So when Vilsack’s Denver-based sustainable energy non-profit Elephant Energy researched the situation on the Navajo Nation last year, discovering dangerous kerosene lanterns and heaters and more than 18,000 households completely off the grid, they changed their name to Eagle Energy in the Four Corners area.

Arizona's Monument Valley in the Navajo Nation (David O. Williams photo).

Originally founded to provide similar products in Namibia, Eagle Energy is now working hard to deliver solar light bulbs from Denver-based Nokero [No Kerosene] and other sustainable energy products to the Navajo Nation – all the while hoping to stimulate the small-scale entrepreneurial companies offering such services.

“Yeah, many Navajo people are still using kerosene,” said Vilsack, a Colorado College and University of Colorado graduate whose father is Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “Most people still don’t have heating. They’re using wood for energy. There’s just a huge need for even these really small-scale technologies to get rid of this kerosene problem on the Navajo Nation.

“It’s a stunning thing to be happening here in our own country.”

Vilsack formed Elephant Energy three years ago to improve the quality of life in Namibia, where only about 15 percent of the rural population is connected to the electrical grid. Kerosene is a potentially toxic fuel source that presents numerous health problems, including the very real risk of household fires. An attorney, Vilsack was doing some work on the Navajo Nation when he noticed similar conditions there.

He said there are several barriers to connecting the estimated one-third of the Navajo Nation households that are off the grid – most of them having to do with expense and geography – but he adds that alternative energy products may hold the best hope for short-term relief.

“There should be a lot of money put into larger scale [solar] systems on people’s houses down there, but you have to start somewhere, and if it’s with a $5 or $10 solar-powered light bulb, you can accomplish a heck of a lot with that,” Vilsack said. “With one of these bulbs at least you can go a long way toward removing the need for people to go buy kerosene at Wal-Mart.”

Adella Begaye, a Navajo Nation nurse, said she started working as an interpreter for the Indian Health Service when she was a teenager in the 1970s. Back then, she said it was very rare to see patients with asthma or other respiratory diseases. Now it’s common.

Begaye, also a community advocate with Diné CARE, points to the large coal-fired power plants built in the region in the 1960s and 70s. She sees the irony in so many people living so close to huge power plants but completely off the grid.

“I know the statistics are pretty high,” Begaye said of the lack of connectivity, “and the sad thing is there’s a lot of people that live right in the vicinity of these big power plants and they do not have electricity. And the health impact is worse. Not only is it asthma, it’s cardiac problems and just having a hard time breathing. Of course it affects your heart.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently issued an order compelling PNM’s 1,800-megawatt, coal-fired San Juan Generating Station 15 miles west of Farmington, N.M., to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by 80 percent in the next five years.

The company is fighting the decision because of what it deems the unnecessary costs, but the EPA cited air-quality and health concerns on the Navajo Nation as well as adverse impacts to nearby national parks and monuments such as Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado.

Late last month it was revealed that the state of New Mexico fined PNM $125,000 (pdf) for six major air pollution violations at the San Juan plant over the course of the last year.

Follow David O. Williams on Twitter. ]]> http://washingtonindependent.com/111229/seeking-solar-possibilities-amid-the-coal-fired-power-plants-of-navajo-nation/feed 82 http://washingtonindependent.com/102467/midterm-wrapup-what-the-election-means-for-energy-and-the-environment http://washingtonindependent.com/102467/midterm-wrapup-what-the-election-means-for-energy-and-the-environment#comments Wed, 03 Nov 2010 13:41:26 +0000 Andrew Restuccia http://washingtonindependent.com/?p=102467 Here’s a quick recap of the midterm results from last night that have implications for energy/climate/environmental policy.

It was mostly bad news for House Democrats who voted for the chamber’s cap-and-trade bill. The two most stinging defeats were Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), who worked furiously behind the scenes to More...

If this is true (the Times quotes three anonymous sources), it’s a big deal. The move is the latest indication that China isn’t afraid to play hardball with the United States, particularly now that the administration has publicly raised concerns about China’s trade policies. This weekend, Chinese officials denounced U.S. efforts to investigate a series of allegations made by the United Steelworkers that China is breaking WTO rules by offering manufacturers in the country unfair advantages.

China established itself years ago as one of the world's leading producers of solar energy equipment. (Imaginechina/ZUMApress.com)

In a last-ditch effort to build support in the Senate for a comprehensive climate bill this July, President Obama told the White House press corps that a failure to pass the legislation could help cement China’s position as the world clean energy industry leader.

[Environment1] “We can’t stand by as we let China race ahead to create the clean energy jobs and industries of the future,” he said. “We should be developing those renewable energy sources, and creating those high-wage, high-skill jobs right here in the United States of America.”

Conjuring up images of the Cold War, the race metaphor has become a go-to talking point for American politicians during the last year. By all accounts, the United States is getting lapped in the race for the so-called clean energy economy. During the last year or so, the Chinese government has made huge strides in reducing its carbon dioxide emissions and, above all else, making the country a veritable testing ground for research, development and large-scale deployment of wind and solar technology.

The United States, on the other hand, has failed to pass even scaled-back energy and climate change legislation. The Obama administration is betting that there is still hope — that the clean energy race is not yet won and the United States can come out on top.

But some experts say that while competition is essential, the metaphors used to describe our relationship with China on energy and climate change fail to account for a number of nuances, including the fact that the global supply chain makes any one country’s border less clear. In a sense, America and China are more like partners in a relay race, where each country’s advances helps the other get ahead.

Edward Steinfeld, a political economy professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and director of the school’s China program, argues that framing the relationship between the United States and other countries as a race is “sort of divorced” from the way technology is developed and deployed. The parts necessary to manufacture a wind turbine, for example, are likely produced all over the country by multinational corporations.

“We’re talking about complicated systems,” he said. “We’re not talking about a shoe. Usually these systems involve constellations of companies, in most cases global companies. In the end, it’s really hard to identify exactly what flag is on any given product.”

Because China has positioned itself as a clean energy leader, many companies are looking to China to conduct necessary research and development. In order to bring costs down, research and development must be done in the location where the product can be deployed on a massive level. Right now, Steinfeld said, that place is China.

But although technologies are fine-tuned in China, they are not always manufactured by Chinese companies. For example, several years ago, as part of a massive effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the country’s rapidly growing industrial sector, the Chinese government declared that all coal plants must install technology that keeps sulfur dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

“Out of nowhere, the world’s biggest market for smoke-stack scrubbers was in China,” Steinfeld said.

Though local technology companies came forward to design the scrubbers, the Chinese government opted to use designs from Europe, Japan and the United States, partly because there was little confidence in the skills of local companies and partly because the foreign technology was more developed, Steinfeld said.

The same thing is now happening with other Chinese policies. The country is looking outside its borders, and foreign companies, including many in the United States, are eager to step up to the plate.

“If you’re an American company, of course you’re going to go to China,” Steinfeld says. “Where else are you going to go? You need to team up with the people that are going to let you develop the technology.”

Because companies are able to use China as a testing ground for their clean energy technologies, the price of solar panels and wind turbines has gone down.

“I think the most tangible impact of China’s energy policies is that we’re now buying not just wind turbines, but solar panels from China,” said Sierra Club Director of International Climate Policy John Coequyt, “and the price of those products is very competitive.”

Therein lies the problem for many in the Obama administration and elsewhere. Though in some ways it’s good that Chinese development has made the cost of parts for wind turbines and solar panels cheaper, it makes it much more difficult to develop a domestic clean energy manufacturing base here in the United States.

The United Steelworkers, in a September petition to the Obama administration, argue that China is unfairly subsidizing exports to encourage companies in the country to send their clean energy products around the world. At the same time, the union accuses China of limiting the exports of certain rare-earth minerals necessary to produce solar panels so that foreign companies will settle in the country.

Both of these charges would be violations of international trading rules, and the United Steelworkers are hoping that the Obama administration will raise the issue in front of the World Trade Organization. “I do think they will take up some of this because some of it is so obvious,” said Linda Andros, legislative counsel on trade law issues at the United Steelworkers. “They don’t have to. They have discretion. But on the merits the case is there. The blatant stuff you’ve just got to take up.”

But some experts argue that regardless of whether the United States can compete with China on clean energy manufacturing, expanding U.S. reliance on wind and solar will create local jobs that can’t be exported to China.

Lutz Weischer, research analyst at the World Resources Institute, says many solar facilities create a significant number of local, American jobs. “If you look at job creation in the solar industry, most jobs are in construction, installation and maintenance,” he said. “Those jobs have to be local. If you import panels that are cheap, you’re able to install more panels and create more local jobs.”

“That’s the thing you have to weigh. It’s pretty likely that you’ll have less manufacturing jobs in the United States,” he said. “But you have to look at the entire supply chain. You’re gaining jobs elsewhere.”

Weischer also says that Chinese manufacturing has helped to lower the cost of solar panels, which fell in price by some 40 percent in 2009 as compared to 2008. “Even though this decline has a number of reasons — including technological progress, less demand due to the recession and changing policies in Spain, etc. — it would not have been possible without China producing large quantities of low-cost modules,” said Weischer.

The Chinese market is also important because it often functions as a “laboratory” to test new technology. Because the United States has lagged behind other countries in developing a stable investment environment for the wind industry, for example, General Electric has focused much of its attention on China. It recently announced a partnership with Harbin Power Equipment, a Chinese company, to expand its presence in the country, which currently has the largest wind market in the world.

For these reasons, Weischer says the race metaphor might not work for the relationship between China and the United States on clean energy. “The problem with the race image is that it suggests that only one country can win,” he says. “But if you look at wind, every country that has decided to focus on wind has won. You win if you decide to play.”

Like other experts, Barbara Finamore, China Program Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the clean energy race metaphor oversimplifies the way global supply chains work. “Race is not necessarily the right term here,” she says. “Because of the way supply chains are interconnected, you can’t win the clean energy race by banning technologies from other countries or by banning investment because it hurts U.S. companies.”

There are a number of examples of Chinese companies coming to the United States and creating jobs for American workers. Suntech, a Chinese solar company, began production this month at a solar manufacturing facility in Arizona, the first in the country. The facility will create almost 100 American manufacturing jobs.

At the same time, despite initial resistance, the United Steelworkers signed an agreement in August with A-Power Energy Generation Systems, a Chinese company, to allow the construction of a wind power plant in Texas and a wind turbine manufacturing plant in Nevada. Despite the fact that the company is Chinese, the thinking goes, the jobs created will be American.

Finamore says there are a number of reasons that China is eclipsing the United States in terms of its clean energy development. But at the end of the day, the main reason is because the United States has not enacted policies that create a stable investment climate.

“The countries that establish strong national policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and incentivize renewable energy are the ones that are establishing strong positions in the clean energy economy,” she said.

In a statement, Bingaman said:

We must continue to ensure that the Tax Code contains well-designed incentives that will help us transition to an energy efficient economy. Our bill will significantly expand domestic clean energy manufacturing; help American businesses and families reduce their energy use and dependence on fossil fuels; and create thousands of jobs.  This is a common-sense, bipartisan proposal that deserves priority consideration.

Here’s a summary of the bill’s provisions.

Vice President Joe Biden and Energy Secretary Steven Chu released the report, “The Recovery Act: Transforming the American Economy through Innovation,” which lays out the potential energy advancements.

They include, according to the Energy Department:

“Cutting the cost of solar power in half by 2015, putting it on par with the cost of retail electricity from the grid.

“Cutting the cost of batteries for electric vehicles by 70 percent between 2009 and 2015, putting the lifetime cost of an electric vehicle on-par with that of its non-electric counterpart.

“Doubling U.S. renewable energy generation capacity and U.S. renewable manufacturing capacity by 2012, a breakthrough that would not be possible without the Recovery Act.”

If the Obama administration can accomplish these advancements, they would address a number of key energy challenges, namely the high costs of solar energy and electric vehicle batteries. In reaching these goals, the administration would be able to quiet critics who say that it doesn’t make economic sense to move away from fossil fuels.

The report comes from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Duke University and finds that “the South could generate 20-30% of its electricity from renewable energy sources within the next 20 years — up from less than 4% today — if strong federal policies are enacted,” according to a press release from Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

The effort to draw attention to the report is part of a broad lobbying effort by the renewable energy industry to pass an RES. Industry groups are specifically calling for passage of the RES included in Sen. Jeff Bingaman’s (D-N.M.) energy bill, which requires that 15 percent of the country’s electricity come from renewable sources like solar and wind. While the Bingaman RES is considered too weak by many in the industry, they see its passage as a necessary first step to eventually strengthening the standard.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is expected to release a scaled-down energy and oil spill response bill later today, but it’s unlikely that the bill will include an RES. Reid has said that a renewable mandate does not have the 60 votes necessary to pass, despite recent calls by 27 Democrats and at least one Republican to include the provision in his bill.

Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) have both pushed for a renewable energy standard. (EPA/ZUMApress.com)

The renewable energy industry has largely abandoned efforts to push a stringent renewable energy standard in pending energy legislation, instead calling for a standard that many have said is not strong enough to bring about rapid wind and solar energy development.

[Environment1] On a conference call with reporters today, a coalition of renewable energy companies scaled back its previous calls for passage of an RES that requires 25 percent of the country’s electricity to come from renewable sources like wind and solar. Instead, the coalition is now calling for passage of the RES passed by Sen. Jeff Bingaman’s (D-N.M.) Energy and Natural Resources Committee last summer, because the advocates say it can get the 60 votes necessary for passage in the Senate.

Bingaman’s RES, which passed with bipartisan support as part of a larger energy bill, requires that 15 percent of the country’s electricity come from renewable sources by 2021. That figure has been criticized by many in the environmental community for not going far enough to incentivize renewable energy production.

“In this political climate, we have to do what we have to do,” American Wind Energy Association President Denise Bode told reporters on the call. Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader, told reporters on the call that he believe a 15 percent RES could get 60 votes.

Participants on the call included Iowa Gov. Chet Culver (D) and Lew Hay, CEO of NextEra Energy, the largest renewable energy developer in the United States. The energy company representatives on the call are part of a coalition called the RES Alliance for Jobs, whose members also include the renewable energy developer Iberdrola Renewables, the National Hydropower Association and General Electric.

If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) does not include an RES in the bill he is expected to release later today (Reid said last week that an RES could not garner 60 votes), Daschle said the coalition is working with lawmakers to introduce a floor amendment in an attempt to attach Bingaman’s RES language to the bill.

“I think it’s fair to say that if the RES is not included in a bill when its introduced, we can virtually guarantee that there will be an amendment offered,” Daschle said on the call, adding later, “There may be other amendments offered but at the very least, the Bingaman RES will be offered.”

It remains unclear which lawmaker would offer an amendment on an RES. Bingaman has long maintained that he would like to strengthen an RES, but said he will only offer such a proposal if he can find 60 votes. Other possibilities include Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), who has also expressed interest in strengthening a bill, and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who has introduced a bill that in part would bolster the RES.

But one environmentalist tracking the energy debate closely says that there is a possibility that Reid could restrict amendments to the energy bill in order to pass something before the August recess, which begins in less than two weeks. If amendments are restricted, debate on an RES would likely be pushed back until September, when many lawmakers will be heavily focused on the upcoming mid-term elections.

A source with the coalition, who asked not to be named in order to talk freely about the group, acknowledged that the Bingaman RES is inadequate in the short term. “In the Bingaman bill, the near-term targets stink; we all know that,” the source said. But it is important to pass something this year in order to send a signal that more is coming down the road. “It would be much easier to strengthen in little ways and augment in little ways an RES that we have now than it would be to pass a renewable energy standard next year,” the source said.

The source pointed to news last week that China has decided to implement a cap-and-trade system, though the details of the program remain unclear. “We completely dropped the ball on cap-and-trade and China picked it up,” the source said. “What we’re pushing for is the last chance. This is the last thing that stands between the United States and China on the clean energy race.”

If an RES does not pass before the August break, the source said the coalition would continue to work to move such a proposal in September. “The renewables guys and the environmentalists are not going to stop fighting,” the source said.

An environmentalist source, who also asked for anonymity to discuss the energy debate, said that passage of Bingaman’s RES would be a “silver lining” in Reid’s scaled-back energy bill, but added that “if all that gets done is just a weak RES, then it’s still been a total failure.” The source said an RES, even a more stringent one, is not a substitute for climate legislation that includes a cap on carbon emissions.

The source said that it is unlikely that an RES will pass before the August recess because Reid doesn’t believe it has the votes. “So far there’s not been a lot of evidence that it’s going to be incorporated. Putting the RES in just makes it easier for folks to stand in the way of getting the Gulf oil spill response done,” the source said.

I just got off the phone with Rob Gramlich, a senior vice president for policy at the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the leading lobbying group for the U.S. wind industry. He says wind industry CEOs are preparing to lobby senators in the coming days to strengthen key provisions in climate and energy legislation that could benefit the industry.

AWEA is calling for an increase in the so-called renewable electricity standard (RES) included in various energy and climate proposals currently on the table. A federal RES would require that a certain percentage of the country’s electricity be produced from renewable sources like wind and solar.

Without the votes for an economy-wide cap on carbon emissions, an RES appears likely to be one of the central provisions in a climate and energy package, leaving liberal Democrats with the task of claiming victory on a bill that falls far short of their policy goals.

AWEA is working to increase the RES well above the requirement included in the energy bill passed by the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee last year, which calls for 15 percent of the nation’s electricity to come from renewables by 2021. The group is advocating for a proposal to increase the RES to 25 percent by 2025.

Gramlich says the group will be targeting farm-state Democrats and Republicans in wind-rich regions, dispatching the heads of number of major wind developers to lobby key senators.

“There are a number of swing vote members who could come onto the legislation, there are farm-state Republicans who support wind energy in particular,” Gramlich said, arguing that a higher RES could help get 60 votes for an energy and climate bill.

But Republicans are also calling for a so-called “diverse” energy standard that would allow nuclear energy and coal with carbon capture technology to count in the overall standard, a proposal that rankles many in the wind industry. Sen. Richard Lugar’s (R-Ind.) energy proposal includes such a standard.

Known Quantity

I’ve complained several times about the government making bets on funding business propositions, like electric cars, that have not yet proven their profitability. If the government is going to throw money at something, then the target should be a known quantity. Nuclear power fits that criterion. The U.S. has been successfully using this energy source for a very long time. As a result, we can be fairly certain that such projects will ultimately be profitable and won’t need government life support forever.

Hmm, that doesn’t seem quite right. In fact, just this morning I read a piece in Mother Jones that said, um, exactly the opposite.

The nuclear industry’s shaky financial outlook is well documented. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2003 that the risk of default on loan guarantees is “very high—well above 50 percent.” Yet in a call with reporters on Tuesday, Chu said he had not heard of that CBO study.

Leaving aside the question of how Steven Chu — the current energy secretary, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and a leading advocate of nuclear energy — could be unaware of the technology’s risks, let’s move on to another point made by Indiviglio:

Probably Not Very Costly

It’s also important to note that this isn’t a direct funding — it’s a loan guarantee. So long as the project can earn back its costs, the U.S. government may end up spending nothing. It’s essentially just making banks more willing to take a risk on the power endeavor. While the taxpayers will ultimately be on the hook if the project goes awry, most government jobs efforts cost taxpayers no matter what. As a result, we should get all this job creation for free.

Yeah, I’m gonna go back to that Mother Jones piece again:

The loan guarantee is conditional upon NRC approval. But if the project ever gets off the ground, there are plenty of red flags signaling that it’s a very bad investment for taxpayers. The nuclear loan guarantees are intended to finance up to 80 percent of the total project cost for new reactors. Southern Company’s most recent estimate for the two reactors is $14 billion, though according to independent projections the true cost of a single reactor may be closer to $12 billion. That means that the government could pour money into a new plant, only to see construction halt when the price tag rises and there are insufficient funds to complete it. Kevin Kamps, a radioactive waste specialist with Beyond Nuclear, points out because the design has not even been finalized or approved yet, “the utility has essentially no idea how much the reactor is going to cost.” (The Vogtle site has an ominous history of massive price overruns: The plant’s existing reactors were originally estimated to cost $1 billion each. But by the time they were completed in the 1980s, the bill had reached nearly $9 billion per reactor.)

People tend to think that environmentalists have some sort of allergic reaction to nuclear because they’re scared of radioactive waste and unsecured nuclear materials. There’s some truth to that, but when it comes down to it, the main point green advocates continue to hammer home is the cost issue: It’s simply a bad investment to pour billions of taxpayer dollars into a nuclear sinkhole when proven technologies such as wind and solar would provide guaranteed benefits.