Category Archives: Greening US

Carbon emissions and basic algebra

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When the countries around the world announced emission reductions, cuts, plans the media cheered. However, if we all did some basic algebra it would be different.

For example, the US announced its plans based on 2005 rather than the 1990 conventional numbers used in Kyoto. Why? Because US emissions grew a lot from 1990 to 2005 and reductions from a large base is easier. Australia is using 2000.  China uses 2005 and India another number. So every country is talking a different benchmark. So, we cannot actually compare.

May be we should GDP per capita as a benchmark.

On the second set of numbers.  US announced reduction in carbon emissions and China, India announced carbon intensity reductions. Both are as different as apples to oranges. But the press misses this. For an example check out the Ny Times. Just to clarify, I support the carbon intensity focus of the developing countries. My gripe is with media reporting.

Some good analysis from Matthew Khan,

I am happy to hear that China has pledged to reduce its carbon intensity by 40% by 2020 but does this guarantee a smaller global carbon footprint? Recall that carbon intensity = tons of CO2/GNP. China’s economy has been growing by 8% per year. Make the big assumption that this average growth rate will continue until 2020 and ignore compounding. So, in ten years their economy will be 80% bigger and their carbon intensity will be 40% lower than it is now. So, according to my logic relative to today, China’s total carbon emissions will be .6*80% or 48% higher. From Al Gore’s standpoint, is that progress? At the same time that President Obama is pledging a 20% reducing in CO2 emissions (under these growth assumptions), China’s government is pledging that their emissions will be 48% higher.

Leith Sharp

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Harvard University
Image via Wikipedia

While working in the Greening job I learned a lot in terms of systems and inspiration from Leith’s work at Harvard. She has done some amazing stuff at a bureaucracy like Harvard.

She was the first paid environmental officer on the Kensington campus when still a student and after graduation was hired to “green” the university, which she did for five years.She pushed for sustainable solid waste disposal, worked with the state transit authority to cut commuting times to the campus, and ran a greenhouse gas challenge, an environmental living program so people could learn how to live sustainably, and a “green office” program.

By the time she took up a Churchill Fellowship in 1999 there were eight staff, funded by grants from not-for-profit groups, and government and university funding.When she set off to study international trends, she discovered “we were the ones leading, and instead of me learning from everyone else’s programs I used to get invited to present the UNSW case study.

It was exciting to be asked but on the other hand I was devastated to realise that no one had the answers in the higher education sector.”She spoke at Harvard and was recruited to create and run a program aimed at the enormous task of greening the campus.Her initiatives at Harvard are estimated to be saving $US7millon annually and have set the pace in the US higher education sector. Sharp has plenty of practical advice on inculcating the cultural change that must support technical measures such as equipment upgrades, lighting and insulation improvements, and making it self-funding.

via Harvard visitor Leith Sharp sharpens focus on sustainability | The Australian.

Obama’s pick to solve the energy crisis

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Environmentalists and climate change activists are understandably delighted. Consider this: For eight years the United States has boasted an Energy Department that for all intents and purposes was a subsidiary of the U.S. oil industry. Now, should he be confirmed, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who specializes in climate change and renewable energy and already knows how to run a decent-size bureaucracy is going to be in charge of realizing Obama’s bold promises to lead the United States toward an energy-sustainable future. Symbolically speaking, one would be hard put to draw a sharper contrast between the Bush and Obama eras than what is achieved by this single appointment.

via Obama’s pick to solve the energy crisis – How the World Works – Salon.com.

Greening the Bailout

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Our economy is like a car, added Sridhar, and the financial institutions are the transmission system that keeps the wheels turning and the car moving forward. Real production of goods that create absolute value and jobs, though, are the engine.

“I cannot help but ponder about how quickly we are ready to act on fixing the transmission, by pumping in almost one trillion dollars in a fortnight,” said Sridhar. “On the other hand, the engine, which is slowly dying, is not even getting an oil change or a tuneup with the same urgency, let alone a trillion dollars to get ourselves a new engine. Just imagine what a trillion-dollar investment would return to the economy, including the ‘transmission,’ if we committed at that level to green jobs and technologies.”

Indeed, when this bailout is over, we need the next president — this one is wasted — to launch an E.T., energy technology, revolution with the same urgency as this bailout. Otherwise, all we will have done is bought ourselves a respite, but not a future. The exciting thing about the energy technology revolution is that it spans the whole economy — from green-collar construction jobs to high-tech solar panel designing jobs. It could lift so many boats.

Op-Ed Columnist – Green the Bailout – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com.

A New Player In The North American Emissions Trading Sector

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From the Alt Energy Stocks Blog:

Firstly, on May 30, the Montreal Exchange, a derivatives exchange, announced that it was launching an emissions trading market for CO2. The Montreal Exchange is now a unit of the TSX Group (TSXPF.PK or X.TO), the firm that runs all of Canada’s exchanges.

The second announcement came last week, when the premiers of Quebec and Ontario, Canada’s two largest provinces and the heart of its industrial base, announced that they were moving ahead with a cap-and-trade scheme to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. Together, these two jurisdictions form North America’s fourth largest economy, so needless to say this is a market with some potential.

GEs Solar Business – $1 Billion in 3 Years

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A solar bonanza for GE.

General Electric Co expects its nascent solar-energy business to hit the $US1 billion annual revenue mark over the next three years or so, the head of its energy arm said.
[...]
The unit currently has over $US100 million in revenues…”If you think about the solar that’s on the market today, it’s six, seven times more expensive than wind,” Mr Krenicki said. “Solar requires material science breakthroughs, which is something that GE is good at.”
[...]
The Fairfield, Connecticut-based conglomerate expects to apply lessons learned in quickly building its wind business — which is on track to hit the $US6 billion revenue mark this year –to solar, Mr Krenicki said.

“We’re not going to dabble in the solar business,” Mr Krenicki said. “We will put the pedal to the accelerator once it is very clear what our competitive advantage is.”