In the wake of yesterday’s explosion at a natural gas plant in Connecticut, Caroline Howe at Its Getting Hot in Here makes a good point:

Fossil fuels are not safe. They are not safe for our planet, they are not safe for our communities, and they are not safe for the workers inside of their power plants. This is not the first power plant explosion, this will not be the last. It is time for America to commit to a clean and safe energy economy – where our friends and neighbors can work in green jobs that give good wages and safe working environments. My heart and prayers are with the workers at the Kleen Energy Plant and with their families — and with the future of our nation to not face such a tragedy again.

Greenhouse gas emissions aside, here are a few recent environmental problems and public health concerns associated with generating electricity from coal, nuclear and natural gas:

• Yesterday — Middletown Power Plant Explosion Caused By Gas Leak, Officials Say: “Early reports were that a natural gas leak could have caused a devastating explosion Sunday morning that killed two and injured as many as a dozen more at a power plant being built south of the city on the Connecticut River.”
• Last week — Radiation Levels Spike Near Vt. Nuke Plant; Leak Source Not Yet Found: “Levels of radioactive tritium mushroomed Thursday in a new monitoring well at the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor, an indication the leak was coming from water that runs through the reactor itself, according to the Department of Health.  These are very high concentrations,” said William Irwin, radiological health chief for the Department of Health, who was at the reactor Thursday. “We’re not dealing with a minor system. It’s an important source that needs to be quickly found.”
• Last week — The EPA released “engineering assessments of 40 more coal ash impoundments showing they have the ‘high’ or ’significant’ potential to cause loss of human life, environmental damage, or damage to infrastructure.”
• 9 months ago — 8 Firefighters, 1 Gas Employee Burned In Natural Gas Explosion: “Eight firefighters and a gas company worker were injured in a natural gas explosion at a strip mall in Forestville, Maryland on Thursday afternoon. Despite being caught in the violent explosion, only two of the injured remain hospitalized.”
• 13 months ago — TVA spilled 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic coal ash in Eastern Tennessee. “A test of river water near the spill showed elevated levels of lead and thallium, which can cause birth defects and nervous and reproductive system disorders”
• Natural gas drilling has contaminated the water in several states.
• Coal mining releases methane, carbon monoxide, soot, copper lead and mercury at levels known to pose risks to human health.

And here are some recent environmental problems and public health concerns associated with generating electricity from solar, wind and geothermal:

• …
• …
• Actually, there are no environmental problems or public health concerns associated with generating electricity from wind, solar and geothermal sources.

Just something to keep in mind when you hear people talk about ‘cleaner burning natural gas,’ ‘clean coal,’ and ’safe nuclear power.’

Update — Senator Lautenberg has questions:

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said Monday that a fatal explosion at an unfinished natural gas-fired power plant in Connecticut over the weekend underscores safety concerns about a proposed natural gas pipeline in New Jersey.

An explosion Sunday at the Kleen Energy Systems plant in Middletown, Connecticut killed at least five workers.

“This tragic incident reminds us that natural gas, while cleaner burning than other fossil fuels, comes with safety risks. The explosion raises a red flag about the construction of a natural gas line that would run through New Jersey primarily for the benefit of New York,” Lautenberg said in a prepared statement.

Bernie Sanders:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), chairman of the Senate’s green jobs subcommittee, today introduced legislation with nine cosponsors to encourage the installation of 10 million solar systems on the rooftops of homes and businesses over the next decade.

“At a time when we spend $350 billion importing oil from Saudi Arabia and other countries every year, the United States must move away from foreign oil to energy independence,” Sanders said. “A dramatic expansion of solar power is a clean and economical way to help break our dependence on foreign oil, reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, improve our geopolitical position, and create good-paying green jobs.”

Here is the legislation:

END10088 –

I don’t like the looks of this:

Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy (DUK), wants to own every piece of the smart grid, all the way down to the energy portals in customers’ homes and the solar panels on their roofs.

After all, the utility is developing the technology to make all those systems perform at optimal levels – and Duke Energy has access to more capital than a family trying to save for sending their kids to college, after all, Rogers said Wednesday at the GreenBeat conference in San Mateo, Calif.

So instead of relying on customers to buy their own home energy systems, “I’m going to own the batteries, I’m going to invest in the homes,” he said. “I’m going to redefine the boundaries of the business.”

That’s one of the ways that Duke, which plans to spend $1 billion over five years on smart grid projects, is bucking predominant trends among utilities in the United States.

While Duke is definitely one of the more environmentally friendly old-school energy companies, I’m still not comfortable with the approach they are taking. Part of the appeal of distributed power generation is the ability of consumers to own the means of generation themselves, in order to stop paying exorbitant rents to corporations.

With that being said, I’m glad Duke is making significant investments in smart grid technology and renewables.  I just hope they modify their approach a bit as these efforts scale up.

Update — A friend emails to point out that utility ownership of rooftop solar installations is the only realistic way these types of installations can scale in the near-term, given cost barriers. Point taken.

Howie Klein has the goods on the Solar Technology Roadmap Act, which the House of Representatives easily passed yesterday. Every single Democrat voted for the bill. They were joined by just 66 Republicans.

Howie explains:

With China– as well as several other countries– pulling way ahead of the U.S. in alternative energy development, you would think supporting this kind of legislation would be a no brainer. And, indeed every Democrat and 63 Republicans voted yes. It passed 310-106. The Republicans with no brains… well, generally speaking the Republicans sticking with their obstructionist leadership on this– John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mike Pence and Paul Ryan all urged no votes– were the dimmest lights in the House, knee-jerk anti-everything fanatics like Michelle Bachmann (MN), Paul Broun (R-GA), Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), John Culberson (R-TX), Mary Fallin (R-OK), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Elton Gallegly (R-CA), Scott Garrett (R-NJ), Darrell Issa (R-CA), Steve King (R-IA), Tom McClintock (R-NC), Patty McHenry (R-NC), Mean Jean Schmidt (R-OH), and John Shadegg (R-AZ), the real knuckle-dragging bottom of the barrel community; Limbaugh’s crowd.

Full text of the bill is embedded below.

(Via David Dayen)

Read the rest of this entry »

Green Inc:

The cost of going solar fell last year, resuming a decade-long decline after several years of flat prices, according to a new study from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The report found that the installed cost of residential and commercial photovoltaic systems in the United States dropped 30 percent over all from 1998 to 2008. But prices had become relatively stagnant from 2005-7, as demand spiked and solar module makers ramped up production.

The global economic meltdown, however, along with a resulting oversupply of modules, led the cost of installing a solar system last year to fall from $7.80 a watt to $7.50 a watt, though the actual cost to homeowners actually increased slightly as state incentives for installing solar arrays fell faster than module prices.

NYT: Energy Firms Deeply Split on Bill to Battle Climate Change.

Nothing especially new here, but it is a shame they give Don Blankenship of Massey Energy the last word.  Blankenship, who never passes up an opportunity to say something stupid, doesn’t disappoint:

“A lot of coal-using utilities seem to be on the wrong side of this issue,” said Don L. Blankenship, the chief executive of Massey Energy, the largest producer of Appalachian coal, who has called climate legislation a hoax and a Ponzi scheme. “How can they be so confident that man is changing the world climate?”

Daniel Weiss of the Center for American Progress makes a point worth considering:

Some supporters of global warming legislation believe that the division in the once-monolithic oil and gas industry, as well as other splits among energy producers, could improve the prospects for the legislation.

“It’s much harder to pass clean-energy legislation when big oil and other energy interests are united in their opposition,” said Daniel J. Weiss, climate policy director at the liberal Center for American Progress. “The companies that recognize the economic benefits in the bill can help bring along their political supporters.”

All in all, a pretty good summary of the state of play, but nothing new.

Capitol Journal:

The single most important rural economic development initiative before Congress this year is renewable energy legislation. No other debate in Congress has greater potential to create jobs and directly impact rural revitalization in the Midwest and Great Plains.

Recently the Center for Rural Affairs analyzed Department of Energy research on the economic impact of wind energy development that would result from a twenty percent Renewable Electricity Standard – a requirement that power companies obtain twenty percent of the electricity that they sell from renewable sources, like the wind.

Renewable Energy and Economic Potential in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota –

Greenpeace:

Kenya, Kogelo 19 August 2009 – Mama Sara Obama, the U.S. President’s grandmother holds a solar panel while posing for a group photo with Solar Installation trainees from the Kibera Community Youth Program in Kogelo Village, Kenya.The solar installations are part of a 20 day renewable energy workshop hosted by Greenpeace’s Solar Generation with 25 participants from the Kibera Community Youth Programme (1) and community members of Nyang’oma Kogelo.

For more photos go to Greenpeace on Flickr.

Must visit Amsterdam:

On the streets of Amsterdam last week, major changes were afoot. The first of 1,200 households installed an energy-saving system from IBM and Cisco aimed at cutting electricity costs. Others were given fresh access to financing from Dutch banks ING and Rabobank to buy everything from energy-saving light bulbs to ultra-efficient roof insulation. And on Utrechtsestraat, a major shopping avenue in the center of the Dutch capital, solar-powered panels on local bus stops were installed to transform the road into a “Climate Street” piloting clean technology.

The projects are Amsterdam’s first steps toward making its infrastructure more eco-friendly. Other projects are expected to follow soon. They include 300 power hookups around the city to recharge electric cars, solar panels that will be installed on Amsterdam’s historic 17th century townhouses, and infrastructure upgrades that will allow households to sell energy they generate from small-scale wind turbines or solar panels back to the city’s electricity grid for a profit.

Go ahead, read the whole article.

The headline they used: Ken Salazar starts over at Interior Department.

Here are a few more appropriate headlines, based on their interview.

Salazar Accuses Bush Interior Department of Skirting the Law:

“After almost four months in the job, I have concluded that there was the skirting of the law and shortcuts that occurred in many different things and in different ways,” he said. “Shortcuts were taken to try to get to a policy.”“I knew there was going to be a mess to clean up,” he added. “I knew that there were problems in this department that had to be dealt with. It was one of the things that I told the president that I would do. And so I wasn’t surprised by what I found.”

Salazar Pushed Bold Energy Agenda at Interior Department:

“We have a huge amount to contribute to that agenda here in the department because we control 20 percent of the land mass,” he said. “We have driven through the tangles of the jurisdictional disputes and have now finalized the rules for the development of offshore wind [power] here in the United States. We’re doing the same thing with solar and wind onshore. … We are on the verge of what I think is going to be a major step forward with respect to the whole renewable energy world.”Salazar said wind and solar energy could mean “hundreds of thousands of jobs — and they’re good jobs that are going to be here in the U.S.” He said that at the moment, the bigger economic opportunity is in wind, “because the wind industry has been much more developed in this country than has solar.”

Interior Secretary Salazar ties Clean Energy to National Security:

“There are global and national imperatives that are driving this agenda,” he said. “One is our national security, two is our environmental security and three is our economic security. … So those are the drivers, and I think there’s broad consensus — including some Republicans on board — saying we have to deal with those major challenges of our time. … You’re going to see a lot of that happening. It’s a new day for the country with respect to energy.”

Despite Politico’s insistence on focusing on substance over style, the article is worth reading.