Category: Environment

“Green” Energy: The Color of Money

In light of the recent legal filing for creditor protection by Spain-based, Abengoa, Inc., the viability of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is getting appropriate scrutiny and reconsideration. Through that program, the giant green-energy company received billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars in grants, loans, and subsidies. Still, last week they were forced to close their cellulosic ethanol facility in Hugoton, Kansas. The court filing for creditor protection came the day before Thanksgiving and within a week, the Kansas employees received layoff notices while many creditors received nothing.

Economic predictions suggest taxpayer losses could amount to five-times that of the 2011 Solyndra collapse. For local farmers, $5 million in unpaid, delivered product prompted their cooperative (CHS, Inc.), to file a lawsuit just two days prior to Abengoa filing for protection in a Spanish court. While some articles and blogs appear to revel in an Obama administration failure, others denounce the fact-based reporting of Abengoa’s troubles as a hit-piece against green-energy. Neither position is accurate, valid or productive.

From a free-market, smaller government perspective, the issue is not green-energy versus traditional energy sources. There is no denying the world would be a better place if everyone had access to affordable, renewable clean energy. But, consider the financial sink-hole that is the Hugoton plant and contrast that with the stunning announcement that it has sold zero gallons of cellulosic ethanol, and it is apparent that to some the label of “green” energy denotes big money as opposed to an emphasis on low environmental impact.

It should be noted that Abengoa’s demise was not a shock to everyone. Various sources have been sounding the warning sirens for years.

  • A 2009 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report warned of multiple challenges to RFS’s increasing volumes of biofuels, particularly cellulosic.
  • November 2011: Senator Jeff Sessions of the Senate Budget Committee specifically requested all documents relating to Abengoa and other solar companies from the Department of Interior (DOI).
  • 2012 GAO letter to The Honorable Dianne Feinstein, and House & Senate members of the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, Committee on Appropriations stating it was the sixth time GAO had reported its concerns about (DOE) loan guarantees for biofuels.
  • March 2012 GAO report to Congress restating concerns about the lack of adequate review and oversight by DOE and its $30 billion loan program, detailing Abengoa as the recipient of $1.2 billion.
  • March 2012: U.S. House Oversight Committee report specifically finds loans and resources granted to Abengoa, created excessive risk. The report reveals that “Abengoa managed to obtain a DOE loan commitment for the lowest rated project across the entire DOE Junk portfolio — which received an extraordinarily low CCC rating and was still approved by DOE for a direct loan to the project. This overinvestment in this single firm will likely cause substantial harm to the taxpayer.”
  • May 29, 2012: Letter from the U.S. House Oversight Committee threatened the Department of Interior (DOI) with “compulsory action” if they failed to release requested documents related to Abengoa and other solar companies. The Committee stated appearance of preferential treatment in taxpayer-funded loan guarantees.
  • April 30, 2013: Office of Inspector General (OIG) reported Abengoa of received $2 million dollars through The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) for a project completed before the passing of the law.
  • May 1, 2014: GAO warned a significant threat to taxpayers in the DOE biofuels loan programs due to poor oversight and deviation from monitoring and qualifying procedures that, “pose an unacceptable risk of default.”

Highlighted above are but a few examples of serious problems with the government’s renewable fuels program. So, as presented, critics are not opposed to the concept of green energy but see the RFS as a seriously flawed mechanism to that end. The wasting of billions of dollars on infrastructure for a product that is not market ready could be better served funding advancing research projects in laboratories. The simple concept of putting the cart before the horse comes to mind. It is not Capitalism when the Federal government, through sheer financial force develops unsustainable, artificial industries.

Even Abengoa knew the Kansas plant would not be self-sustainable. In a 2014 report to DOE, the company presented their risk mitigation plan. The list included a push for the development of “energy crops”, continued dependence on the RFS to maintain a premium for ethanol, and to encourage the USDA to allow farmers to produce cellulosic biofuel crops on Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) lands.

The Abengoa plan does not reflect the goal of eventual self-sufficiency, but instead, details what others may contribute to help restructure market fundamentals to suit Abengoa’s projected goals. That is not capitalism. We have limited lands for food production, and the thought of more farmland to biofuel production is alarming. Also, the move would defeat one of the RFS stated goals of developing renewable energy by utilizing material currently identified as low valued waste or by-products.

To be clear, green-energy, as in renewable, eco-friendly, sustainable, and affordable, is a national security and humanitarian issue. There is little debate about the need to pursue that end. But, the government mandates and financial handouts created extremely provocative incentives to abuse the U.S. taxpayers. Through big dollar, experimental programs that ignore market impact, economic viability, coupled with extremely lax oversight, the term “green-energy” takes on a different meaning.

Dec 14, 2015 | 3 comments | by

New EPA Employee Bonuses Spark OIG Investigation

Back in the day, if you needed to relocate for a new job, you could elicit the aid of a few strapping young men for little more than the cost of a pizza and a six-pack of beer. Add the cost of a rental truck, and you could probably recoup your expenses after the first paycheck.

Today, the same could probably happen, unless you’re a newly hired Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Director of Finance, in Research Triangle Park (RTP), North Carolina. As detailed in a November 30th investigative report by the Office of Inspector General (OIG), the OIG hotline received an anonymous call stating a new EPA Director in the RTP Finance Center requested a $250,000 reimbursement of relocation costs. The complainant alleged that on the new Director’s behalf, the Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) intended to award the funds.

The subsequent investigation found that the new Director had inquired about relocation reimbursement during the interview process and was informed the hiring package did not include such a benefit. However, shortly after she accepted the position, she approached the OCFO, again asking for relocation reimbursement. Thus began the tale of the North Carolina EPA Financial Director’s money chase.

Facts at a glance

10/2014

EPA posts job announcement for Director of Finance.
02/05/2015 The subject employee agrees to accept job with no relocation reimbursement per HR denial citing agency rules.
02/25/2015 OCFO contacts HR after being asked by subject employee to revisit the issue as a relocation “incentive” as opposed to relocation “reimbursement.”
03/09/2015 OCFO submitted request for a relocation incentive to HR for $15,000 representing estimated moving and storage costs.  Again, the request denied.
04/02/2015 HR denied two subsequent revised requests from the OCFO for the subject employee’s relocation incentive.
04/05/2015 Subject employee begins working as New Director with no reimbursement or incentive for relocation.
04/21/2015 Hotline call to OIG regarding OCGO’s intent to give new Director a total of $250,000 compensation for relocation.
05/13/2015 OCFO awarded new Director $4,500 bonus (6 weeks after start)
06/25/2015 OCFO awarded another $4,500 bonus (12 weeks after start)
07/07/2015 The OIG began its audit and investigation as a result of the hotline call. During the audit, OIG learned another bonus was forthcoming. That order was withdrawn as a result of the notice of the investigation.

The OIG concluded its financial audit on September 22, 2015, noting in the report the new Director never received the proposed $250,000 relocation reimbursement.  However, the two $4,500 bonuses within 3-months of her start date were unprecedented and represented approximately 25 percent of her salary for the 3-months covering the time period of her employment.

Upon conclusion of the investigation, the OIG recommended the EPA’s Deputy Administrator revisit the awards made to the new Director, RTP Finance Center, to determine whether the awards are reasonable and properly justified and, if needed, take appropriate action. In addition, for future awards, EPA should establish and require a proper level of management review for multiple awards that total in excess of $5,000 during a fiscal year to ensure that awards are reasonable and justified in comparison to other awards.

Dec 07, 2015 | Leave a Comment | by

Congressional Request leads to Scathing Review of the EPA

Businesses, landowners and farmers know the feeling of dread that comes with hearing the words “not in compliance” from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA has earned the reputation of delivering heavy-handed enforcement actions and exorbitant punitive penalties. The agency’s authoritarian over-reach is near legendary, earning them the moniker “rogue agency”. Even the U.S. Supreme Court gave the EPA a dressing-down stating they commonly strong-arm regulated parties into “voluntary compliance” without the opportunity for judicial review. The EPA has taken a firm stance that the rules are published, and therefore, noncompliance is not excusable.

Yet, a congressionally requested federal review of the EPA found the agency regularly ignores rules that pertain to its own operating procedures as dictated by law. In fact, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report says the EPA disregards the law in its reporting to congressional inquiries. According to the GAO, the EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) is not in compliance with the long-standing Environmental Research, Development and Demonstration Authorization Act of 1978 (ERDDAA). As well, the agency’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) fails to follow legal requirements of the Clean Air Act.

The GAO investigation revealed agency staffers routinely judge whether a congressional request is a policy driven question or requires a science-based response. As a result, answers to lawmaker’s queries often have no scientific basis in fact. Also, the agency failed to perform regular five-year impact reviews of national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS). Under the Clean Air Act, CASAC is to review and report “any adverse public health, welfare, social, economic, or energy effects” resulting from regulations and strategies of NAAQS. According to the GAO, the EPA “has never” instructed CASAC to comply with the federal requirement to review and report.

Members of Congress and the GAO have voiced similar concerns regarding EPA conduct and manner of operational performance.

  • Regularly ignores epidemiological evidence that dispels, counters, or invalidates their decisions.
  • Ignores their own scientific panels to format or propel false alarms.
  • Uses federal law, such as the Clean Water Act, to regulate private lands through regulatory “takings” of rights.
  • Consistently exceeds its legislative authority forcing businesses, municipalities, and citizens to challenge regulations through the court system.
  • Abuses authority in “policing” of private property activity through notoriously heavy fines.
  • Habitually practices “moving the goal” tactics to hamper businesses and industries efforts to remain operationally compliant.

The agency’s standard operating procedures often are in defiance of the law. Also, the arbitrary use of selected and contrived science to establish environmental regulation is a serious threat to our national wellbeing and jeopardizes public health, general welfare, socio-economic conditions and our environment.

Oct 21, 2015 | 1 comment | by

Economic Gain Increases Environmental Quality

The relationship between environmental quality and economic development has been described as an environmental Kuznets curve: Initially, economic development exacerbates environmental problems; however, as an economy grows and develops, average incomes reach a certain point beyond which environmental indicators start to improve.  Indeed, as gross domestic product per capita increases, emissions of pollutants per $1 of gross domestic product falls. This is true also of industrial emissions of carbon dioxide, which was not traditionally viewed as an air pollutant, but is now regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency.  [See the table.] This suggests that economic progress is a prerequisite for improving environmental quality generally, and specifically for meeting carbon dioxide emissions reductions goals.

Carbon Dioxide Emissions

(kilograms of CO2 per $1 gross domestic product)

 

  1990 2000 2010
China 1.9695 1.0110 0.9084
India 0.6533 0.6538 0.5338
Japan 0.3341 0.3328 0.2966
Singapore 0.6105 0.3196 0.0510
South Africa 1.1881 1.0964 0.9692
United Kingdom 0.4272 0.3169 0.2416
United States 0.5988 0.5121 0.4174

 

Note: Dollars of GDP adjusted for purchasing power parity.

Source: Millennium Development Goals Database, United Nations Statistics Division.

Special contribution by NCPA research associate Jiawen Chen. 

Aug 26, 2015 | Leave a Comment | by

The Golden-cheeked Warbler and Piecemeal Environmental Policy

A tiny, migratory songbird is causing a big ruckus in Texas. At issue is the Golden-cheeked warbler’s status according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). The bird caused a related stir in 1990 when it was the subject of a petition by members of the anarchist environmental group, Earth First! The petition moved the FWS to exercise its emergency authority to declare a species endangered under the 1973 Endangered Species Act (ESA). In December 1990, the agency issued its final rule designating the bird to be an endangered species.

However, a recent comprehensive study has motivated several groups to call for the removal of the golden-cheeked warbler from the list. The findings, as presented by Texas A&M, has been peer reviewed, published in respected journals, and judged as scientifically sound. It appears the golden-cheeked warbler is not endangered. Even more concerning, the species may not have been in peril in 1990, the year FWS declared an emergency protected status.

What does this mean to the hundreds of private property owners who have suffered land restrictions, substantial fines, and criminal prosecution as a result of the warbler’s status? For example, one such case saw a Texas rancher penalized for clearing Ashe Juniper (Cedar) from his property. An activity FWS deemed damaging to the protected bird’s breeding habitat. In a negotiated settlement, the landowner transferred 48 acres to a public preserve and paid $220,260 in land management fees.

Even if one were to believe the earlier, mostly anecdotal based evidence that the golden-cheeked warbler was threatened, the latest research supports its removal from the list of endangered species. Still, some ask since recovery efforts have been so successful, why should the warbler be delisted to face uncertainty?

Simple answer first, the endangered species listing is for species that are, in fact, endangered. To maintain a status that is not evidenced based, delegitimizes the significance of the entire list. Second, although there is no geographical designation of warbler habitat, Ashe Juniper (Cedar) trees are recognized as essential to warbler nesting. So, while the bird is a protected species, landowners are subject to restrictions, in what amounts to a regulatory taking of property rights in regards to Ashe junipers.

Finally, the listing of the warbler has caused a clash of agencies, pitting federal against state in a battle of species management. As well, the limited focus on warbler breeding habitat protection has contributed to serious health issues, particularly for children.

To explain, while the FWS strictly enforces habitat (a tree) protection, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPW) calls the golden-cheeked warbler issue, “A single-species approach to wildlife management“. As a result of federal restrictions, the invasive characteristics of Ashe juniper has negatively impacted the natural ecosystem. According to TPW, in areas where the tree has been left to survive, it has depleted groundwater, increased soil erosion, and impacted the diversity of other plant species. The rise of Ashe juniper, being of little food value, has disrupted the natural habitat of other animal species. In fact, TPW has worked to limit, even eradicate the Ashe juniper while the FWS punishes citizens for clearing the tree from their land.

The increase in Ashe Juniper has also resulted in an upsurge of illness during its pollination cycle. Termed “cedar fever” the effects of Ashe juniper allergies can range from itchy eyes to pneumonia and even trigger asthma attacks. The Ashe juniper tree has one of the most allergenic pollens. In fact, The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) has named seven Texas cities in its 2015 list of the most challenging places to live in regards to annual pollen scores.

So here we have the question, should the golden-cheeked warbler be removed from the list of endangered species? Yes. If not merely for the logic the bird is not threatened, then for the impact the designation has to other sensitive areas. More consideration should be made to the causal sequence of government agency decisions prior to making rules. Consideration should be given to economic impact to private citizens, potential health issues, and an analysis of the possible harm to other plant and wildlife species. When pondering the importance of diverse species to a healthy environment, too often the human element is not represented in the equation. A more holistic approach would better assure a healthy, balanced ecosystem.

Aug 24, 2015 | Leave a Comment | by

EPA and Regulatory Taking of Private Property

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution forbids the government from taking privately owned property without the due process of law, and without just compensation. However, what constitutes a government “taking” and can “due process” be preemptively satisfied by agency regulation? It seems in the case of “wetlands”, the EPA has overreached its authority.

Let us first attempt to identify “wetlands”. According to a comprehensive classification system developed in 1979, a site can be categorized as coastal or inland, yet the classification of “wetland” is not site-specific. Instead, “wetlands” is explained as a hierarchical, progressive structure of connected waters of the state. In what is termed the Cowardin Classification System, “wetlands” is an all-encompassing geographical feature. It consists of linked layers of species and subspecies, soil types and subtypes, an assortment of vegetation, along with various water sources, movements, and duration of presence. Simply stated, a piece of ground that can receive water (including rain) is part of the system that is “wetlands”. The Cowardin System, prepared for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is an impressive, comprehensive report. Indeed, it has been the de facto standard for EPA employees in assigning a wetlands designation to private property. As a result, EPA’s authority and jurisdiction relating to “Navigable Waters” has multiplied.

As a result, many landowners have lost private property usage and development rights. Effectively, the property owner has suffered a “taking” by the federal government. Such was the case of Mike and Chantell Sackett, an Idaho couple who challenged the EPA’s enforcement actions under §404 (wetlands) of the Clean Water Act (CWA). In a 2013 decision, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously against the EPA. In essence, the agency could not deny the Sacketts a hearing to challenge the agency’s use of CWA authority and jurisdiction over their land. The Sacketts successfully argued the EPA violated their constitutional right to due process. The simple question before the Supreme Court was whether landowners have a right to challenge a legal order of the EPA? The answer was a resounding 9 to 0 “Yes”. The EPA worked to preclude the right to judicial review exercising self-assumed authority in designating wetlands. In the majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the court rejected EPA’s attempt to use the CWA as a blanket fulfillment of due process. Justice Samuel Alito concurred stating Congress should clarify ambiguities in the CWA.

In the case of Rapanos v. the United States, though the court came to no decision (the parties eventually settled), four Justices spoke against the EPA. Justice Scalia wrote the EPA’s use of the term “waters of the United States” is an overreach in identification of wetlands. The concurring Justices agreed. The court found that occasional, intermittent, or ephemeral water flows may have a hydrological connection. However, “are not sufficient to qualify a wetland as covered by the CWA; it must have a continuous surface connection”.

Likewise, in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County (SWANCC) v. United States Army Corps of Engineers, the Court ruled against EPA. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote the EPA overreached in its wetland designation of “isolated, abandoned sand and gravel pits with seasonal ponds, which provide migratory bird habitats”. Both the Rapanos and the SWANCC court opinions counter the Cowardin concept of all waters being connected in one wetlands system. Such decisions constitute a slap-of-the-hand by the Supreme Court to EPA and offer an opportunity to discuss the ever increasing dominance of the agency over the lives of everyday citizens.

America’s founders designed our government to serve the people. Increasingly citizens are left with little recourse but to ask the courts to assure their constitutional rights as threatened by dominant government agencies. The EPA, arguably being one of the most insidious, dictatorial federal agencies.

Fortunately, recent Supreme Court decisions and Justice Alito’s urging that Congress address ambiguities have triggered action by some. Several Senators have introduced S.980 a bill that attempts to clarify the CWA by explaining waters of the state are “Navigable-in-fact” and is “permanent, standing, or continuously flowing bodies…from streams, oceans, rivers, and lakes and are connected to waters that are navigable-in-fact“. Passing S. 980 would be a great start to corralling the EPA’s assault on private property rights. This, along with the Supreme Court ruling affirming the 5th amendment right to due process is an indication we are making headway.

Aug 19, 2015 | Leave a Comment | by

Gold King Mine an EPA Superfund Site

On Tuesday, August 11, 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released an Emergency Response Statement to a massive pollutant spill in Colorado. According to the agency, EPA contractors caused the accidental breach. As a result, contaminated water flushed from the long abandoned Gold King Mine into Cement Creek, a tributary of the Animas River. The following day, EPA released another statement to explain early reports of a much smaller spill. Following efforts by the U.S. Geological Survey to measure flow rate, the volume of lead, acidic toxins, and heavy metal-laden water was determined to be over three million gallons.

Additionally disturbing was the failure of the EPA to inform the state governors of the spill. “The EPA is not communicating openly with the state of New Mexico,” said Governor Susana Martinez to Fox News. “It took them about a little less than twenty-four hours before they even told us.” In fact, she goes on to explain that it was the Southern Ute Indians that notified her office and criticized the EPA for not revealing exactly what the toxins are.

To farmers, industry, and small business the EPA has the well-established reputation of intimidation and tyrannical authority. The enforcement section of their web page offers thousands of criminal prosecutions, a majority of them settled by a guilty plea. Comparable percentages in the criminal justice system are unattainable. Simply, the justice system requires the government to prove a person guilty while EPA’s system leaves little opportunity for one to even attempt to prove themselves innocent.

For example, Washington state dairyman Roger Bajema pled guilty to permitting wastewater discharge. His plea finally came three years after EPA inspectors took a sample of soil from a drainage ditch. Mr. Bajema acknowledges the ditch had a broken rain water pipe used to move run-off from barn roofs to a holding pond. Broken pipe aside, the family believes he was “targeted”. The farmer had attended an EPA informational forum the day before the inspection. Mr. Bajema spoke, voicing his displeasure with the heavy-handed presence of the agency in his community. The following day, while he worked to repair the cracked water pipe, EPA officials arrived at his farm and began inspecting and sampling. After three years of threats of fines for up to $37,000 a day, he finally learned of the results of the samples in a highly dramatized press release.

The EPA earned a $7,500 penalty for the three-year assault on the Bajema family dairy farm. A large sum of money for a small operator, but a mere pittance to EPA coffers. In 2014 alone, under Civil Enforcement Monetary Commitments, the agency raked in $9,738,000,000 (rounded up to the nearest hundred million) in court ordered Injunctive Relief. They received another $135,000,000 (give or take) in other penalties. In addition, under Superfund Cleanup Enforcement they realized $601,000,000 (thereabouts) and another $63,000,000 in Criminal Enforcement Fines (Environmental Protection Agency [EPA], 2015). This to an agency with a 2015 enacted budget of over $8.1 billion and a workforce of over 15,000.

Still, the EPA is responsible for violating the 1972 Clean Water Act (CWA), the very law it is tasked with enforcing. According to 33 U.S.C §1251 et seq. (1972), the CWA makes it, “unlawful to discharge any pollutant from a point source into navigable waters” (EPA, 2015, para. 3). Mr. Bajema was penalized $7,500 and humiliated in his community for the charge of “potential” to pollute. As a result of the stress, he has sold the cows and closed his operation. Will the EPA suffer a similar punishment? It isn’t likely.

The superpower agency may have already begun working on a way to spin their failure. The EPA website shows the Upper Animas Mining District in Silverton, Co as a Region 8 Superfund site although not on the National Priority List (NPL). It is clear the EPA was aware of the issue for decades. However, a recent Associated Press (AP) news article blames the local community for standing in the way thus contributing to EPA’s failure to take action. This “it’s not our fault” approach to the disaster is not a defense Mr. Bajema offered.

Six days after the spill EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy stated, “It pains me to no end to see this happening”. As well, at an event in Washington D.C. she said the EPA is taking full responsibility and when pressed by a reporter said, “I am absolutely sorry this ever happened“. This may be the closest we get to an apology. It pains us all, but where is the accountability? Are we to believe the zero tolerance attitude of EPA enforcement will result in an equal penalty, punishment, and public humiliation as suffered by other offenders? Or, like the General Services Administration (GSA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and the Veteran’s Administration (VA) the EPA will go on and suffer no consequences.

Aug 17, 2015 | Leave a Comment | by

Private-Public Partnerships Move to Improve Texas Energy and Environment

Apart from obvious biological costs of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, there were heavy indirect costs associated with the spill which most economists will likely never be able to calculate accurately. These intangible costs include the heavy blow dealt on the Gulf’s tourism sector that year.

The mere cleanup costs of similar spills have been monumental:

Cleanup of Oil Spills

Note: These figures are projections based on the estimated average cost of cleaning up a single barrel of oil in today’s dollars. They do NOT include the cost to other industries, countries, outstanding damages to private property or the value of lost oil. In the case of Mexico in its 1979 Ixtoc I spill, these three external estimated costs totaled an astonishing $872 million. 

Unsurprisingly, British Petroleum estimates that over 30 percent of medium-term oil production will be offshore oil, hence risk management strategies are not only a foremost ethical parameter but a rational metric for increasing a company’s profitability. Bearing this end in mind, the University of Houston and Texas A&M at Corpus Christi are forming the Subsea Systems Institute and Texas OneGulf, and will enjoy close collaboration with NASA, Rice University, ExxonMobil, Halliburton and Sclumberger among others. The two research organizations — aided by the private sector — will pioneer deep-sea drilling technologies designed to protect the environment and private enterprises through safer and more cost-effective deep-sea drilling practices.

Our vision is to create an institute that is recognized around the world as the undisputed leader in transformative deepwater technology… We will create, test, and provide the technologies that industry will need in the next five to 10 years.

– Ramanan Krishnomoorti, Chief Energy Officer and Interim Vice President for Research and Technology Transfer at the University of Houston

 

Jul 01, 2015 | 5 comments | by

The Clean Coal Technology Myth

The potential rise of clean coal technology has been hampered by its costly nature. Originally intended to prevent greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere, there have been few real applications of this technology. The most promising clean coal development was the potential to make hydrogen from water by using coal and then burying the carbon dioxide by-product and burning the hydrogen, a form of carbon capture and sequestration.

In effect, clean coal technology was supposed to give the coal industry a lifeline into the future of cleaner fuels. In reality, the costs associated with clean coal increase the price of generation by up to 80 percent and cuts efficiency by 30 percent. Initial funding from the federal stimulus bill in 2009 offered $3.4 billion for carbon capture and sequestration. The money, however, soon ran out as costs escalated.

In Mississippi, for example, a clean coal technology project already estimated at $6.2 billion went so over budget that the South Mississippi Electric Power Association withdrew from the project. The coal plant was already the costliest fossil-fuel power plant ever engineered. In February 2015, the Department of Energy similarly pulled its support on a $1.1 billion clean coal project, called FutureGen, in Illinois.

The growth of cheap natural gas has been especially worrisome for the coal industry. In the United States, Arch Coal, one of the largest coal companies, is about to be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. Even China, a country that traditionally burns half the world’s coal, has been increasingly switching to natural gas and renewable energy. Between January and April of 2015, China’s coal demand fell 8 percent.

Even with so much bad news, coal’s share of primary-energy use in the world is unlikely to fall below 25 percent, from a peak of 30 percent in 2010, by 2035. For many countries, coal still means cheap and reliable energy where such a thing is rare. In such countries, regulations aren’t driving up the price of generation ensuring a continuous supply of affordable energy.

 

Jun 24, 2015 | 1 comment | by

Environmentalists for School Choice

Last year I met Dr. Bart Danielsen, the Founder of Environmentalists for Education Reform. What a brilliant concept! As a long-time environmental economist, and urban economist, I should have recognized the vital importance of the connection between at least the “school choice” part of the urgently needed transformational education reform and environmental impact, not to mention the very fiscal and economic sustainability of central cities. Family flight to the suburbs has been a disaster; tax base loss, loss of business/jobs, and environmentally. The latter disaster arises from the blight of property abandonment and infrastructure decay, loss of open space to suburban sprawl, and increased driving which means more pollution.

Once the connection fully sank in, I recalled that my The School Choice Wars discusses a 1990’s Denis Doyle paper that describes survey results that said “school choice” would have kept a lot of middle/upper income families from moving to the Baltimore suburbs. Nathan Gray and I discovered a similar phenomenon in Edgewood, west of downtown San Antonio, TX. School choice attracted families and business, and drove public school improvement.

Well, thankfully, Dr. Danielsen recognized the vital importance of the connection.  He’s working hard to give it prominence through publication, networking, and the documentation of additional examples. Hopefully, this will significantly broaden the pro-transformation, pro-choice coalition.

Jun 10, 2015 | Leave a Comment | by
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