policy

Available: Home with free electric (photo by Kainet, CC 2.0 Sharealike license)

From MIT’s Technology Review comes this column from Kevin Bullis, about a recent report from Deutsche Bank on the economic benefits of investing in new energy projects:

It argues that it’s possible to address challenges related to climate change, energy security, and the financial crisis at the same time by investing in four specific areas: energy-efficient buildings, electric power grids, renewable power, and public transportation. The report cites figures that suggest investing in these areas creates more jobs than investing in conventional energy sources because much of the old energy infrastructure is already in place. It says that “a $100 billion investment in energy and efficiency would result in 2 million new jobs, whereas a similar investment in old energy [such as coal or natural gas] would only create around 540,000 jobs.”

Of course, Obama has already pledged to do something along these lines, and the blogosphere (including me, here) has chimed in as well. But the imprimatur of Deutsche Bank adds some gravitas to the proposal.

If you want to read the report yourself, it’s here.

Amory Lovins is one of my true heros, and I’m thrilled to hear that U.S New has named him one of World’s Best Leaders in their report this week. Lovins has inspired multitudes (and this blog) with his vision of “getting off oil at a profit” and “drilling for negabarrels under Detroit.” The Rocky Mountain Institute, a “think and do” tank that he founded 26 years ago, takes this vision and makes it happen for Fortune 1000 companies, the military, and governments around the world (including Portola Valley, just up the street from me, where he spoke a few weeks ago).

Lovins argues that, contrary to the common belief, efficiency is much cheaper than energy use. Especially when pursued with a technique he calls “integrative design,’ doing efficiency right results in lower energy use, lower costs in the first place, and better productivity. The last point is critical - efficiency improves not only the bottom line by reducing costs, it also improves the top line by increasing productivity and profits.

So why aren’t we pursuing energy efficency faster, if it has so many benefits? Many companies are doing so, getting benefits that go directly to their bottom line and give them a competitive advantage, like Dupont. And Intel. And Wal-Mart.

In 2006, for example, RMI partnered with Wal-Mart to boost the fuel efficiency of the retailer’s truck fleet. “When Wal-Mart came to us,” he says, “we had a lot of internal discussion, because they have big issues,” notably the company’s history of labor problems. “But we decided if we worked only with perfect companies, we wouldn’t get anything done.” The collaboration has proved fruitful. Wal-Mart is now working to retrofit its 6,800 trucks with designs developed by RMI that should allow its fleet to go from getting 6 miles a gallon to between 16 and 18 miles a gallon by 2015, saving about $500 million annually.

These companies, and many more, are enjoying an “unfair advantage” due to their pursuit of efficiency. But for many companies, there are mixed up incentives, such as between commercial landlords and their tenants. The landlord has to pay for the efficiency, but the tenant reaps the benefits - their interests are not aligned, and so “business is usual.” In his books and talks, Lovins provides techniques, guidelines, and policy suggestions to help align these incentives.

For more on Lovins, I can recommend his books, Winning The Oil Endgame and Climate: Making Sense and Making Money (both available free for download) and Natural Capitalism, written with Hunter Lovins and Paul Hawken.

You can hear Lovins in numerous talks and interviews available as podcasts, including this outstanding series of five talks at Stanford University in 2007. Download those to your iPod or mp3 player and prepare to be amazed by the possibilities.

Congratulations Amory!

Image via Wikipedia

In their editorial Green Energy vs. Actual “Green” Energy Basin and Range Watch point out that there are lots of opportunities for making a big mess of the environment while trying to save it. The focus of this site is the Mojave and Great Basin Deserts in Nevada and California, the targets of many new solar projects. “There are over one million acres of public land in the six states that are being considered for sacrifice.”

Most of these projects require a lot of water, and all require “clear cutting” the desert to prevent weeds and pests.

How ironic that this so called “green revolution” has taken the irresponsible direction of so much environmental destruction. Why not just use the countless rooftops and vacant space of the millions of developed urban acres in the southwest? Could it be that urban environmental planning is considered too costly? We are baffled by this because it defeats the purpose of green.

As we make the changes to our economy and our energy infrastructure that we have to make, we have to take care of our existing resources, such as the great deserts. For no other reason than we don’t really know everything about them. For example, it’s been learned recently that:

Desert plants and soils store carbon better than most northern forests. Desert plants are masters of storing carbon. CAM (”crassulacean acid metabolism”) plants are plants that use certain special compounds to gather carbon dioxide (CO2) during photosynthesis.

Don’t want to lose that while trying to eliminate carbon from our energy system, do we? We have a lot of carbon already in the atmosphere that needs sucking up. What else is this desert flora and fauna doing for Earth that we haven’t learned yet? Do we want to take the chance of upsetting yet more of the balance? We need to take a lot of care as we move forward with whatever large-scale energy projects we undertake.

I recommend this article, and I’d be interested to hear your thinking about how to avoid bad consequences while achieving energy independence.

There is lots of opportunity to reduce energy intensity throughout the U.S. economy

In “a few policies to hedge against crashing oil prices,” the latest post on the Rocky Mountain Institute’s “Environmental Lovin’s” blog, Amory Lovins himself provides some suggestions on how to keep making progress on energy independence despite the recent dip in oil prices. Of course, efficiency is the star of the show:

We now have techniques to save half our oil and gas, and three-quarters of our electricity, at about an eighth of their price. Energy efficiency remains one of the highest-return and lowest-risk investments in the entire economy.

The basic argument is that no matter how low oil prices go, efficiency remains more cost effective than almost any other investment. His specific suggestions, such as “fee-bates” to encourage purchasing more efficient cars, rewarding utilities for cutting energy use (as we do in California), and implementing policies that get older less efficient cars off the road faster, are covered in much more detail in RMI’s two books Winning The Oil Endgame and Climate: Making Sense and Making Money (both free for download).

Efficiency investments pay for themselves twice over - saving money on energy usage, while reaping numerous benefits as side effects - improved productivity in businesses, faster learning in schools, better sales in shops. As Lovins concludes:

Conscientiously pursued, this … approach would solve the oil, climate, and proliferation problems at a profit, over a few decades, totaling trillions of dollars.

There have been calls already for President-elect Obama to bring Lovins into the cabinet to help drive us to energy independence. He won’t do it (he wants to remain independent), but hopefully Obama and his team will at least take the advice - it will definitely pay off for all of us - and help us out of the recession to boot.

Otis wasn't sure if it was really a crashed spaceship or not!

Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food) gave some advice to the next president (Obama, as it turns out) in the NY Times October 12 Sunday Magazine. If he didn’t know already, Pollan warned him that food policy is going to be a big issue, and provides some advice on what to do about it.

It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned during the campaign: food.

Modern U.S. agriculture (especially as embodied in “The Farm Bill”) is not only a giant user of fossil fuels, but also arguably the major contributor to health crises like obesity and diabetes.

Agriculture in the U.S. uses a surprisingly large amount of fossil fuels (about 14% of the total), and actually generates proportionally more potent greenhouse gases than other uses of the same feedstock. The green revolution was all about fossil fuel-based fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, and monoculture. Furthermore, the incentives are perverse, especially in the U.S., anti-health and anti-family farm.

Summarizing Pollan’s article, the key recommendation is the “resolarization” of American agriculture:

Right now, the government actively discourages the farmers it subsidizes from growing healthful, fresh food: farmers receiving crop subsidies are prohibited from growing “specialty crops” — farm-bill speak for fruits and vegetables. … Commodity farmers should instead be encouraged to grow as many different crops — including animals — as possible. Why? Because the greater the diversity of crops on a farm, the less the need for both fertilizers and pesticides.

Pollan was also on Fresh Air on October 20, a fantastic interview following up on this article, which you can hear at http://freshair.npr.org. I have the mp3 of the show if you want to listen to it on your pod-player (let me know - I’ll make it available for download).