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Waxman-Markey passes the HouseTake a moment to bask. Then, back to the barricades.
So, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 passed the House on Friday. First, to get the necessary throat-clearing out of the way: this is an historic moment that was both an extremely long time in coming and also a lot speedier than many dared hope. When Henry Waxman announced his intention of bring the bill to a floor vote by July 4, most in the environmental community thought the goal was admirably ambitious but probably unachievable. The passage of the bill, if nothing else, testifies to the parliamentary skill of the congressional leadership. Unfortunately, the Senate promises to be an even tougher battle. Although congress has hardly covered itself in glory on the climate change issue, it’s worth noting that the vote is an example of politicians doing the right thing without any clear reward. There really isn’t much of a built-in political constituency for averting climate change disaster. It’s an esoteric subject that few Americans feel strongly about, and a deep bench of vested interests are prepared to go to the mat to maintain the status quo. In spite of the stiff organizational incentives to do nothing, congressional leaders managed to cajole a bill through. For anyone who does care about this issue, the process was fairly ghastly to behold, but the final outcome should be a source of cheer. The bill itself is a pretty good one. It’s far from perfect, but the compromises generally kept intact the core goal of placing an economy-wide cap on carbon emissions, supported by a raft of efficiency standards and investments in clean energy. The bill needs to be strengthened, certainly, but I think observers tend to discount the extent to which reality, rather than legislation, will dictate our response to climate change. By “reality” I don’t mean political reality, but rather technological, economic, and scientific reality. That is, technology will improve at a given pace, fossil fuels and renewable energy will carry their given prices, and the effects of climate change will unfold along a given timeline. The policy environment is critical to coordinating our actions, but there are going to be countless adjustments to the legal framework made in ensuing years in response to facts on the ground. Obama seems to understand this, and puts a rosy spin on the situation:
Whether you share Obama’s optimism about our ability to meet the challenge of climate change, I think the basic insight here is correct: politics will largely be driven by events, not vice versa. Speaking of which, the political class is already chattering about the possible electoral consequences of the bill. And every analyst is dusting off the same historical analogy: Bill Clinton’s ill-fated B.T.U. tax. In 1993, the Clinton administration managed to get a fossil fuel tax through the House in a narrow vote, only to have it die in the Senate. Democrats then proceeded to get epically slaughtered in the 1994 mid-term election.
The problem with such historical analogies is that they’re invariably terrible. The comparison ignores the fact that 16 years have gone by. It ignores shifting opinions on climate change, the security implications of our energy mix, and the need to revitalize our manufacturing base. It ignores the fact that a whole lot of other stuff happened in 1994 that affected the electoral outcome. The more honest and boring appraisal of the electoral situation is that no one knows how the climate bill will affect the mid-term elections, but given that its provisions won’t take effect for several years, it seems likely that the state of the economy will be the overriding electoral consideration in 2010. Comments
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I have heard that Waxman-Markey is a very bad bill with Draconian measures that will make it unpopular with many local and state entities-that it was made deliberately so by those who do not want real changes - that those who supported it were either naive or inattentive to details. Please comment.
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by Adam Stein on July 1, 2009 8:06 AM
Betsey, it's a bit hard to address criticism at such a high level, but this doesn't strike me as particularly accurate. There are lots of specific things wrong with Waxman Markey, in the sense that a technocrat could devise a more elegant or effective bill. And so naturally and understandably the technocrats are all gnashing their teeth right now.
But climate change is a very long-term problem, and the big picture of this bill seems to be correct. My guess is that it will follow a trajectory somewhat like Kyoto -- everyone will hate it for a few years, and lawmakers will tinker with it, and lo and behold it will start to work. My strong hope (and belief) is that the emissions reductions will kick in more quickly than they did under Kyoto. But I think the overall pattern will probably be somewhat similar.
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I am not really in support of the Waxman-Markley because it undermines the president's ability to fight climate change. Greenpeace isn't either. There are quite a few dirty bits but in there by big coal and big oil and it supports nuclear.
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It's a start. We will improve on it later. Now, call or write your Senators and tell them to support Waxman-Markey. Senators and Representatives pay attention to constituent messages in direct proportion to the difficulty and cost of sending the message, because that indicates the sender's depth of interest. Email is cheap, easy and almost useless; personal office visits are expensive and difficult and highly effective. Paper letters and phone calls are a reasonable compromise.
Climate change legislation must support nuclear power. There's no hope of getting rid of all coal-fired power plants (the world's single biggest source of human-created greenhouse gas) except by replacing a lot of them with nuclear.
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by William Potash on July 1, 2009 8:21 AM
Nuclear bad. Seriously, nuclear's risks outweigh its benefits. I support nuclear as a whole and would seriously love some more nuclear testing, but right now the technology is unsustainable, is certainly not safe (it can be used as an extremely powerful weapon; the most powerful weapon ever detonated was nuclear), and is BAD for the environment. I think currently even COAL or certainly NATURAL GAS is better than NUCLEAR. Radiation causes mutation and just plain messes up the environment.
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by Cory on July 1, 2009 9:25 AM
Coal or natural gas is better? Really?
Please take a serious look at the track record and health impacts of these industries (from extraction to power production). Then do the same for nuclear and make an honest comparison before you make a claim like this. Back it up with facts. Trotting out "Radiation causes mutation" is tantamount to fear-mongering.
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by William Potash on July 1, 2009 9:41 AM
I see your point, but think of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima. Nuclear is extremely powerful, but we don't know exactly how to control it. Now compare the attacks on Hiroshima to what would happen if nuclear plants fail. They are a huge target for terrorists, and where do we store the waste? I do admit to some minor fear-mongering, but nuclear is TOO dangerous and TOO powerful. Think what would happen if 9/11 happened to a large nuclear plant. The technology is brand-new, and compared to wind and solar is equal to destroying the environment purposefully. I know the facts and I have done some research and mining for uranium is destructive to the environment too. I said radiation causes mutation because it rhymes and is easy to remember. Mutation is unlikely to happen but possible. You take a look at the facts. Natural gas can be extracted from landfills as methane and stuff and you could call it carbon-negative because the gases would be released anyway and burning it is (sort-of) good for the environment. I do see the flaws in my relatively weak argument, coal just plain stinks and natural gas is pretty darn bad, but nuclear is uncontrollable. I think we ought to develop it, but keep it in the developmental stage for now.
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by Michelle on July 1, 2009 2:23 PM
One of the biggest, most glaring problems with nuclear is one no one ever mentions- storage of waste. There is no space in our country for spent nuclear fuel to be stored. Yucca Mountain is on perpetual hold, and even if they were given full licensing/permitting tomorrow- it would fill beyond capacity and there would still be tons of poorly stored waste all over the country. Currently, many nuclear facilities have run out of appropriate storage space for the hot spent fuel- they have begun storing above ground, in an environmentally unsecured way. They are getting fined by the NRC, and are in turn suing DOE for not opening Yucca. When Yucca does open it will be taking the newest, hottest fuel that is being most improperly stored. The original plan called for older, cooler spent fuel to be stored at yucca, so this causes problems with the modelling done for an accidental release.
Let's also not forget that nuclear power uses a lot of water. clean, potable water is already a dwindling resource, must we really overuse it and destroy it for energy production?
And lastly, uranium is a finite resource, it will go away just like oil. It is also difficult to extract and large reserves of it happen to be located on native american reserves, meaning you know who is bound to get screwed again by a nuclear-centric energy plan.
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Betsey, your concerns are valid. Much like the AIG bonus flap in the bank bailout the members of Congress voted on this without reading or understanding much of the content.
The biggest problem with this bill is that no one anywhere knows what it's really going to do. With unemployment at hovering around 11% for the Midwest I'm failing to see how this is going to help, especially since I'm probably one of three people who actually read the bill and it's provisions. I own a company that works to increase energy efficiency of businesses and homes so I was very interested in the jobs aspect. While this may help my business I have no doubt it's going to hurt rural areas of Midwest and Great Plains. Plus I'm a little skeptical of any bill supported so heavily by the company that wakes up every morning in between Michelle and Barack, GE.
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We MUST support Waxman-Markey's ACES bill. It's an historic first for Congress, and we really have to get behind our Senators to make this law! If not now, when?
But it also MUST include nuclear. Yes there are risks, but are you all unaware that France has been getting over 75% of its power from nuclear for decades? I mean, that country is probably 1/5 the size of this country and THEY don't have a problem with a nuclear plant in their backyards. Why should we?
Clean Coal is another necessary evil. Let's spend $1 billion on the first Clean Coal power plant so that the Utilities see that it's feasible technology. None of them are going to take the risk until the Feds throw down the money to make it happen!
Join our "dialogue BEYOND music" at:
Consilience Productions
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by William Potash on July 1, 2009 9:46 AM
I hate clean coal and it isn't even real, and a little nuclear can't be that bad, but has France ever had a 9/11 size attack? Huh? It doesn't have to have nuclear because we have ample space for wind and solar farms, unlike France. There still is a fair bit of undeveloped space. Plus we have many long rivers and 2 large coasts with lots of water for hydroelectric and tidal power. We can use sterling-engine-like-devices to get us more electricity. We have geothermal resources, too. Look at all that information and reconsider your comment.
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I would point out that the only reason there is a nuclear industry at all is because of massive government subsidies, many direct and some indirect. As the folks at Rocky Mountain Institute determined, buying more nuclear energy is the least effective way to spend our climate-change-fighting dollars. In terms of climate-change effectiveness per dollar spent, energy efficiency is #1. Following that are many things, in roughly this order of effectiveness per dollar (debate welcome - this is from memory):
2) wind (in good areas)
3) cogeneration at existing power plants
4) solar thermal (which can now be used as baseload thanks to nighttime storage),
5) solar photovoltaic (in good sun areas)
Somewhere further down this list are "clean coal" - since we don't know how to do it at large scales, we don't know it's final cost - and nuclear.
If you add the waste storage problems to its incredible cost, nuclear seems more like a niche offshoot to justify the nuclear weapons industry (isn't this how it started?) than anything else.
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Adam, I am not so sure about the conclusion of your 'event driven' analysis. Events are driven by incentives, and incentives are usually driven by economics. By creating economic conditions where it's more profitable to reduce emissions, a cap and trade policy WILL accelerate the adoption and creation of new technologies. E.g. SCR technology for coal fired power plants has been commercially available for years, but has been very sparsely installed, and in most cases not regularly used in plants where they are installed. A government incentive policy putting a price tag on pollution will make it more profitable to adopt and use in very short order.
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by Adam Stein on July 1, 2009 1:25 PM
I understand that, and obviously we've been long-time advocates of carbon pricing here. My point is that lots and lots of bickering about whether the reductions should be set to 17% or 18.5% in 2020 places a little too much emphasis on primacy of policy, and ignores the fact that a whole lot of stuff is going to be happen between now and then. That stuff is going to determine the play of events as much so as any legislation.
To take an example: critics of the bill (usually conservatives) claim that it's going to tank the U.S. economy and cost taxpayers thousands of dollars per year. Advocates of the bill (usually environmentalists) claim that it's going to lead to manufacturing renaissance while causing very little consumer pain.
I don't know which of these scenarios is correct (although I have my opinions), but these are very different empirical predictions about the future, which will lead to very different long-term outcomes. Again, we tend to act as though the legislation is the main thing, but actual real-world events (technological, physical, economic) matter more.
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I think that the fact of having legislation matters the most, and agree that the fine-tuning matters least. One of the biggest problems with legislation generally, especially compromise/controversial bills, is it's attempt to manage problems way after the fact, and it's inflexibility in incorporating unknown future conditions & benchmarks. E.g. I always wondered why affirmative action legislation didn't set itself to expire once certain benchmarks of racial integration were met.
On a tangent: I seldom take any stock in left or right claims about the future, but find that there are a good number of mostly independent assessments (in this case by economists) that tend to form a consensus within a (sometimes wide) margin of error. Of course the error margin gets wider with each step through the chain-reaction of events (future technology efficiency, price drops with higher adoption, etc.). But looking 1 or 2 std deviations toward the 'worse' side of the estimates, you can get a good sense of a reliable conservative / 'most likely worst case' estimate, which in this case is leaning toward higher but not overbearing prices for consumers.
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I am pleased to see nuclear power included in the bill. To the anti-nuke crowd I would echo Cory's comment above: "Coal or natural gas is better? Really?"
Nuclear already provides nearly 20% of our electricity, which is about ten times as much as the much-celebrated wind power. And it is easier to add to the existing electrical grid. Part of the reason France is cited in these discussions is because they reprocess their fuel which radically reduces the qualtity of radioactive waste. As a Pennsylvania resident I would love to see clean coal, but even cleaner coal has many more known drawbacks compared to nuclear. And for all the scare tactics, nuclear has a great safety record in the US.
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Hello, I'm not wanting to sound like 'profit' of doom, so quickly:
Solar on every living abode and man made structure, before nuclear, it's more cost effective.
Those that believe nuclear is something other than a bottom line business. Remove the gov's protection and then goggle Chernobyl down wind and children, why go there, you can't insure it?
Final, clean coal is a myth. What is bottom line value and who pays for techno. Only working model is something having to do with natural gas, carbon sequestering on such a small scale that the model doesn't compute. Yes it can work on paper, what happens when you put all that carbon back in the ground in a land fill. Maybe something worse than Yucca Mountain-which the one comment was right on, look up Hanford Reservation, Washington.
The grid redo and conservation, yep. Showing the rest of the world we are right there with them, yep.
Pass the bill though the Senate, then get the best minds going, otherwise it's back to putting scrap heeps of rusting steel in the oceans:)
thxs dm
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Try googling "Integral Fast Reactor". There are apparently nuclear alternative possibilities that are much safer, more efficient and less vulnerable to misuse than what we're currently using, we just don't have the plants or the public support to create them at the moment. I was surprised to realize how much of our fear of nuclear power may actually be unfounded.
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I'm not sure why pointing out that nuclear is the least effective way to spend our climate-change fighting dollars makes me part of the "anti-nuke" crowd. Please argue with my stated ideas (well, really, RMI's ideas) instead of tossing around labels.
It may be true that nuclear gives us roughly 20% of our energy. It is also true that it has received somewhere around 7 decades worth of incredible government subsidies, including no-bid contracts, continued funding in the face of outrageous cost overruns, and free catastrophe insurance.
If you want to compare nuclear with the efficacy of wind or renewables in general, consider where we would be had renewables received even a tenth of the government support of nuclear. Or hopefully, where we _will be_ in even a single decade given some increased focus in the renewable arena.
IMHO, nuclear has greatly underperformed for the time and money we've invested in it.
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I'm not part of the anti-nuke crowd; I think nuclear is a good idea, but currently not efficient and currently fairly dangerous. I support testing it in closed sites and developing the technology, but it is not developed enough to be safely and efficiently used widespread. (Yet).
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Hello, I'm not wanting to invite non-positive results in anything that moves any part of the dialog to a fruitfull vote. Why is the nuclear even in the bill? I've read the open letter by NASA Scientist James Hansen to the President about the Integral Fast Reactors science and understand the goal. I did include this thought when making the 'bottom line business' comment. Why do the passive systems have to 'toe' a better mark for 20% to 30% energy production. The crews are waiting to install these systems NOW. They have stopped because the fed tax credits are 'discounts'. The President Carter tax credits stopped 6/30/2009. The billions of 'discounts' and real dollar credits for the coal, oil/gas and nuclear have not. The question to you all is why? I know you might say; keep the price of gasoline low, to keep the cost of natural gas low, to keep the cost of heating oil low and to keep the cost of electric low. It's the way we consume. Let's be 'bright minds' in this dialog. After refined how is the gasloine shipped to market? Natural gas, Coal or Nuclear? These systems are central systems. When times were similar to as they are now, we built Boulder Dam, WPA style. SCal Edison recieved the profit, the energy-lets learn from this 'and don't be fooled again'. Today, SCE is working on two large solar projects that are again central delievery systems, yet they are as a whole below the State mandate for % of renewables in their portfolio. Meanwhile, today 7/6/09, the talking media has opened the talking point in California, that the large providers have reached their credits and have begun the talk to stop 'net metering'. A newly rebuilt grid that has local influence is needed. Today, vast amounts of solar and wind electric will go to 'ground' when demand is met. Why? Let's have this new WPA (or whatever it's to be called) build the 'new Boulder Dam' on all the roof tops in the Nation. This can be done. Otherwise, 387ppm becomes 400ppm and then 425ppm and then it's a tipping point, I'm told. Yea, I know we can debate the Climate Change issue and how to make a profit fixing the 'dang thing' as we dig 6 foot deep holes (sorry for that last scary part). Conservation, new grid; yep. Showing the rest of the world's scientist were shoulder to shoulder-pricless. thxs dm
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I can address the Rocky Mtn efficiency points from Don #11 point by point, but rather than tearing down alternatives I would rather build up nuclear power generation as a *part* of the climate-change solution. Which is exactly what the Waxman-Markey bill does, and I am happy to see it included. Nuclear is essentially zero carbon emmision during production (although there are obviously carbon sources particularly during the resource intensive construction). It is proven on large scale, generating lots of reliable power for decades, which is not true of these new technologies.
As for the efficient use of money, this is how I view the list from Rocky Mtn :
1) energy efficiency: Great, this is an efficient use of our money but implementation is so widely distributed its tough to make big changes, and very difficult to legislate. I just added insulation to my attic, the easiest efficiency improvement for my home, but its tough to get the whole country behind this. Not that we should abandon the idea, just pointing out it will not accomplish the climate-change targets alone, even if it costs a lot less than a new nuclear plant.
2) Wind (in good areas). Yes, this is great, but you list right away one of the biggest stumbling block because the Pittsburgh area where I live is not a good area for it (although there are some in the mountains east of here). What's worse, even in good locations the wind comes and goes so it is not reliable for baseline power, generating only about 40% of potential capacity on average. And even if the wind is free extending the electrical grid, building the towers, and maintenance cost a lot. Its a great solution with limited application and few large scale installations (350 MW & above) and not for a significant portion of our power.
3) Cogeneration. I had to look this up, it is using the waste heat from electrical production. Basically a minor efficiency improvement and very limited, because there has to be someone who needs the heat very close to the plant. Where it works that is great, but for the most part this is a tiny niche efficiency improvement.
4) Solar thermal. Great, this is where the exciting things in solar energy are happening right now, but this is mostly still pilot plants below 50 Megawatts. This is the only one on the list with the potential to produce real power (SEGS is 354 MW), but since a single nuclear power plan can produce 10 times as much power I do not think we can hang our hat on this solution alone.
5) Solar Voltaic. Same problem as efficiency: we are not going to get one of these on every rooftop anytime soon. But good to do as much as we can.
6) Clean coal cannot be dismissed, since areas like Pittsburgh where I live do not have the wind or sunshine for these alternate technologies. We can't buy all our electricity from the sunny southwest or the windy coast, and you have been arguing we can't have nuclear either. I would much rather live down-wind from the existing 1800 megawatt nuclear power plant in Beaver Valley (I do) than the coal powered electric plants which give western PA the worst air particulates in the country.
Which leaves Nuclear as a proven and reliable environmentally friendly solution that should be a part of the basket of ways to address climate change.
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Some comments here sounds like nuclear power is something scary, new, or untested; but in fact we already get a large amount of our electricity from nuclear. And if we would build some of the next generation plants, then nuclear power could be even safer and more reliable. By next generation, I am thinking of the 1100 Megawatt AP1000 by Westinghouse, which is a gravity-fed cooling loop in a modular reactor already designed and even under construction in places like Sanmen, China. This is a real option, not some untested new techonology.
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by William Potash on July 6, 2009 3:09 PM
It may be tested, but it is still dangerous.
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You seem to have forgotten Air France Flight 8969: a terrorist attempt to fly a plane into the Eiffel Tower, bypassing the dozens of nuclear power plants along the way.
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by Anonymous on July 7, 2009 7:53 AM
Reply meant for thread #8.
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