Cities Take Climate Action

Cities could put a massive dent in global warming, with or without the help of national governments.

That’s the word from a new report by the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40), a network of major cities around the world, along with the Stockholm Environment Institute and Michael Bloomberg, the United Nation’s Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change. The top line number from the paper is that city governments could cut the world’s annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 3.7 billion tons in 2030 and 8 billion tons in 2050 on their own, with no national direction.

Specifically, there are four things city governments can do. The biggest move would be improving building energy use through efficiency and weatherization retrofits, more energy-efficient lighting and appliances, and more rooftop solar to cut fossil energy use. Next, cities can move toward pedestrian and public-transit-reliant traffic through better urban planning. One quarter of the average product’s shipment occurs in urban areas, so the third thing cities could is improve the logistics and efficiency of rail shipments. Fourth, better waste systems and recycling operations can reduce the GHGs from garbage and landfills, and waste.

As the study notes, pledges by national governments so far to cut their emissions have focused on policies that cover multiple industrial sectors, like electricity and industrial production. “Their pledges and action plans have seldom considered or reflected the impact of urban climate actions,” the report said. “Cities also have unique and strong influence overs several policy levers — such as urban planning and public transportation — that may be less available to national actors.”

What this means is that emissions reductions from specifically city-based actions can be considered in addition to national reductions, rather than as a piece of the latter. And when the potential of the two is added together, the reduction is significant.

CREDIT: C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group

“The reality is that the work is going to be done in cities,” said Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter. “It will be done mostly by mayors. And then we will drive our respective nations’ national agendas around these issues.”

Furthermore, once we’ve emitted carbon pollution, it stays in the atmosphere for centuries. So annual emission rates don’t matter nearly as much as the total amount we emit, ever. And cumulatively, the urban actions outlined in the report could avoid 140 billion tons of GHGs by 2050. The latest work from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) pegged the total amount the world can emit and still stay under 2°C of global temperature rise — the threshold beyond which scientist believe climate change will become truly dangerous — at 1,102 billion tons (1,000 billion metric tons). We’ve already emitted 585 billion tons, and under a business-as-usual scenario the IPCC thinks we’ll blow through the rest sometime in the early 2040s. So while cities can’t single-handedly save us, they could buy the world a fair amount of time. [Climate Progress]

We Could Be Heros

Five years ago, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization published a report called "Livestock's Long Shadow," which maintained that 18 percent of greenhouse gases were attributable to the raising of animals for food. The number was startling. [Some reports say that number is even higher.] 

What [matters] is that few people take the role of livestock in producing greenhouse gases seriously enough. Even most climate change experts focus on new forms of energy ...and often ignore the much easier fix of adjusting our eating habits.

The earth may very well be running out of clean water, and by some estimates it takes 100 times more water (up to 2,500 gallons) to produce a pound of grain-fed beef than it does to produce a pound of wheat. We're also running out of land: somewhere around 45 percent of the world's land is either directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, and as forests are cleared to create new land for grazing animals or growing feed crops, the earth's capacity to sequester greenhouse gases (trees are especially good at this) diminishes.

I could go on and on about the dangers of producing and consuming too much meat:  heavy reliance on fossil fuels and phosphorous (both in short supply); consumption of staggering amounts of antibiotics, a threat to public health; and the link to many of the lifestyle diseases that are wreaking havoc on our health.

Here's the thing: It's seldom that such enormous problems have such simple solutions, but this is one that does. We can tackle climate change without inventing new cars or spending billions on mass transit or trillions on new forms of energy, though all of that is not only desirable but essential.

In the meantime, we can begin eating less meat tomorrow. That's something any of us can do, with no technological advances. If personal choice enacted on a large scale could literally save the world, maybe we have to talk about it that way. We could be heroes, like Bruce Willis in "Armageddon," only maybe the sacrifice is on a more modest and easier scale. (You already changed your light bulbs; how about eating a salad?)

Mark Bittman - We Could Be Heros

The act I want to talk about is growing some — even just a little — of your own food. In fact it's one of the most powerful things an individual can do — to reduce your carbon footprint, sure, but more important, to reduce your sense of dependence and dividedness.

A great many things happen when you plant a vegetable garden, some of them directly related to climate change, others indirect but related nevertheless. Growing food comprises the original solar technology: calories produced by means of photosynthesis. Years ago [we] discovered that more food could be produced ...by replacing sunlight with fossil-fuel fertilizers and pesticides, with a result that the typical calorie of food energy in your diet now requires about 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce. 

Yet the sun still shines down on your yard, and photosynthesis still works so abundantly that in a thoughtfully organized vegetable garden (one planted from seed, nourished by compost from the kitchen and involving not too many drives to the garden center), you can grow the proverbial free lunch — CO2-free and dollar-free. This is the most-local food you can possibly eat (not to mention the freshest, tastiest and most nutritious). And while we're counting carbon, consider too your compost pile, which shrinks the heap of garbage your household needs trucked away even as it feeds your vegetables and sequesters carbon in your soil. 

What else? Well, you will probably notice that you're getting a pretty good workout there in your garden, burning calories without having to get into the car to drive to the gym. (It is one of the absurdities of modern life that, having replaced physical labor with fossil fuel, we now burn even more fossil fuel to keep our unemployed bodies in shape.) Also, by engaging both body and mind, time spent in the garden is time (and energy) subtracted from electronic forms of entertainment.

You begin to see that growing even a little of your own food is, as Wendell Berry pointed out 30 years ago, one of those solutions that, instead of begetting a new set of problems — the way "solutions" like ethanol or nuclear power inevitably do — actually beget other solutions, and not only of the kind that save carbon. 

Still more valuable are the habits of mind that growing a little of your own food can yield. You quickly learn that you need not be dependent on specialists to provide for yourself — that your body is still good for something and may actually be enlisted in its own support. If the experts are right, if both oil and time are running out, these are skills and habits of mind we're all very soon going to need. We may also need the food. Could gardens provide it? Well, during World War II, victory gardens supplied as much as 40 percent of the produce Americans ate.

But there are sweeter reasons to plant that garden. At least in this one corner of your yard and life, you will have begun to heal the split between what you think and what you do, to commingle your identities as consumer and producer and citizen. 

Chances are, your garden will re-engage you with your neighbors, for you will have produce to give away and the need to borrow their tools. You will have reduced the power of the cheap-energy mind by personally overcoming its most debilitating weakness: its helplessness and the fact that it can't do much of anything that doesn't involve division or subtraction. The garden's season-long transit from seed to ripe fruit — will you get a load of that zucchini?! — suggests that the operations of addition and multiplication still obtain, that the abundance of nature is not exhausted. The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world.

- Michael Pollen - The Way We Live Now

European Union reduces emissions

The European Union reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 2.1 percent from 2011 to 2012. This takes place after a massive 4.1 percent decrease from 2010 to 2011.

As the official press release notes :

Eurostat estimates that from 2011 to 2012 CO2 emissions decreased in nearly all Member States, except Malta (+6.3%), the United Kingdom (+3.9%), Lithuania (+1.7%) and Germany (+0.9%). 

The largest decreases were recorded in Belgium and Finland (both -11.8%), Sweden (-10.1%), Denmark (-9.4%), Cyprus (-8.5%), Bulgaria (-6.9%), Slovakia (-6.5%), the Czech Republic (-5.2%), Italy and Poland (both -5.1%).

Given how in 2010, greenhouse gas emissions were already 15.4 percent lower than in 1990 (source: Eurostat), the goal of slashing emissions by 20 percent from 1990 to 2020 is within reach.

Ford accelerates waste reduction effort

Ford plans to reduce waste sent to landfills by 40% and greenhouse gas emissions by 30% over the next three years. 

Ford said the effort will also have financial benefits for the firm. 

[Business Green]

More ambitious policies needed to cut emissions

World Resources Institute warns more ambitious policies are needed to cut emissions 17 per cent by 2020 [WRI Report]

Summary

U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are expected to rise unless additional policy actions are taken. This report identifies a suite of policies that the Administration can pursue that do not require new legislation by the U.S. Congress. If pursued with "go-getter" level ambition, those policies can reduce U.S. emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels in 2020.

Key Findings

• Without new action by the U.S. Administration, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will increase over time. The United States will fail to make the deep emissions reductions needed in coming decades, and will not meet its international commitment to reduce GHG emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.
• The U.S. EPA should immediately pursue emissions reductions from existing power plants and natural gas systems using its authority under the Clean Air Act. These two sectors represent two of the top opportunities for substantial GHG reductions between now and 2035.
• The U.S. Administration should pursue hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) reductions through both the Montreal Protocol process and under its independent Clean Air Act authority. Eliminating HFCs represents the biggest opportunity for GHG emissions reductions behind power plants.
• U.S. states should complement federal actions to reduce emissions through state energy efficiency, renewables, transportation, and other actions. States can augment federal reductions.
• New federal legislation will eventually be needed, because even go-getter action by federal and state governments will probably fail to achieve the more than 80 percent GHG emissions reductions necessary to fend off the most deleterious impacts of climate change.

US CO2 emissions fall 13% over 5 years

US carbon emissions have fallen 13 per cent over the past five years to reach their lowest levels since 1994, according to a new report published by Bloomberg New Energy Finance on behalf of industry group the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE).

A doubling of renewable energy capacity and increases in the use of natural gas have reduced reliance on coal and oil, while improving energy efficiency has seen demand for energy fall steeply.

Renewables represented the largest single source of new growth last year.

Costs are also falling: large solar power plants produced electricity at an average of 14 cents per kilowatt hour in 2012, compared to 31 cents/kWh three years beforehand.

In contrast, from 2007 to 2011 coal's share of the energy mix declined from 22.5 per cent to 18.1 per cent and oil fell to 36.7 per cent from 39.3 per cent.

Meanwhile, energy demand decreased by 6.4 per cent from 2007 to 2012 largely due to efficiency gains and despite economic growth.

The report notes energy efficiency is increasingly becoming a business priority, particularly among large power consumers such as manufacturers. US utility budgets for efficiency expenditures reached $7bn in 2011, while the energy intensity of commercial buildings has fallen by more than 40 per cent since 1980.

Emissions cuts also came in the transport sector, where sales of hybrids and plug-in vehicles reached 488,000 units in 2012.

[Business Green]

[Bloomberg FactBook]

Scotland pledges to decarbonize power sector by 2030

Ed Miliband and the shadow Scottish secretary, Margaret Curran, 
with chief executive of Scottish Power Renewables, Keith Anderson. 
Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

The Scottish Government has unveiled plans to decarbonise its energy sector by 2030 and boost the offshore wind energy supply chain, as it also prepares to update its climate change strategy.

First Minister Alex Salmond confirmed that Scotland would aim to cut emissions from the electricity sector from 347 grams of CO2 per kWh in 2010, to 50g CO2/kWh by 2030, as recommended by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC).

Recent figures showed Scotland has the best emissions reductions in Western Europe, ahead of Germany, Denmark and England, and is more than halfway to meeting a 2020 goal of reducing emissions 42 per cent against a 1990 base line.

The Scottish Government has backed calls for a UK-wide power sector decarbonisation target for 2030. [Business Green]

Largest cargo company hits emissions reduction targets early

The world's largest shipping container company, Maersk Line, has hit its target of cutting emissions by a quarter against 2007 levels eight years ahead of schedule and has now upped its 2020 target to a 40 per cent reduction by the end of the decade.

Clean energy transition is starting

For the electric power industry, the signs of change are in the air. Power plants are emitting less pollution than in prior years, and renewable power is a bigger part of the energy mix than ever before. That adds up to cleaner air and a more diverse, resilient and lower-carbon electricity system. Ceres assesses the environmental performance and progress of the electric power sector by analyzing the air emissions of the nation's top 100 power producers. This is the eighth edition of the Benchmarking Air Emissions report, and this year, the findings were particularly significant:

• From 2008 to 2010, sector-wide sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions both fell by over 30 percent.
• Over the same period, carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions fell four percent and preliminary data show another five percent reduction in 2011.
• Non-hydroelectric renewable energy accounted for nearly five percent of U.S. electricity generation in 2011. Including large hydroelectric projects, renewables now provide over 10 percent of our power.

Those results speak volumes. Cutting SO₂ and NOx emissions by a third in just a couple years is remarkable, and it reflects that a clean energy transition is within reach. The drop in carbon emissions is also encouraging, but it is important to ensure that the trend continues by continuing to emphasize renewable energy and efficiency. What we did with SO₂ and NOx, we can do with CO₂.

What are the drivers of this remarkable change? Primarily, power producers are shifting away from coal-fired generation to natural gas-fired plants and even cleaner, zero-emissions renewable energy resources such as wind, solar and geothermal energy. They have also installed emissions controls for the coal plants they are running, as additional Clean Air Act rules are set to go into effect over the next few years.

In April 2012, coal- and gas-fired generation were equal for the first time ever. As power producers adjust their generating fleets, gas is being swapped for coal in some cases, but in others, coal plants are being retired outright. According to the 2012 Benchmarking Air Emissions report, 12 percent of the nation's coal-fired generation fleet—about 40 gigawatts of capacity—will be retired. And as the plants that are being phased out are largely older, high-emitting generating units.

US CO2 emissions are down!

U.S. carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions resulting from energy use during the first quarter of 2012 were the lowest in two decades for any January-March period. Normally, CO2 emissions during the year are highest in the first quarter because of strong demand for heat produced by fossil fuels. However, CO2 emissions during January-March 2012 were low due to a combination of three factors.

• A mild winter that reduced household heating demand and therefore energy use

• A decline in coal-fired electricity generation, due largely to historically low natural gas prices

• Reduced gasoline demand

CO2 emissions from coal were down 18% to 387 million metric tons in the January-March 2012 period. That was the lowest-first quarter CO2 emissions from coal since 1983 and the lowest for any quarter since April-June 1986. The decline in coal-related emissions is due mainly to utilities using less coal for electricity generation as they burned more low-priced natural gas.

About 90% of the energy-related CO2 emissions from coal came from the electric power sector. Coal has the highest carbon intensity among major fossil fuels, resulting in coal-fired plants having the highest output rate of CO2 per kilowatt-hour.

http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=7350#tabs_co2emissions-1

Cities making progress on CO2

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes said that four-dozen cities in the so-called C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group are reducing emissions by launching energy efficiency programs, capturing methane in city landfills, installing more efficient street lighting, and other initiatives.

They cite the CO2 reductions as proof that the world's cities can make significant progress on slashing greenhouse gases even in the absence of a global agreement on cutting carbon emissions. "We're not arguing with each other about emissions targets," Bloomberg told reporters in a teleconference.

"What we're doing is going out and making progress." Bloomberg and Paes said that 59 cities have committed to cut their carbon emissions by a total of 1 billion tons by 2030, equivalent to the combined greenhouse gas emissions of Canada and Mexico.

iPads in the cockpit

iPad in the cockpit saves 326,000 gallons of jet fuel a year.
That will eliminate 6,877,000 lbs. of CO2 emissions each year! 

United Airlines and Apple announced today that the airline will deploy 11,000 iPads for its United and Continental pilots. This is the first major airline to replace paper flight manuals with electronic flight bags, or EFBs.


"The paperless flight deck represents the next generation of flying," said Captain Fred Abbott, United's senior vice president of flight operations, in a press release. "The introduction of iPads ensures our pilots have essential and real-time information at their fingertips at all times throughout the flight."


The switch to tablets on board aircraft isn't just good for Apple. United's plan will save 16 million sheets of paper and 326,000 gallons of jet fuel a year, because each 1.5-pound iPad will take the place of about 38-pounds of operating manuals, flight charts and checklists, logbooks, and informational papers pilots normally reference. Paper-based flight bags normally house over 12,000 sheets of paper… per pilot.


http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/08/ipad-dominates-skies

Market value of companies decreased by CO2 emissions

In a study of S&P500 corporations conducted by the business schools of Notre Dame, Univ of Wisconsin and Georgetown University, researchers found that "for every additional thousand metric tons of carbon emissions for our sample of S&P 500 firms, firm value decreases by $202,000."

"The economic effect of carbon emissions on firm value is large, particularly since the direct costs of carbon emissions have been less than $40 per metric ton in the recent past."

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Georgetown University and the University of Notre Dame believe the report is the first to provide evidence of the price that U.S. capital markets are assigning to emissions.

"The results have significant implications, as federal regulation requiring companies to pay for their carbon emissions continues to be debated," said Sandra Vera-Muñoz, one of the authors and a professor at the University of Notre Dame, in a statement. "Although regulation has yet to be adopted, our results suggest that the markets are already anticipating the effects of the costs of emissions on firm value."

Court Rejects Industry Challenge to Limits on Smokestack CO2

A decision issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit means that, come January, for the first time, many new or upgraded factories, power plants or other facilities will have to get a permit under the Clean Air Act to emit carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases. 

All the balls that are in motion towards regulation will now stay in motion. First, the endangerment finding, which is the foundation for all the regulation, is intact. That means that the vehicle rules finalized in March 2010 setting mileage and emissions standards for model-year 2012, which are the first ever to address GHGs [greenhouse gases], will go into effect in January.

Under EPA's interpretation, GHGs become "subject to regulation" on January 2, 2011, which is when the vehicle rules become operational. Once GHGs are subject to regulation, new stationary sources (i.e. smokestacks) that emit more than certain thresholds of GHGs will require permitting that mandates the "best available control technology" for GHGs. 

Initially, in January, under EPA's "tailoring rule" only sources that emit more than 75,000 tons of  CO2e will require permitting but only if they also require permitting for conventional pollutants as well. Then in July 2011, any facility that emits more than 100,000 tons of CO2e will require permitting even if they do not require a permit for conventional pollutants. EPA has not stated if or when they are going to lower the thresholds to smaller sources. 

Cloud Computing - reduces CO2 emissions

The rapid growth of cloud computing could reduce energy usage in the global information technology industry by 38 percent by 2020, according to a new report. Cloud computing refers to Internet-based computing in which data and applications are shared between computers on demand, rather than hosted on a separate server.


According to Colorado-based Pike Research, much of the computing currently done by businesses with internal data centers will be outsourced to more efficient cloud data services within a decade. That investment will yield "industry-leading rates of efficiency" and reduced greenhouse gas emissions, according to the report. 


"Simply put, clouds are better utilized and less expensive to operate than traditional data centers," the report says. 

White Roofs

NEW YORK — Herb Van Gent points his infrared gun at a square of still unpainted gray shingle and clicks the trigger. He gets an immediate temperature reading: 143 degrees and rising. Then he aims it 5 feet away to a square of roof I have just painted: 98 degrees and decreasing.

He smiles.

"A 45-degree difference and we're only on the first coat," he says. That means it also will be cooler inside the building, he says, saving energy.

Its 11 a.m. and we are on the roof of a New York retirement home, rolling out a thick, shiny white paint. Van Gent is one of a volunteer group that has come up here to paint the roof as part of a city-sponsored "cool roof" program.

The idea of painting roofs white is catching on across the country; Energy Secretary Steven Chu has said it could contribute to the fight against global warming.

"Cool roofs are one of the quickest and lowest-cost ways we can reduce our global carbon emissions and begin the hard work of slowing climate change," said Chu in July, while announcing that Department of Energy buildings would be painted white wherever possible.

While white roofs keep homes cool in summer by letting less heat in, they have little impact on winter heating bills, according to the Cool Roof Rating Council, a non-profit group created in 1998 to research and implement the technology. That's generally because the sun is less intense in winter, the group said, and less important as a heat source. The roofs do not let any more heat escape than other roofs, it said.

In Arizona, cool roofs are mandatory for state and state-funded buildings, while Philadelphia has an ambitious green energy plan that put cool roofs at its center.

In New York, with Mayor Michael Bloomberg's blessing, the Department of Buildings and other public and private groups have vowed to paint 1 million square feet of roof on city-sponsored community buildings. Organizers have advertised on Craigslist for volunteers, promising that the painting is rewarding and fun.

Read more...

CO2 Emissions Down in 2009

There is some good news today. 
The Department of Energy has released a report announcing that CO2 emissions are down more than 6% in 2009.

CO2 emissions are actually declining faster than GDP, which is down about 2.5% in 2009. 

http://www.eia.doe.gov/ oiaf/ environment/ emissions/ carbon/ ?featureclicked=1&

RFK Jr.'s thoughts on ending our coal addiction

How to end America’s deadly coal addiction

By Robert F. Kennedy Jr

Published: July 19 2009 19:36

Converting rapidly from coal-generated energy to gas is President Barack Obama’s most obvious first step towards saving our planet and jump-starting our economy. A revolution in natural gas production over the past two years has left America awash with natural gas and has made it possible to eliminate most of our dependence on deadly, destructive coal practically overnight – and without the expense of building new power plants.

Whatever the slick campaign financed by the powerful coal barons might claim, coal is neither cheap nor clean. Ozone and particulates from coal plants kill tens of thousands of Americans each year and cause widespread illnesses and disease. Acid rain has destroyed millions of acres of valuable forests and sterilised one in five Adirondack lakes. Neurotoxic mercury raining from these plants has contaminated fish in every state and poisons over a million American women and children annually. Coal industry strip mines have already destroyed 500 mountains in Appalachia, buried 2,000 miles of rivers and streams and will soon have flattened an area the size of Delaware. Finally, coal, which supplies 46 per cent of our electric power, is the most important source of America’s greenhouse gases.

America’s cornucopia of renewables and the recent maturation of solar, geothermal and wind technologies will allow us to meet most of our energy needs with clean, cheap, green power. In the short term, natural gas is an obvious bridge fuel to the “new” energy economy.

Since 2007, the discovery of vast supplies of deep shale gas in the US, along with advanced extraction methods, have created stable supply and predictably low prices for most of the next century. Of the 1,000 gigawatts of generating capacity currently needed to meet national energy demand, 336 are coal-fired. Surprisingly, America has more gas generation capacity – 450 gigawatts – than it does for coal.

However, public regulators generally require utilities to dispatch coal-generated power in preference to gas. For that reason, high-efficiency gas plants are in operation only 36 per cent of the time. By changing the dispatch rule nationally to require that whenever coal and gas plants are competing head-to-head, gas generation must be utilised first, we could quickly reduce coal generation and achieve massive emissions reductions.

In an instant, this simple change could eliminate three-quarters of America’s coal-burning generators and save a fortune in energy costs. Around 920 US coal plants – 78 per cent of the total – are small (generating less than half a gigawatt), antiquated and horrendously inefficient. Their average age is 45 years, with many over 75. They tend to be located amidst dense populations and in poor neighbourhoods to lethal effect.

These ancient plants burn 20 per cent more coal per megawatt hour than modern large coal units and are 60 to 75 per cent less fuel-efficient than combined cycle gas plants. They account for only 21 per cent of America’s electric power but almost half the sector’s emissions. Properly assessed, the costs of operation, maintenance, capital improvements and repair of these antiquated facilities make them far more expensive to run than natural gas plants. However, irrational energy sector pricing structures make it possible for many plant operators to pass those costs to the public and make choices based exclusively on fuel costs, which in the case of coal appear deceptively cheap because of massive subsidies.

Mothballing or throttling back these plants would mean huge savings to the public and eliminate the need for more than 350m tons of coal, including all 30m tons harvested through mountain-top removal. Their closure would reduce US mercury emissions by 20-25 per cent, dramatically cut deadly particulate matter and the pollutants that cause acid rain, and slash America’s CO2 from power plants by 20 per cent – an amount greater than the entire reduction envisaged in the first years of the pending climate change legislation at a fraction of the cost.

To quickly gain further economic and environmental advantages, the larger, newer coal plants that remain in operation should be required to co-fire with natural gas. Many of these plants are already connected to gas pipelines and can easily be adapted to burn gas as 15 to 20 per cent of their fuel. Such co-firing dramatically reduces forced outages and maintenance costs and can be the most cost effective way to reduce CO2 emissions.

Natural gas comes with its own set of environmental caveats. It is a carbon-based fuel and its extraction from shale, the most significant new source, if not managed carefully, can have serious water, land use and wildlife impacts, especially in the hands of irresponsible producers and lax regulators. But those impacts can be mitigated by careful regulation and are dwarfed by the disaster of coal.

The writer is president of Waterkeeper Alliance

High-Res Map of US Per-Capita CO2 Emissions

New High-Res Map of US Per-Capita CO2 Emissions

US Power Plant CO2 Emissions - Fastest Growth in a Decade

Robert W Scherer Power Plant is a coal-fired plant just north of Macon, Georgia.

It emits more carbon dioxide than any other point in the United States.

WASHINGTON, D.C. March 18, 2008
A poor progress report on efforts to rein in greenhouse gases:

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from U.S. power plants climbed 2.9 percent in 2007, the biggest single year increase since 1998, according to new analysis by the nonprofit and nonpartisan Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) of data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Now the single largest factor in U.S. climate change pollution, the electric power industry’s carbon dioxide emissions have risen 5.9 percent since 2002 and 11.7 percent since 1997.

“The current debate over global warming policy tends to focus on long-term goals, like how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent over the next fifty years. But while we debate, CO2 emissions from power plants keep rising, making an already dire situation worse. Because CO2 has an atmospheric lifetime of between 50 and 200 years, today’s emissions could cause global warming for up to two centuries to come.”