The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed the country’s first federal standard regulating carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from power plants last week. The introduction of a carbon standard has been long-awaited by the environmental community, and many groups are applauding the proposed rule as an important first step by the U.S. government to tackle climate change.

EPA promotes the clean air and health benefits of carbon regulation on the agency homepage. Image source: epa.gov

The carbon emission standard – which limits emissions to 1,000 pounds of CO₂ per megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity produced – will apply to future fossil fuel-fired power plants with an installed capacity greater than 25 megawatts (MW); plants that are currently operating or that will begin construction in the next 12 months are exempt.

The average natural gas plant in the U.S. emits between 800 and 850 pounds of CO₂ per MWh, safely within the proposed standard. The average coal plant, on the other hand, emits 1,768 pounds of CO₂ per MWh, which would exceed the standard. However, these existing plants will not be affected by the regulation, and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson further emphasized that there are currently “no plans” to place standards on CO₂ emissions from existing plants, including future modifications that could increase their emissions. However it is likely that the EPA will regulate carbon emissions from existing power plants at some point down the road, and the proposed standard for new sources is a vital step to ensuring that this will occur.

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The public transportation system in Medellín, Colombia, has proven to be one of the most successful transit systems in the world. It not only reduces the city’s energy consumption and carbon footprint, making the city more environmentally sustainable, but also drives positive social and economic change for Medellín as a whole.

Medellín metro system. (Source: http://www.colombia.travel/en/international-tourist/multimedia/photo-gallery/medellin)

Medellín received the 2012 Sustainable Transport Award from the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. ITDP is a global consortium of organizations that works with cities worldwide, mainly in developing countries, to provide solutions for their public transportation systems, tackling carbon emissions, poverty, and social inequality. The previous award winners are Guangzhou, China, in 2011 and Ahmedabad, India, in 2010.

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This is the translation of a previous post, “The Fifth “E”: Is Energy Becoming a Presidential Priority in Haiti”. To read the original in English, please click here 

Aux quatre priorités que le président Martelly a identifiées pour son mandat, éducation, emploi, environnement, état de droit, qui composent les quatre « E », s’est ajoutée une cinquième priorité, l’énergie. Lors des ateliers sur l’énergie organisés par Dr. René Jean-Jumeau, Secrétaire d’Etat à l’Energie le 27-28 septembre, le Président a insisté sur l’impact désastreux des usages actuels de l’énergie sur la couverture végétale, et la nécessité d’une transition vers des sources d’énergie plus propres. Il a conclu : « nous avons besoin d’électricité pour développer l’industrie dont Haïti a besoin, nous avons besoin d’électricité dans nos campagnes, afin que s’estompent des soirs des ténèbres sans lune. » Le premier ministre Garry Conille a également repris ces priorités lors de son discours de politique générale.

La semaine de l'Energie s'est deroulee les 6-12 novembre dans les Caraibes.

Du 7 au 11 novembre, la Semaine de l’Energie s’est tenue au Parc Historique de la Canne à Sucre et à la faculté des Sciences de l’UEH, pour la première fois en Haïti. Pendant 5 jours, étudiants, personnel académique, entrepreneurs, hommes d’affaires, acteurs de la coopération internationale, ainsi que les hauts responsables du gouvernement ont discuté de l’énergie sous tous ses angles, et de son rôle essentiel dans la reconstruction et le développement d’Haïti. Cette exposition, ouverte à tous, a montré les technologies disponibles en Haïti pour substituer le charbon de bois, et améliorer l’efficience des réchauds utilisés actuellement, augmenter de manière signifiante l’électrification du pays, et développer les ressources renouvelables.

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On October 13^th and 14^th, I represented the Worldwatch Institute at the 4^th Annual International Conference on Energy, Logistics and the Environment.  The conference was held in Denver, Colorado, and it was well attended by stakeholders, government officials, natural gas industry experts, innovators and entrepreneurs, academics and other interested parties.  The conference was organized by the Global Commerce Forum and was given the theme, A Sustainable Energy Future for Emerging Economies: Focus on Africa.  Discussion focused on the imperatives for clean energy development in emerging economies.  Traditionally, industrialized nations developed via fossil-fuel energy.  Industrialization fostered economic growth and prosperity in the developed world.  Many industrialized nations have prospered largely because heavily subsidized fossil-fuels have provided for affordable and reliable energy.  However, environmental concerns are driving industrialized nations to seek new energy sources and infrastructure to develop clean environments.

With its focus on Africa, the conference sought to answer one of the contentious questions in international discourse on energy development: ‘should emerging and developing nations develop their energy infrastructure from these same traditional energy sources, or are there now other, better options available to them?’  In his opening remarks, Don McClure, Vice President of Government & Stakeholder Relations & Legal of EnCana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc, indicated that Africa is in a unique position to invest in critical thinking that produces a “leap frog” in innovation.  He also indicated that Africa is in an enviable position to avoid the pitfalls associated with fossil fuel development through lessons learned from developed countries.  In a keynote address presented by former Governor of Colorado and Director of the Center for the New Energy Economy, Colorado State University, Bill Ritter, the intersection between access to energy services and education was highlighted. Governor Ritter also indicated that access to modern energy services is important in that it facilitates educational opportunities for children in developing countries. He stressed the need for an economy powered by clean fuels and public health in Africa.  He concluded by stating that there can be ‘no economic development without reliable power.’

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A chart showing just how much oil sands (tar sands) have contributed to Canada's total oil reserves estimates (Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2007).

All oil is not created equal – or, at least, all oil is not produced with equal environmental impacts, according to estimates proposed last week by the European Commission. The proposal, now under consultation amongst European Union (EU) member states, would add new definitions of the greenhouse gas (GHG) footprints for oil from tar sands and shale oil to the EU’s 2009 Fuel Quality Directive (2009/30/EC) and would present a tough barrier to the import of tar sands oil into European markets on the basis of its high life-cycle GHG emissions. The Fuel Quality Directive (FQD) mandates a 6 percent reduction in the average carbon intensity of fuels supplied to the EU (to about 79 grams carbon dioxide-equivalent per megajoule, or g CO₂e/MJ) by 2020. It also establishes a mechanism in Article 8 requiring fuel suppliers to report the life-cycle GHG emissions of the fuels they supply and reduce them from 2011 onwards. With its recently proposed value of 107 g CO₂e/MJ, oil from tar sands would be high above the target recommended under the FQD.

Tar sands, the colloquial name for highly viscous deposits of oil and bitumen, are expected to become a major source of global oil supplies over the next few decades. The largest known deposits in the world, thought to hold 170 billion barrels of oil reserves and as much as 2 trillion barrels of oil in place, are concentrated in and around the Canadian province of Alberta. Compared to conventional oil deposits, tar sands require production techniques that are more expensive and are associated with greater environmental impacts, particularly in terms of GHG emissions. Shallow deposits are typically accessed using strip-mining techniques, while deeper deposits are generally accessed using in situ techniques whereby steam is injected into the reservoir to heat the bitumen until its viscosity decreases sufficiently to allow it to flow out of the reservoir.

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Photo: Coyote Springs Generating Station by Portland General Electric

On August 25, my colleagues at the Deutsche Bank Climate Change Advisors and I released a new greenhouse gas (GHG) life-cycle analysis of U.S. coal and natural gas-fired electricity. If you have been following my posts on ReVolt over the last year, you’ll know we began studying this issue after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced revisions to its methodology for estimating emissions from natural gas systems (basically from the production, processing, transmission, and distribution of natural gas) that resulted in a more than doubling of its estimate for methane emissions from those sources. Methane, in addition to being the primary component of natural gas, is a GHG some 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a hundred-year period. Consequently, some analysts have raised concerns that when the actual amount of methane emitted during the entire life cycle of natural gas (an amount which the EPA’s previous methodology apparently underestimated) is taken into account, natural gas might lose its GHG advantage over coal.

Over the past year, a number of new life-cycle analyses have come out that all ask different versions of the question, “How clean is natural gas really, on a life-cycle basis?” Some focus on GHG emissions from shale versus conventional natural gas, while others focus on all natural gas produced in the United States. The life-cycle analyses use different underlying assumptions, methodologies, and sources of data, and nearly all comment on the implications of their findings for the GHG comparison between coal and gas. After all, if the Obama administration is (or at least was) considering a clean energy standard that gave natural gas-fired electricity a half-credit on the basis of its GHG savings over coal, this should be reflected by actual GHG savings.

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On July 28, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a package of regulations designed to reduce air pollution from the oil and natural gas industry. One of these regulations, a new source performance standard for volatile organic compounds (VOCs), will require drillers to use a technique called “green completions” on any oil or gas well that they hydraulically fracture. The EPA estimates that this new regulation, which is the United States’ first federal air standard addressing hydraulically fractured wells, will reduce such wells’ emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by 95 percent.

Green completions also have the co-benefit of capturing methane that would otherwise be vented or flared. Methane is the main constituent of natural gas and a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Recent estimates of methane emitted during the production, processing, and transport of natural gas have caused some to question the greenhouse gas benefits that could be achieved by switching from coal to gas-fired electricity.

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On July 1, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) released its much-anticipated “Preliminary Revised Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) on the Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Regulatory Program.” Behind its fearsome name, this document outlines the parameters for a regulatory regime surrounding hydraulic fracturing in New York. The Preliminary Revised Draft SGEIS was undertaken after NYSDEC received thousands of public comments in response to the first Draft SGEIS it released in September 2009.

New York’s acceptance of hydraulic fracturing stands in contrast to recent developments in New Jersey and France, where legislators recently passed bills banning the practice. New Jersey’s bill, if signed by Governor Christie, would become the first such statewide ban in the U.S. Although New Jersey has only a small area of Marcellus and Utica Shale in the northwestern corner of the state, this legislation may put pressure on neighboring states with greater shale potential to strongly consider the environmental effects of hydraulic fracturing. To date, few jurisdictions have attempted to impose such stringent environmental safeguards while still allowing hydraulic fracturing. Consequently, New York’s decision-making process will be closely watched by stakeholders around the world.

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Texas has been the heart of the U.S. oil and gas industry for decades.

On Friday, June 17, Governor Rick Perry signed a bill that mandates public disclosure of the chemicals that operators use during hydraulic fracturing in the state of Texas. With this legislation, Texas joins a growing list of states, including Montana, Arkansas, Michigan, and Wyoming, that have passed or are discussing legislation requiring the disclosure of the contents of hydraulic fracturing fluids.

The bill, H.B. 3328, will require operators to report the total volume of water as well as the chemical ingredients used for each hydraulic fracturing job through the website FracFocus.org. This website, jointly administered by the Ground Water Protection Council and the Inter-State Oil and Gas Compact Commission, was launched in late 2010, and participating companies have begun to voluntarily post records of wells fractured after January 1, 2011. Texas’s new law will require operators to post their well reports on the website beginning in July 2012, with the reporting of additional chemicals not included on the website’s form (which only includes chemicals regulated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, as reported on Materials Safety Data Sheets [MSDS]) to begin in July 2013.

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Given the need to rapidly reduce energy-related greenhouse gas emissions, many see a role for natural gas as a proven, reliable transitional fuel that can replace coal generation relatively quickly and inexpensively. You can find Worldwatch’s extensive research on the issue here. Natural gas emits 60 percent fewer carbon dioxide emissions than coal during combustion, and gas plants are easier to turn on and off in response to demand than typical baseload plants like coal and nuclear. Natural gas can thus complement renewable production by compensating for ongoing concerns about the variability in supply.

A natural gas plant in Morro Bay, California.

Other observers, however, are less optimistic. They point out that the falling price of natural gas could also undermine renewable energy projects, even including some already under way. Although the renewables sector is growing and production costs are declining, deployment of renewables could be stifled by the low cost and fast construction time of natural gas-fired power plants. Critics of the rapid increase in natural gas production warn that the success of gas could push back large-scale implementation of renewable energy sources.

Minnesota, the fourth largest wind-producing state in the United States, after Texas, Iowa and California, is working to maintain its wind industry despite attempts by opponents to remove statewide Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS). U.S. wind production has been expanding rapidly since 2005, but the growth in new capacity slowed in 2010. This slowdown is attributed in part to the overall lower power demand as a consequence of the economic recession but also to the low prices of the expanding natural gas industry.

The natural gas sector is booming, especially with the expansion of drilling of unconventional sources like shale gas, which uses the controversial process of hydraulic fracturing. U.S. gas production increased 10 percent from 2005–09, with most of that growth coming from shale sources.

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