district can sell tax-free, taxpayer-guaranteed municipal bonds to finance the $2.2 billion cost of the water pipeline. And then earlier this month, the Texas legislature voted to spend $4.93 billion for wind farm transmission lines. While Pickens has denied that this money is earmarked for him, he nevertheless is building the largest wind farm in the world.

Despite this legislative largesse, a fly in the ointment remains.

Although Pickens hopes to sell as much as $165 million worth of water annually to Dallas alone, no city in Texas has signed up yet — partly because they don’t yet need the water and partly because of resentment against water profiteering.

Enter the Sierra Club.

While Green groups support wind power, “the privatization of water is an entirely different thing,” says the Sierra Club. Moreover, the activist group has long opposed further exploitation of the very groundwater Pickens wants to use — the Ogallala Aquifer.

“The source of drinking water and irrigation for Plains residents from Nebraska to Texas, the Ogallala Aquifer is one of the world’s largest — as well as one of the most rapidly dissipating… If current irrigation practices continue, agribusiness will deplete the Ogallala Aquifer in the next century,” says the Sierra Club.

In March 2002, the Sierra Club opposed the construction of a slaughterhouse in Pampa, Texas, because it would require a mere 275 million gallons per year from the Ogallala Aquifer. Yet Pickens wants to sell 65 billion gallons of water per year — to Dallas alone. In a 2004 lamentation about local government facilitation of Pickens’ plan for the Ogallala, the Sierra Club slammed Pickens as a “junk bond dealer” who wanted to make “Blue Gold” from the Ogallala.

But while the Sierra Club can’t seem to do anything about Pickens’ influence with state legislators, they do have enough influence to make his water politically unpotable. This opposition may soon abate, however, now that Pickens has buddied up with Sierra Club president Carl Pope.

As noted last week, Pope now flies in Pickens’ private jet and publicly lauds him. The two are newly-minted “friends,” since Pope needs the famous Republican oilman to lend propaganda value to the Sierra Club’s anti-oil agenda and Pickens needs Pope to ease up on the Ogallala water opposition.

This alliance isn’t sitting well with everyone on the Left.

A TreeHugger.com writer recently observed, “… I am left asking myself why the green media have neglected [the water] aspect of Pickens’ wind-farm plans? Have we been so distracted by the prospect of Texas’ renewable energy portfolio growing by 4000 megawatts that we are willing to overlook some potentially dodgy aspects to the project?”

It shouldn’t sit well with the rest of us either. Pickens has gamed Texas for his own ends, and now he’s trying to game the rest of us, too. Worse, his gamesmanship includes lending his billionaire resources, prominent stature and feudal powers bestowed upon him by the Texas legislature to help the Greens gain control over the U.S. energy supply.

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From: Forbes

Green In Greentech For Pickens
Sarah Terry-Cobo and Wendy Tanaka 07.11.08, 12:24 AM ET

Burlingame, Calif. –

The Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens seems to be turning environmentalist, pushing a plan to address the nation’s energy crisis by reducing “America’s staggering dependence on imported oil.”

The goal of the “Pickens Plan,” announced Tuesday, is to replace more than a third of the oil the United States imports with wind, natural gas and other green energy sources, in the process, saving the country more than $230 billion annually. Currently, the U.S. spends $700 billion a year on foreign oil.

“Our dependence on imported oil is killing our economy,” Pickens said in a statement. “It is the single biggest problem facing America today.”

While the billionaire’s goals are laudable, his renewable energy proposals likely would serve his business interests as well. He has direct investments in a plethora of energy companies, including BP Capital, a hedge fund that invests in renewable energy companies, Exco Resources, Clean Energy Fuels, Interoil, Westport Innovations, Mesa Power and Mesa Water. And the scope of Pickens’ projects are massive. Mesa Power, for instance, is set to spend $2 billion on 667 General Electric wind turbines as part of the first phase of a four-stage effort to build the world’s largest wind farm in Texas.

Analysts say if Pickens’ renewable energy plan catches on, it would mean more business for his Seal Beach, Calif.-based Clean Energy Fuels, which sells natural gas to service stations and municipalities, and Westport Innovations, a Canadian company that makes heavy-duty trucks that use natural gas.

Brian Fan, senior director of research at the Cleantech Group, sees the plan as a crafty way to get the public to let Pickens’ companies put up transmission lines anywhere, even in their backyards. “He is really quite savvy in trying to rally public support of his plan and overcome these obstacles,” Fan says.

Pickens is hoping to rally support to get the next president to enact his plan. “The plan … is doable in five to 10 years if we can get Congress and the Administration to act quickly,” he said. Since 1990, Pickens has contributed nearly $350,000 to political campaigns, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

National Bank Financial analyst Rupert Merer says the Pickens Plan won’t be a hard sell to Republicans and Democrats. Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama are both in favor of expanding use of renewable energy, and McCain recently voiced support for using natural gas in vehicles. The real challenge Pickens faces is building grassroots support that will keep pressure on the new president.

Pickens is spending $58 million of his own money to market his plan. He started airing ads on TV, radio and in print this week. He’s also launched his campaign on social networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, YouTube and instant messaging service Twitter.

Stay tuned to see if Pickens can save America–and reap a harvest of greenbacks.

—————-

As much as I support massive investment in Wind, I think it would be absurd to let Mr. Pickens obtain the rights to all that water. While it may not seem like a big problem now, I am willing to bet that shortages of clean water are going to cause big problems in the future.

World Bank VP Ismail Serageldin: “If the wars of this century were fought over oil, the wars of the next century will be fought over water.”

We may come up with advanced desalination/purification technologies and be able to use sea/ocean water for daily purposes, but it’s going to be a difficult venture for all these prairie states located in the middle of nowhere to benifit from those technologies.

I do not find this wind/water tradeoff to be worth it in the future. I would much rather leave the Ogallala aquifer under the current management rather than give it to this Pickens guy to make a quick buck out of it.

From here:

“The future economy of the High Plains depends heavily on the Ogallala Aquifer, the main source of water for all uses. The Ogallala will continue to be the lifeblood of the region only if it is managed properly to limit both depletion and contamination.”

What Colleges Are Doing to Reduce Their Carbon Footprints

Dear EarthTalk: What initiatives are taking place on college campuses to reduce the footprints of these large users of energy and other resources?
– Shawna Smith, Hamilton, NY

Microcosms of the world at large, college campuses are great test beds for environmental change, and many students are working hard to get their administrations to take positive action. The initiatives that are emerging are models for the larger society, and the students pushing for them will be taking these lessons with them, too, as they enter the work force after graduation.

Foremost on the minds of green-leaning students today is global warming, and many are joining hands to persuade their schools to update policies and streamline operations so that their campuses can become part of the solution. Largely a result of student efforts, for example, nearly 500 U.S. colleges and universities have signed the American College and University Presidents (ACUP) Climate Commitment.

This agreement requires schools to put together a comprehensive plan to go “carbon neutral” in two years of signing. (Carbon neutral means contributing no net greenhouse gases to the atmosphere either by not generating them in the first place or by offsetting them somehow, such as through tree-planting or by buying “offsets” from companies that fund alternative energy projects.)

ACUP also commits schools to implementing two or more tangible (and easily implemented) policies right away, such as improving waste minimization and recycling programs, reducing energy usage, providing or encouraging public transportation to and from campus (and switching campus buses over to bio-diesel fuel), constructing bicycle lanes, and implementing green building guidelines for any new construction.

Signatory schools also pledge that they will integrate sustainability into their curricula, making it part of the educational experience.

One place where students are forcing green changes on campus is the dining hall. According to the Sustainable Endowments Institute’s 2007 report card, which looks at environmental initiatives at the 200 colleges and universities with the largest endowment assets in the U.S. and Canada, 70 percent of such schools now “devote at least a portion of food budgets to buying from local farms and/or producers,” while 29 percent earned an “A” in the “food and recycling” category. Yale University even has organic gardens that are student-run and that supply an on-campus farmer’s market for use by campus food services, the local community and students alike.

Another area where college campuses are leading the way is in water conservation. Colleges consume huge quantities of water in dormitories, cafeterias, at athletic facilities and in maintaining their rolling green grounds. According to Niles Barnes of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), most of the 3,800 institutions of higher education in the U.S. have engaged in some sort of water-saving program. Low-water-volume toilets and urinals, as well as low-flow showerheads and faucets, are “pretty much standard practice across U.S. colleges today,” says Barnes.

Rockefellers urge action on climate change – Times Online

Rockefellers urge action on climate change – Times Online

One of America’s most powerful families will call tomorrow for a sweeping shake-up at the top of ExxonMobil, the world’s largest company.

A group of descendants of John D. Rockefeller, who founded Exxon’s predecessor Standard Oil in 1870, will begin a campaign to split the role of chief executive and chairman of the board at the oil and gas group, a role held by Rex Tillerson.

Last night the family group issued a statement saying that the company’s leadership was “failing to address the future of energy and related industry hurdles”.

It said that representatives would make an announcement in New York to explain “that a majority of the family is now so concerned about the direction of ExxonMobil Corporation that it is urging a major change”.

Exxon, which earned $40 billion (£20 billion) last year, when Mr Tillerson was paid $21.7 million, was the slowest of the big oil majors to acknowledge climate change. The family is calling for an independent chairman and a bigger leadership role for the directors. The campaign comes as big oil companies face mounting pressure to deal with public concern over global warming.

More than 100 Rockefeller descendants hold a significant stake in Exxon through a variety of trusts, but the exact percentage is unknown.

The campaign is being spearheaded by Neva Rockefeller Goodwin, an economist and great-granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller, as well as Peter O’Neill, head of the Rockefeller family committee dealing with ExxonMobil. He is a great-great-grandson of John D. Rockefeller.

Exxon produces nearly 4.2 million barrels of oil a day and had revenues of $404.5 billion during the past fiscal year. Its market capitalisation is about $500 billion.

In 2006 Senator Jay Rockefeller wrote to Mr Tillerson urging the company to stop funding groups that denied the existence of climate change.

MSU research reaches Supreme Court of India

MSU research reaches Supreme Court of India

Montana State University research about pollution in the Ganges River has reached the Supreme Court of India, producing some optimism among MSU scientists who study the 1,500-mile river.

“It’s nice to know that our work is being recognized by a government institute in India and being presented at the highest level,” said Steve Hamner, research associate in microbiology. “Lots of things get done judicially in India.”

The Ganges River is considered a goddess, but Tim Ford, head of MSU’s microbiology department, said it has become a soup of pollution.

“It’s a beautiful river. It’s just really mucked up,” he commented.

The river contains untreated sewage, cremated remains, chemicals and disease-causing microbes, the researchers said. Cows wade in the river. People wash their laundry in it and drink from it. Ford said the Ganges has become the kind of place where genetic material could transfer between pathogens and create new pathogens.

“Wastewater treatment is critical to protecting human health from waterborne diseases,” Ford said. “The Ganges River is a major source of disease burden in that region.”

Hamner said MSU and a government lab in India each sampled the Ganges and found enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) bacteria. The bacteria known as 0157:H7 bacteria. It was first detected in the United States in 1982 after someone ate a tainted hamburger. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 0157:H7 now infects more than 73,000 people and kills about 60 people a year in the United States. The CDC said most of those illnesses have been associated with eating undercooked, contaminated ground beef, drinking unpasteurized milk, swimming in or drinking contaminated water and eating contaminated vegetables. The bacteria can cause dysentery and kidney failure. It occasionally kills.

Hamner learned this spring that a research institute in Lucknow, India reported its lab results to the Indian Supreme Court. In doing so, it referenced MSU’s findings and echoed MSU’s concerns. The Lucknow Institute tested a portion of the Ganges about 200 miles upstream from Hamner’s sampling.

He doesn’t expect to see a pure Ganges in his lifetime, but the Supreme Court involvement is encouraging, Hamner said, adding that he didn’t think the Supreme Court of India would have been as open if the report had come from MSU alone.

“This is the best of things. It’s wonderful,” Hamner said.

Ford said, “Getting regulators and legislators to understand the importance of not discharging untreated human waste into the Ganges River is critical to moving forward.”

Ford, a long-time researcher of environmental health, is planning to return to India in 2009 as chair of an American Academy of Microbiology Colloquium on Water and Health.

Hamner’s involvement with the Ganges began about five years ago when he decided he wanted to introduce himself to scientists at the Sankat Mochan Foundation. The foundation is directed by Dr. Veer Bhadra Mishra, a retired engineering professor and head of a Hindu temple. Veer has been recognized by Time magazine as a hero of the planet. He’s on the United Nations’ honor roll for environmental activists.

In early 2003, Hamner traveled to the city of Varanasi in north central India to meet with members of the Sankat Mochan Foundation. Hamner returned to India in 2004 and conducted a health survey and sampled the Ganges in Varanasi. Hamner sent the river water samples to MSU where Susan Broadaway tested them in the microbiology lab and detected 0157:H7 almost immediately.

In 2006, Ford and Hamner presented their findings in Kolkata, India at a meeting organized by the CDC on water and sanitation issues.

Whats Old, Whats New in Bushs Climate Strategy : NPR

Whats Old, Whats New in Bushs Climate Strategy : NPR

In his first major Rose Garden speech on climate change, President Bush set a goal of halting the growth of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2025.

Bush’s approach underscores his long-stated belief that emissions mandates like those in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which the United States did not sign, are economy-killers. No international climate treaty, he has said, will be effective unless major emitters like China and India are held to the same standards as other nations.

The president also emphasized Wednesday that new technologies such as clean-burning coal can help combat the problem of climate change. But that it should not cost consumers or require changes in lifestyle. Here, a look at the president’s climate strategy:

What is Bush proposing?

The president laid out two new goals in Wednesday’s address. First, he called for stopping the growth of U.S. emissions by 2025. Second, he singled out the electric power industry as the first responder for these efforts. Bush said power plants should flatten emissions growth in 10 to 15 years. Power plants emit the bulk of greenhouse gases in the United States — they produce about 40 percent of human-made sources of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas.

How does Bush’s speech change previous White House policy on climate change?

Although the president’s remarks were among his most detailed on the issue, they reiterated many of his long-standing beliefs. He again expressed his support for raising automobile mileage minimums and for making more renewable fuels from corn or cellulose. Bush previously had laid out these goals during his State of the Union addresses, and his address Wednesday did not specify how those goals will be reached.

What has Bush done so far?

Greenhouse gas emissions are rising in the United States by an average of about 1 percent a year. (Last year’s warm weather led to a 1 percent decrease, however, because Americans needed less energy to heat their homes.) Bush said the government is spending billions of dollars on new technology to reverse the emissions trend, and he called for new nuclear power plants, many of which are already in the regulatory pipeline. But investors and utility companies have been leery of backing new nuclear plants, and the government does not require power plants, the auto industry or the manufacturing sector to adopt new technologies.

How does his approach differ from the Kyoto Protocol?

The Kyoto treaty, which Bush says is flawed, requires that by 2012, industrialized countries must reduce greenhouse gases by 5 percent below their 1990 emissions levels. The European Union has taken it a step further, pledging to reduce emissions by 20 percent by 2020, and 50 percent by 2050. Many scientists say these cuts are necessary to keep global temperatures from rising to dangerous levels. The United Nation’s climate science experts, for example, say worldwide emissions must peak no later than 2015 to prevent serious effects on the environment.

Bush administration officials note that despite setting these ambitious goals, most countries within the Kyoto system haven’t even begun to reduce their greenhouse emissions.

In his speech Wednesday, Bush emphasized an approach that urges the major emitting nations — including China and India, which have no obligations under Kyoto — to come up with their own plans to reduce greenhouse gases. If they did, Bush said, he would be willing to commit to an international treaty to enforce those goals. However, he is likely to be long gone from the White House before that could happen.

Bush criticized pending legislation in Congress to limit greenhouse gases. What would these proposed measures do?

Congress has proposed several bills, and the leading measure requires U.S. industry to sharply reduce emissions. Bush opposes such mandatory limits.

Most of these bills would institute either a tax on greenhouse gases or a “cap and trade” system that would set an emissions quota for companies. Those that exceed their quota could buy credits from companies that emit less than the quota, creating a “market” in carbon credits. The White House so far has not shown support for a tax or the cap and trade idea. Administration officials have been meeting with Republican congressional leaders to hash out what Republicans might endorse when debate begins in Congress this summer.

Bush also condemned the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling that the federal government must determine if climate-warming carbon dioxide is a threat to human health and, if it is, limit the country’s emissions. He said laws written to protect the air or endangered species or other parts of the environment should not be applied to climate issues. Most environmental groups disagree. They note that Bush proposed six years ago that U.S. emissions should peak in 2012. He backed off that promise and has now extended it to 2025.

Extreme energy makeover: Home office edition

Extreme energy makeover: Home office edition
Do you know how much your home office costs? I’m not talking about the price you paid for the equipment (you probably do know that amount). Rather, I mean how much of a financial and environmental burden it is to you and your community on an ongoing basis.

I recently found out, for example, that the computing equipment in my home office last year consumed 803 kilowatt-hours of power and directly resulted in the emission of 889 lbs. of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. (See “The numbers behind the numbers” for the formulas used in this article.) My personal contribution to global warming also included 1.4 lbs. of sulfur dioxide and about half a pound of nitrogen oxide, all byproducts of the power-generation process serving my office, according to the Independent System Operator of New England.
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Stuff about electricity/energy saving; just remember, any wise effort to save energy will always work.
–Gautam