Posts Tagged by Environmental Protection Agency
Discussing the EPA at the American Chemical Society Conference
| March 27, 2012 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Science |
As one would expect, the banter here at the American Chemical Society conference is largely academic; in the convention center from which I’m writing this post there are more super-smart and extremely specialized people per square foot than I’ve encountered in a long while. But occasionally, I’ll have a conversation with someone that leads in a more humanistic, more philosophic direction.
A 3o-ish gentleman from the EPA just came by the booth, offering us at Doty Windfuels an application for a “Green Chemistry” award. “This concept (using off-peak renewable energy to synthesize carbon-neutral liquid fuels) sounds like a really strong concept; I strongly suggest you apply,” he said. We talked about the overall technological and economic issues at play in synthetic fuels for a few minutes, but I wanted to get his take on something before I let him go. “You must be thrilled with some of the rhetoric coming out of the presidential candidates vis-a-vis the EPA,” I smiled.
“It’s disappointing. We have leaders encouraging voters to abandon science and all the empirical evidence of the environmental dangers that face us. I have a 3-year-old son, and I’m frustrated that we’re irreparably damaging the world in which he’ll grow up, and that we could have a president that would be actively leading the charge.”
“Mine are 16 and 18,” I responded,” and I totally share your feelings. Recently, I began a conversation with a simple apology. I’m trying as hard as the next guy, but I’m sorry that I didn’t get on board sooner, and that I couldn’t do more to turn this around.”
Having said all this, the game’s not over. “It’s half-time for America,” to quote Chrysler’s famous Superbowl ad. As upsetting as all this is, I try to keep in mind that this is a marathon, and that such races require stamina.
Infographic: The Pros and Cons of Renewable Energy
| February 5, 2012 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Science |
Whenever I speak on renewable energy, I’m careful to leave my audience with a sense of the “tough realities.” We all want simple answers to our questions, but in the case of clean energy, none exist.
There are dozens of different flavors of solar, wind, biomass, hydro, and geothermal, each improving in terms of cost and efficiency, but at different rates. There are economic issues, as none of these flavors can compete with the dirtiest form of coal, if we don’t take into account the “externalities” like lung disease and environmental damage. And Lord knows there are political issues, where we have serious candidates for president of the U.S. who, if elected, boldly pledge to dismantle our Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy. If this occurs, it would effectively end the efforts of the largest economy on Earth to migrate away from fossil fuels and nuclear. Read More
Obama’s 2012 Budget Contains Scary Energy Components
| February 16, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
I could hear a collective moan from progressives when they saw that President Obama is proposing a 13 percent cut in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) budget to $8.97 billion. The immediate conclusion they might have drawn is that this move is tantamount to an open invitation for the industrial sector to resume its rape and pillage of our natural ecosystems.
However, I encourage folks not to take this move out of context. In particular, note that the announcement was essentially a compromise against a proposal from House Republican lawmakers to cut EPA funding by almost three times that much, and to prevent the agency from regulating greenhouse gases. Read More
EPA Needs Help in Creating Meaningful Ratings for Electric Vehicles
| December 2, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
I go on occasional rants about the lunacy of the EPA’s rating electric cars (pure EVs that use no gas, e.g., the Nissan LEAF) on their gas mileage. Apparently, John Voelcker of GreenCarReports.com agrees:
Idiocy…. So it’s come down to this, has it? The U.S. car-buying public is apparently so stupid that the Environmental Protection Agency has to rate the efficiency of an all-electric car that burns no gasoline in … miles per gallon.
I feel your pain, John. But the truth is that U.S. car-buyers actually are not that stupid. Realize that we’re still being instructed on how to buckle our seatbelts on airplanes (which work the same way as those in every car that’s been built for sale in the US for the last 50 years). The take-away: bureaucracies ADD content over time; they don’t remove anything — regardless of how completely useless and irrelevant it may have become. I predict MPG ratings will be applied to vehicles 200 years from now that run on solar nutrinos or gamma rays from neighboring galaxies.
Having said that, there are SO many good alternatives for the EPA to adopt. So here’s a plea to you helpful folks in Washington: Want to add honest value and inform the EV car-buying public about the costs of operating their car — or the relative effect that driving it has on the environment? Come on, admit it — that’s a true lightbulb of an idea! If you want some tips on exactly how this should be done, please call or write anytime.
The EPA Asks: How Much Pollution Do Electric Vehicles Create?
| April 6, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
In his blog, my friend Paul Scott has written a marvelous post on calculating the pollution caused by charging electric vehicles with energy from fossil-fuels. He makes several astute comments and suggestions regarding how the EPA should, in fact, make this determination fairly.
He asks such questions as:
How do you compute the amount of pollution generated from coal and natural gas? Do you take the national average for a kilowatt hour of energy? I’ve read it’s just over one pound of CO2 per kWh. Or do you allow for regional variation? California is among the best in terms of per capita efficiency and a low CO2 grid, and we’ll be the first state to mass adopt EVs. Oregon and Washington have an even cleaner grid and will match CA in per capita EV ownership. Seems only fair to allow for our cleaner grid in the calculations.
In my estimation, a far bigger factor here is that the vast majority of the energy used to charge EVs comes off-peak, where it would largely be wasted (dumped back to ground) anyway. Therefore, even EVs powered by the dirtiest of coal-fired power plants represent very little additional pollution. We could put an estimated 90 million EV on the road this afternoon without the need for a single additional power plant — coal, nuclear, or whatever. Thus this issue, I believe, is largely moot.
But don’t expect the EPA to grasp this point too quickly. These are the same people who are still trying to determine the MPG ratings for a plug-hybrid like the Chevy Volt. Apparently, the fact that this is number that has no possible definition (it could be 50, 500, 5,000 or 50,000 depending on how the car is driven) does not deter them from spending many man-years studying and debating the issue. It makes just as much sense to argue about the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.
In any case, I applaud Paul for his incisive and fair-minded article, and I encourage readers to check it out here.
