MIT Study finds the benefits of clean power outweigh costs by up to 10x

Savings due to avoided health problems help offset -- and in some cases greatly outweigh -- the costs of carbon dioxide-cutting policies in the United States, according to a new study.

The study, led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that health benefits offset between 26 and 1,050 percent of the cost of greenhouse gas reduction policies. The study examined three different types of climate policies: a clean-energy standard, a transportation policy targeting on-road vehicles and a cap-and-trade program.

Health benefits occur because the policies not only cut carbon dioxide emissions but also lead to reductions in pollutants that form ground-level ozone and fine particulate matter, the researchers said. Both pollutants can cause asthma attacks and heart and lung disease.

"If cost-benefit analyses of climate policies don't include the significant health benefits from healthier air, they dramatically underestimate the benefits of these policies," said lead author Tammy Thompson, formerly at MIT and now a researcher at Colorado State University, in a release.

The results of the study were published yesterday in the journal Nature Climate Change. The study was funded in part by U.S. EPA, the Department of Energy and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The researchers call the study the most detailed assessment to date on the interactions between climate policies, air pollution impacts, and the costs and benefits of both. The team used models to examine the impacts of climate policies on local and regional air quality, focusing on ozone and particulate matter levels between now and 2030.

"We examine the entire pathway linking climate policies, economic sector responses, emissions, regional air quality, human health and related economic impacts, using advanced models at every stage," the researchers wrote.

The three policies were chosen because they resemble approaches that have been considered in the United States. Of the trio, the clean energy standard would require emissions reductions from power plants that are similar to those in EPA's recently proposed clean power plan.

Industry and business groups have charged that the policy would lead to job losses, economic damage and inequality among states.

But the MIT study found that a clean energy standard would lead to health savings of $247 billion compared to a $208 billion cost. The savings from a cap-and-trade program would be higher, more than 10 times the $14 billion cost, they said.

Savings came in the form of avoided hospital admissions and saved sick days linked to reductions in ozone and particulate matter. The savings remained relatively constant among the policies.

"Carbon-reduction policies significantly improve air quality," said Noelle Selin, an assistant professor of engineering systems and atmospheric chemistry at MIT and co-author of the study, in the release. "In fact, policies aimed at cutting carbon emissions improve air quality by a similar amount as policies specifically targeting air pollution."

The health co-benefits from a transportation policy, though, would recoup just 26 percent of its costs, due to a high price tag of more than $1 trillion.

The results take into account present air quality regulations, but the authors note that benefits would decline if EPA changes the base line by issuing policies between now and 2030 that would require large reductions in ozone, particulate matter and other conventional pollutants.

For all three of the carbon policies, co-benefits would become tapped out after a certain point and carbon emissions reductions wouldn't lead to greater improvements in air quality.

"While air quality co-benefits can be comparable with policy costs for present-day air quality and near-term U.S. carbon policies, potential co-benefits rapidly diminish as carbon policies become more stringent," the MIT study said.

The authors said that carbon policies, though, would need to advance beyond that point in order to effectively manage climate change.

"While air-pollution benefits can help motivate carbon policies today, these carbon policies are just the first step," Selin said in the release. "To manage climate change, we'll have to make carbon cuts that go beyond the initial reductions that lead to the largest air-pollution benefits."

Environmental News Digest

Mercury Levels In The Ocean Are Now 3 Times Higher Than Before The Industrial Revolution - Largely the result of burning and mining coal http://thkpr.gs/1u1Ds2l 

Drilling Company Owner Gets 28 Months In Prison For Dumping Fracking Waste Into River http://thkpr.gs/1sxaOTL

New Study Finds Tornado Outbreaks Could Have a Climate Change Assist - http://thkpr.gs/1swGzwl

Watch John Holdren's (Obama's Science Advisor) excellent 3 minute video on the link between wildfires and Climate Change - Very Powerful http://youtu.be/hDsNq-rVplE

Canadians Can't Drink Their Water After 1.3 Billion Gallons Of Mining Waste Flows Into Rivers http://thkpr.gs/1tStxvZ

Tesla Trumps Toyota: Why Hydrogen Cars Can't Compete With Pure Electric Cars - http://thkpr.gs/1sqWqN2 

Top PR Firms say - We Won't Work For Climate Denier Clients http://thkpr.gs/1tOWsRw

Toledo Water Ban Lifted But Test Results Kept Secret http://thkpr.gs/1sngKin 

Impacts of Fracking

Here is the latest on fracking - This time from Ohio... 

Operators of an Ohio wastewater injection well sue individuals over billboards criticizing the project, in what advocates say is part of a broader pattern of industry quieting opponents in the state. 

Actions by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) have also thwarted citizens' attempts to speak out against fracking and related activities, Johnson said. ODNR staffers showed up with at least 14 armed personnel and a dog at one 2013 meeting in Portage County.

This time from Oklahoma... 

Oklahoma's Geology Survey recorded an unprecedented 20 small earthquakes across the state on Tuesday, highlighting the dramatic increase of seismic activity that has occurred there as the controversial process of hydraulic fracturing — otherwise known as fracking — has spread across the state.

Cornell University geophysics professor Katie Keranen is the latest researcher to produce a scientific study showing a probable connection between earthquakes wastewater injection, finding in July that the more than 2,500 small earthquakes that have hit Oklahoma in the past five years can be linked to it. Keranen's study analyzed four prolific wastewater disposal wells in southeast Oklahoma City, which collectively inject approximately four million barrels of wastewater into the ground each month. The research showed that fluid from those wells was migrating along fault lines for miles, and Keranen's team determined the migration was likely responsible for earthquakes occurring as far as 22 miles away.

Wildfires and Water

The problems stemming from climate change will be expressed through water. On the Atlantic coast, we all have images of waves pouring into and through our cities, but in the West, the issue is not one of too much water, but too little. 

Climate change makes wet places wetter and dry places drier. In the West, one result of a long term drought is more and more devastating wildfires.

2013 is already a huge wildfire year; and it may become a record year after a series of very bad wildfire years. So far this year almost 4,000,000 million acres have burned, an area larger than the state of Connecticut. 

Here in San Francisco, we have become acutely aware of the dangers the Rim Fire near Yosemite. That fire is already the largest fire in the recorded history of the Sierra Nevada, a fact that by itself should give everyone pause. For many of us though, the surprise has been the threat this fire has posed to our drinking water, most of which comes from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park. The threat to our drinking water will continue for years because of erosion and flooding as a result of the burned forest.

San Francisco is not alone. Twenty-percent of the clean water for our nation's cities originates in forests. In the west, major cities depend on water from forests. In addition to San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Denver and even Los Angeles depend on clean water that originates in forests. Huge wildfires could pose a toxic threat to metropolitan populations hundreds of miles from the fire, populations that feel falsely secure from these fires. [Climate Progress]

Our Drinking water - Lessons from Japan

You might remember the front page article in the Globe earlier this week talking about how officials had announced that the drinking water in Tokyo was not safe for pregnant women and infants, followed by assurances the following day that the water is now safe. 

You may have wondered how the drinking water in Tokyo could have been contaminated when Tokyo is 200 miles south of Fukushima. I certainly did. 

The NY Times may have provided a clue this morning in their article discussing radiation and Boston's dependence on the Quabbin Reservoir for our drinking water. I hadn't realized that the Quabbin Reservoir is only 30 to 40 miles downwind from the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor. 

If there were to be an accident at the Yankee nuclear reactor, the probability is high that the Quabbin and Boston's drinking water would be affected. 

What are your thoughts?

From the article - 

"One place to look? The Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts, one of two reservoirs supplying the bulk of demand to the city of Boston.

Located about 30 miles south of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant in Vernon, Vt., the open-air reservoir is the largest man-made one in the United States and falls within a 50-mile "ingestion pathway zone" that extends around the nuclear plant on all sides.

Vermont Yankee has been under a cloud recently as Vermont lawmakers have voted to close the plant, citing safety concerns, when it reaches the end of its operating life next year. But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission determined this week that it should be given a 20-year extension on operations.

Vermont Yankee is of the same design as the nuclear reactors now failing in Japan..."

Another step forward for Clean Water

The EPA set new water-quality standards for surface coal mining in central Appalachia that Administrator Lisa Jackson said would likely block mountaintop-removal projects from dumping wastes in streams.


"The people of Appalachia shouldn't have to choose between a clean, healthy environment in which to raise their families and the jobs they need to support them," she said. "This is not about ending coal mining, it is about ending coal mining pollution."


The guidance sets the first-ever numeric water standards for conductivity — a measure of the level of salt — in streams near surface coal mines and is intended to protect 95 percent of the region's aquatic life and freshwater streams, the agency said.


To qualify for a Clean Water Act permit, mining companies must show their proposed project will leave streams with conductivity measured at no more than 500 microsiemens per centimeter, a measure of salinity that EPA said is roughly five times above normal levels.


There are "no or very few valley fills that are going to meet this standard," Jackson told reporters in a conference call. "Valley fill" refers to the practice of dumping waste from mines into nearby valleys. Mining operations have buried nearly 2,000 miles of Appalachian headwater streams, the agency said.


"We expect this guideline to change behaviors, to change actions," Jackson said. "Because if we keep doing what we have been doing, we'll continue to see degradation of water quality."


The standards were prompted by a growing body of research indicating surface mining is damaging Appalachia's environment and public health, Jackson said.


EPA today also released two draft studies, one documenting the adverse effects on aquatic ecosystems of pollutant levels associated with high conductivity. Conductivity levels are on average 10 times higher downstream from mountaintop mines and valley fills than in unmined watersheds, the draft concludes.
The new regulations are effective immediately on an interim basis while EPA takes public comment and considers revisions. The regulations do not apply retroactively to existing Clean Water Act permits, but they will be applied to the nearly 80 permits that EPA last year held for "enhanced review," Jackson said.
Jackson said the new guidelines apply for now only to surface mines in central Appalachia because that is where the data they are based on were gathered, but she said the science could eventually compel the agency to consider conductivity standards for waters surrounding underground mines, as well.


West Virginia's senior U.S. senator, Democrat Robert Byrd, praised EPA's action. "I am pleased that EPA Administrator Jackson took our concerns about the need to provide clarity very seriously and has responded with these guidelines," he said in a statement. "Today's announcement will hopefully now have everyone reading off the same page."


 Environmental groups called the standards a major and much-needed crackdown on coal-mining pollution.
"The new policy represents the most significant administrative action ever taken to address mountaintop-removal coal mining," said Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune. "Today's announcement reaffirms the Obama administration's commitment to science and to environmental justice for the communities and natural areas of Appalachia."