Saturday, October 10, 2009

Climate Progress

Climate Progress


GM agrees to sell Hummer to Tengzhong, but will Chinese regulators kill the deal? Meanwhile, Saturn dies.

Posted: 10 Oct 2009 07:55 AM PDT

http://www.rogerwendell.com/images/fueleconomy/no_hummers.gifWhen we last left GM, they were pursuing buyers for Hummer and Saturn (see "GM in talks to seel Hummer to China — the second mistake by those clueless new owners?").  So of course, the smaller-car brand dies, but the 7,000-pound gas guzzlers live.  WashPost reports:

General Motors has reached an agreement to sell its Hummer brand to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery…..

It recently announced that it would wind down the Saturn brand.

The price for Hummer was not disclosed, but according to sources familiar with the negotiations, it was $150 million, far less than the $500 million price once envisioned.

Seriously, $150 million?  As I wrote back in June:

Less than $500 million?  That's a rounding error in the cash giveaways to the auto industry these days.  Why couldn't we just swallow that cost to forever remove from the planet this unsustainable blight?  Who are these clueless new owners of GM anyway?  Oh.  Never mind!

But WashPost buried the lede:

Tengzhong's quest to acquire Hummer has been seen by many as a test of China's commitment to reining in emissions of greenhouse gases. Some observers expect China's regulators to bar the acquisition.

The Hummer sale story isn't really news — but if Chinese regulators actually stopped the acquisition, that would be quite a story, though perhaps not an utter shocker (see "China begins transition to a clean-energy economy").

I wrote back in June:

The big execs at GM always viewed Saturn as a skunk works, as an effort to show that the "GM way" doesn't work, so they did everything possible to kill it….  When I wanted to buy an American car in the mid-1990s, I settled on a Saturn, which was a terrific car for me for 10 years.  Had GM not abandoned at the start of the Bush administration the hybrid vehicle development program the Clinton administration started with them in the early 1990s, Saturn might well have had a good hybrid by the time I was looking for a new car.  But they didn't.  And so I bought a Toyota Prius….

As for Hummer, I suppose you could argue that if China plans to build obscenely big gas guzzlers, they could do so on their own with or without Hummer.  And you can certainly argue that once peak oil kicks in big-time over the next 5 to 10 years, and oil prices shoot over $5 a gallon, nobody is going to be terribly interested in Hummers, which suggests GM/Obama/you-and-I are smart [not dumb?] to get some money for it.

Perhaps, but as one of the owners of GM, I'd very much like to know what this "less than $500 million" price was.  If it was a lot less, then this sale is unjustifiable on any grounds.

I think the whole brand should have been shuttered.  And if the Chinese wanted to spend many billions of dollars building their own production capacity for gas guzzlers, let them.  But that's no reason for us to act as Dr. Kevorkian in this unsustainably suicidal behavior.  My buyer's remorse grows!

What do you think?

This sale is unjustifiable at $150 million.  Let's hope the Chinese government is smarter than ours.

Related Posts:

Natural Fusion at Work in the Solar Decathalon

Posted: 10 Oct 2009 05:28 AM PDT

Part 1 was an intro to the Solar Decathalon, a contest for innovative, high-tech, high-efficiency, solar-powered homes, which is open to the public in DC from October 9-13 and 15-18.  In this reposting, guest blogger A. Siegel focuses on one finalist.  For in-depth discussion of all the others, go to his website Get Energy Smart!  NOW!!!

No, we're not speaking about Cold Fusion, but Penn State's entry into the DOE Solar Decathlon, which opens Friday on the Mall in Washington, DC. Let's take a look at some of Natural Fusion's features from its website, which is dynamic, enabling rapid connection of concepts and approaches with the home's physical layout.

Landscaping This a good spot to pick up the dynamic nature of the website and the value of that 'mapping' of features. Penn State has a rather vibrant-looking landscaping, well-described and considered. They describe it as follows:

The Natural Fusion landscape integrates the natural environment into the inhabitants' built environment. The site provides structure but also a natural setting that manages rain-water run-off, supplies food to the residents, and contributes an aesthetically pleasing setting. The landscape allows extension of interior living space to the exterior while maintaining a level of privacy for the inhabitants.

The landscaping has these separate components:

  • Sense garden
  • Green roof
  • Xeriscape meadow (although, let's be honest, a bit small of a space for a "meadow")
  • Wildlife Attractant Gardens
  • Bio-Intensive Vegetable Garden

It is an impressive line-up in what might be thought of as very limited space, not even counting the herb garden on the wall in the kitchen, but let's call attention to two:

  • The Green Roof has an Energy COOL item as it actually is linked to its solar power system, with Green Roof Integrated Photovoltaics (GRIPVs), which I'd never heard of before. (Okay, didn't feel guilty since a web search of GRIPV green roof integrated showed seven hits, including the Natural Fusion site and two links to the Inhabitat story on the house.) "Roof trays of plants sit below an array of photovoltaic panels consisting of a series of cylindrial tubes. The shape and spacing of the tubes in the panels allow plants to receive the sunlight they need, while functioning cohesively as the solar-power system for the home." They used a solar panel that allows for 360 degrees of solar collection, allowing the necessary light to support plant life below. The plants aid the PV system in providing evaporative cooling and reflection of light up towards the underside of the panels.
  • Sense Garden: Read the description and decide whether they are transporting you to another place.

Located on the southeastern corner of the home, the sense garden enables the inhabitants to be transported to a different place through enhanced senses. Tall grasses gently rustle in the breeze, while beautiful flowering plants, and fragrant herbs create a tranquil setting just beyond the private bedroom space.

Andropogon gerardii – "Big Bluestem"
Asarum canadense – "Wild Ginger"
Sorghastrum nutans – "Indian Grass"
Asclepias tuberosa – "Butterfly Weed"
Aster ericoides – "Heath Aster"
Symphyotrichum Oblongifolium – "American Aster"
Adiantum pedatum – "Maidenhair Fern"
Origanum vulgare – "Oregano"
Mentha spicata – "Spearmint"
Ocimum basilicum crispum – "Basil"

Sadly, it will be difficult to get the full feeling of calm provided by the planting amid thousands visiting the house, but Natural Fusion's landscaping seems to be a top notch contender based on web descriptions. (By the way, re web, this is a good example of the difficulties of the site's design: moving the mouse just a little leads to lost / changed descriptions and, while it might exist, a combined (full) listing of all the landscapting wasn't apparent to this reader.)

Some Energy COOL Technologies / Approaches

Every one of the Solar Decathlon entrants incorporates some mix Energy COOL technologies and approaches. Let's take a look at a few of Penn State's.

  • They having chosen to use water for thermal storage which, among other things, has an interesting life-cycle benefit of not having to be transported to the Mall, but possible to acquire there. Another interesting thermal storage path, phase change materials will also be present in the walls of the home for further thermal energy storage and will aid in reducing energy demands associated with temperature control. The organic PCM responds to a temperature gradient, transforming from a solid to a liquid as it absorbs heat from the surrounding air. This provides a cooling system which, in essences, reverses for heating. Within the context of October DC weather, this will enable cooling in the day and heating in the night passively.
  • The Solar Thermal system is one that I'm familiar with, as the Sunnovation system is on my roof in a beta test (second installation). The great direct advantage of the Sunnovation system is that it is heat pressure based, so there is no requirement for electrical pumps. It is also a drainback system, so there is no freeze (or overheating) risk.. And, it doesn't require copper piping, which can lead to lower installation costs (both in material and labor). Now, to a certain extent, the Natural Fusion team description sells the system short as it has a rather unusual (unique) element that could, if played with, make a bit of a 'splash'. The "pump" action actually creates an enclosed fountain, which provides a very visible external signal that the system is at work generating hot water. My family jokes that we wished we could have colored fluid, to make more of an artistic statement with our roof-top fountain. It will be interesting to see if Penn State has taken advantage of this 'decorative' element.

Now, what will this one-of-a-kind (first of a kind?) Natural Fusion home going to cost you? Well, the budget without a penny for labor (or inspections or …) was $190,460 for a small living space … But, hold it, that isn't the estimated price for production models. This provides a "build your own" option. Going top-of-the-line, across the board, turned the base-line $41,000, 675 square foot house, into a $166,750 leading edge renewable energy home. Hmmm …

If interested, Natural Fusion is running a live monitoring system. At the time that I looked, 4:09 pm, Tuesday, 6 Oct, it was generating .1 kw …
Some other discussions of the 2009 Solar Decathlon:

PG&E CEO: We left Chamber Of Commerce because they lied to us about climate policy; Chu says "it's wonderful" companies are fleeing the Chamber

Posted: 09 Oct 2009 01:15 PM PDT

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Thursday applauded companies that have quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because they disagree with the business group's climate change policy. "I think it's wonderful," Chu told reporters at a solar energy event on the National Mall. He said companies that left the Chamber object "to foot dragging, to denials" and realize that efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses are "part of our economic future in the United States."

… "I would encourage the Chamber of Commerce to realize the economic opportunity that the United States can lead in a new industrial revolution," said Chu, a supporter of alternative fuels and strong regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.

You just can't keep up with all the news about the nano-Chamber of Commerce.  But here are the key points:

Tom Donohue, the embattled president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, today defiantly defended the attacks on clean energy legislation and climate science that have caused a mass exodus of companies from his organization. Donohue told reporters, "We're not changing where we are," saying of critics, "Bring 'em on." One of the chamber's sharpest critics is Peter Darbee, chairman, president, and CEO of electric utility Pacific Gas & Electric, which was the first company to quit the chamber after they called for "monkey trials" on climate science. In a recent interview with E&E News, Darbee explained that his company quit the chamber after they repeatedly lied about their approach to climate policy:

"The reason for our departure from the chamber is that we had repeated discussions with the chamber about how the direction they were on was not consistent with our position, in fact, very much at odds. And their response was, "We'll take care of it. Really, our position and yours, PG&E, are much closer than you believe them to be, and don't be concerned about that." And we went down a road over several years, and there was fact after fact, development after development that caused us to believe that fundamentally we had entirely different positions."

Watch the video at E&E News..

The Chamber claims that federal regulation to limit global warming pollution would "strangle the economy." and has even called for a "Scopes monkey trial" on the science of global warming. Darbee, not surprisingly, called that "extreme language, certainly not language that we at PG&E were comfortable with."

This is how the Chamber of Commerce showed its "support" for "strong federal legislation and a binding international agreement to reduce carbon emissions and address climate change" last year:

Energy and Global Warming News for October 9: Granhom brings 160,000 clean energy jobs to hard-hit Michigan

Posted: 09 Oct 2009 11:36 AM PDT

"We have great bones as a state," says Gov. Jennifer Granholm. "We know how to build stuff. We will build on that strength and diversify this economy. We will lead the nation in creating jobs in renewable energy."The WashPost of course didn't use my headline, since for them, every silver lining has a cloud.  Obviously Michigan has had massive job losses in the auto industry, but how exactly does that translate into a "yellow light" for green jobs, except as a too-cute play on words at the expense of the real story:  Granholm has done her best to embrace the fastest growing source of new jobs in the nation and the world — clean energy jobs.  It's hard to hold her responsible for the incompetence and shortsightedness of the US auto industry, whose collapse has been decades in the making, but she clearly deserves a lot of the credit for making Michigan hospitable to clean energy industries.

In Michigan, A Yellow Light For Green Jobs

If the future of American manufacturing lies in green industries, the Michigan governor's pursuit of jobs offers a cautionary tale..

Four years ago, Jennifer M. Granholm set out to remake her state, which took an exceptional walloping with the decline of the auto industry, as a pioneer in creating environmentally friendly jobs. Today, however, jobs are still disappearing much faster than she can create them, raising questions about how long it will take Michigan and other hard-hit states to find new industries to employ their workers.

Since taking office in 2003, Granholm has created 163,300 positions, her office says. She expects that a recent infusion of more than $1 billion from the Obama administration aimed at nurturing car battery and electric-vehicle projects will generate 40,000 more positions by 2020….

In her effort to attract employers, the governor has taken up the latest arms in the economic arsenal — tax credits, loans, Super Bowl tickets and a willingness to travel as far as Japan for a weekend to try to persuade an auto parts company to bring more jobs to Michigan. She has won solar and wind energy, electric car batteries, and movie production jobs. About 10,800 of the new positions came from overseas companies, according to her office, the fruits of visits to seven countries.

Religious Groups Lobby for Climate Bill

Religious groups are stepping up their lobbying efforts in support of climate change legislation, focusing on a goal all of their flock can agree on: helping the poor and vulnerable impacted by global warming.

A number of Jewish and Christian groups are choosing to bypass climate issues that are contentious within the faith community, such as whether global warming is man-made, and are instead zeroing in on proposals in Congress to provide international aid for people impacted by the negative effects of climate change.

The push for "international adaptation aid" is also part of a broader awareness effort launching today called "Day Six," which aims to make the public and members of Congress more conscious of the moral imperative to pass legislation regulating carbon emissions.

"On the sixth day God created us, and he made us stewards of his creation," Katie Paris, the communications director for the group Faith in Public Life, said Thursday on a conference call with reporters. She also explained why religious groups are focused on international adaptation aid: "Those who are hurt most and worst should not be helped the least and last," she said.

Groups involved in the "Day Six" campaign are directly reaching out to hundreds of thousands of people in the faith community today with tools to build grassroots support for climate change legislation.

The campaign features a Web site with a 60-second video pressing the issue, social networking tools and an online petition to Senators, urging support for climate legislation with adequate funding for international adaptation programs.

Web Site Tracks Europe's Clean Energy Growth

The European Commission this week introduced an open-access online tool to monitor the development of about a dozen low-carbon technologies in the trade bloc.

The commission said its Strategic Energy Technology Plan Information System, offered ways for citizens, researchers, investors and policy makers to map funding for projects in areas including hydropower, wind, photovoltaics, concentrating solar power, wave, geothermal, bioenergy, carbon capture and storage, smart grids, nuclear fission and fusion, hydrogen and fuel cells.

A so-called bubble graph maps the current status and the potential of energy technologies between 2010 and 2050, if funding is forthcoming.

Another tool, an energy cost calculator, allows users to choose different energy and cost situations to compare the performance of various technologies.

The initiative was begun as part of efforts by the commission to raise 50 billion euros of additional investment in crucial low-carbon technologies over the next 10 years.

The initiative also is part of efforts by Janez Potocnik, the union's commissioner for science and research, to overcome the tendency of European governments to finance domestic projects rather than pool their resources and to ensure the bloc remains competitive with Japan, China and the United States in the development of low-carbon technologies.

Kingsnorth: A Blow Against Coal, or A Move For Clean Coal?

German utility E.On's decision to temporarily shelve plans for a big coal-fired power plant in the U.K. is clearly big news. The fun part is trying to figure out just why it matters so much.

For starters, the proposed Kingsnorth project is more than just another power plant. The 1,600 megawatt station would have been the U.K.'s first new coal plant since Margaret Thatcher was in office, and became a huge lightning rod for environmental opposition. Greenpeace centered anti-coal protests on Kingsnorth. Climate researcher James Hansen targeted Kingsnorth when he equated coal power with "death trains.." That's why environmental groups are cheering E.On's retreat—many see the decision as a green victory over coal, akin to the Sierra Club's relentless campaign against coal in the U.S..

Officially, E.On says the decision to delay Kingsnorth for at least 2-3 years is due to the recession, which has kneecapped the demand for electricity. "This is based on the global recession, which has pushed back the need for new plant in the UK to around 2016 because of the reduction in demand for electricity," the power company said.

While the slowdown has led to an "unprecedented" decline in U.K. electricity demand, it seems somewhat of a stretch to expect another seven years of famine just as the global economy is turning the corner. Especially when the U.K. government itself expects energy demand to grow relentlessly, and whose biggest worry is how to keep the lights on over the next decade.

More likely, E.On's decision to park the yet-to-built power plant is about a yet-to-be-developed technology: clean coal. The U.K. desperately wants to make clean coal technically and economically viable; its other energy alternatives are basically imported natural gas or nuclear plants that have yet to be built either. E.On wants clean coal to work, too—it's one of a handful of European utilities jockeying for British government funds for clean-coal development.

UN talks to end without deal on crucial issues

U.N. climate talks in Bangkok will end Friday without progress on the pressing issues of emission targets for rich countries and financing for poor nations, who insist they will not sign a global warming deal unless those matters are resolved.

For months, negotiations have been deadlocked and delegates have begun raising doubts whether a new climate pact to rein in greenhouse gases can be reached by the time world leaders gather in Copenhagen in December. The pact would replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012.

Rather than addressing the tough issues, U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer said late Thursday that the failure by rich countries to agree on ambitious emission cuts and billions of dollars in financing to help poor countries adapt to climate change has increased the distrust between the two sides.

"People in this negotiating process mainly developing countries say we have been engaging constructively over the past two weeks to put meat on the bones of an agreed outcome in Copenhagen," de Boer said.

"But we are not seeing an advance on the key political issues," he said. "The stark reality out there is that unless we see an advance on the key political issues, it is very difficult for negotiators in this process to continue their work in good faith."

Even before the talks ended Friday afternoon, environmentalists including the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace were already criticizing governments for leaving the fundamental issues to future meetings in Barcelona next month.

States not meeting renewable energy goals

Across the USA, states are falling short of their goals to increase the use of renewable energy as Congress weighs a national renewable-energy standard.

Thirty-five states have set goals to use more electricity from solar panels, windmills and other renewable forms of energy, according to a database funded by the Energy Department. There is no central clearinghouse of states' compliance records, but USA TODAY research and interviews with state and power company officials found nine states that have failed or expect to fail to meet their energy goals.

The states offer a lesson for the federal government, says Charles Benjamin of Western Resource Advocates, an environmental group. The House of Representatives passed a bill in June that called for 15% of the nation's electricity to come from alternative sources in 2020 — up from 9% last year. A Senate bill with a similar goal is likely to be combined with a climate-change bill introduced last month. "Just because you want renewable energy doesn't mean it will happen."

In their quest to draw more renewable power, states have come up against obstacles such as the recession, red tape and an outdated transmission system that makes it difficult to move solar or wind power from where it's made to where it's needed.

"We have great bones as a state," she says. "We know how to build stuff. We will build on that strength and diversify this economy. We will lead the nation in creating jobs in renewable energy. We're not going to be viewed as Luddites."