House Passes 15% Renewable Energy by 2020

The United States House of Representatives has passed an Energy Bill requiring utility companies to produce 15 per cent of their electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar power by 2020.

The Bill passed in the House on a 241-172 vote, despite strong opposition from electric utility companies and the White House, which has threatened to veto the measure. Twenty six Republicans voted in favor and nine Democrats opposed the bill.

A senior analyst for Lazard Capital Markets described the bill as "a significant positive step towards creating a cohesive energy policy."

The renewable electricity standard applies only to investor-owned utilities and exempts rural electric cooperatives, municipal utilities, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the state of Hawaii from the mandate.

The bill also calls for stronger energy efficiency standards for appliances and lighting and incentives for building more energy-efficient buildings. The bill bans the sale of 100-watt incandescent light bulbs by 2012 and requires that all bulbs be 300% more efficient than today’s ordinary bulbs by 2020. The bill also includes a range of loan guarantees, federal grants and tax breaks for alternative energy programs. These include building biomass factories, research into making ethanol from wood chips and switch grass and producing better batteries for hybrid cars.

The bill will repeal a tax break for oil companies from 2004, and another tax break relating to income from foreign oil production. Critics of the two tax breaks called them loopholes that the industry had taken advantage of.

The 786-page House energy bill does not include an increase in fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks. That issue, as well as whether to force major increases in the use of E85 fuel as a substitute for gasoline, were left to be negotiated when the House bill is merged with energy legislation the Senate passed in June.

"There's a war going on against energy from fossil fuels" said Representative Ralph Hall, Republican-Texas. Representative Joe Barton predicted the bill "isn't going to go anywhere" because President Bush would veto it if it reaches his desk.

In a somewhat surprising comment from the White House, they accused the bill of making "no serious attempts to increase our energy security". This defies commonsense as by producing more electricity from domestic renewable sources rather than with imported natural gas by definition increases the United States' diversity and security of energy supply.

As with all legislation the details (such as a subsidy for installing gas pumps for expensive and inefficient E85 fuel) need to be checked carefully. Regardless a 15% renewable energy standard is good news.

Brief Analysis of Climate Change Report

Here’s my brief analysis of and comments on the recent IPCC working group report on Mitigation of Climate Change released from Bangkok, Thailand as it relates to alternative energy.

Energy Efficient & Net Zero Energy Buildings

Energy efficiency and renewable energy are rightly held to be a key ways to reduce carbon emissions. Buildings, both residential and commercial, are a significant emitter of greenhouse gasses.

Solar hot water heating can be used to provide up to 70% of annual hot water needs for homes, it can also be used in commercial buildings that require significant hot water such as gyms and nursing homes.

Geothermal (ground source heat pumps) is a lesser known source of alternative energy which can be used to both heat and cool buildings in a highly efficient way and is suited both to residential and commercial buildings. It can also be used to provide hot water. As bore holes and/or trenches need to be dug for geothermal to be installed, it is particularly suited to new builds.

Electricity can be provided from renewable sources via the grid (e.g. wind power) or off-grid it can be generated using for example solar photovoltaic panels (PV).

The use of insulation, natural light & shade, low energy lighting, motion detection lighting etc. can further reduce energy usage.

As noted in the report appropriate building codes can minimise carbon emissions from buildings.

Alternative Energy = Energy Security

The report notes that nations seeking energy security (security of supply) can help achieve it using alternative energy. Nations lacking their own fossil fuels resources should be concerned with the negative impact reliance on fossil fuels can have on their economies. By increasing utilisation of alternative energy resources, nations can increase their energy security.

Transport Policy & Fossil Fuels Subsidies

I was disappointed by the report’s lack of vision on transport. It correctly notes that past increases in efficiency in internal combustion engine (ICE) design have been used to increase power rather than fuel efficiency meaning vehicle carbon emissions have continued to climb. This trend has even continued into hybrid vehicles with performance being favoured over fuel economy (e.g. Lexus hybrid cars). Mention was made of making increased use of biofuels, which can actually significantly increase carbon emissions (see this post on Palm Oil Biodiesel). The glaring emission, is the need for a fundamental shift from the internal combustion engine to electric vehicles. I got the impression the report in trying to build consensus was avoiding treading on any toes. Perhaps that’s why it recommended only reducing rather than eliminating the subsidisation of fossil fuels.

Research and Development + Technology Transfer

India and China will soon be at the top of the list of carbon emitting nations. The report wrongly suggests that because many new power stations are being built in developing nations, they will be using new energy efficient designs and technologies. While new power stations may be more efficient than those built decades ago, for cost reasons less efficient technology is usually used (for more details see this post on Clean Coal). The report notes there have been low levels of investment in research and development. Investment is needed now and much more should be done to aid the transfer of the most energy efficient technologies between nations.

IPCC working group report on Mitigation of Climate Change (pdf link)

Seeing Red: Palm Oil Biodiesel

In the enthusiasm for renewable energy and taking care of our environment, it is easy to assume that making fuel from plants (biofuel) must be by definition "green" and renewable. However when it comes to energy issues, easy assumptions can be dangerous assumptions. In previous years some politicians and advocates in Europe have made these assumptions without sufficient thought and research and secured government subsidies for companies importing palm oil from South East Asia to make biodiesel for transport and for use in electricity generation.

The demand for palm oil in Europe has soared in the last two decades, first for use in food and cosmetics, and more recently for fuel. This cheap oil can be used for a variety of purposes, including as an ingredient about 10 percent of supermarket products, from chocolate to toothpaste.

Promoted by hundreds of millions of dollars in national subsidies, the Netherlands quickly became the leading importer of palm oil in Europe, taking in 1.7 million tons in 2006, nearly double the previous year.



Now it is increasingly difficult to ignore the mounting body of scientific evidence that palm oil plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia, rather than preserving the environment are in fact actively destroying it. By subsidising biofuels, European governments have artificially raised demand for palm oil in Europe, and accelerated the destruction of huge areas of rainforest in South East Asia. Palm oil plantations are often expanded by draining and burning peatland, releasing enormous amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As a result Indonesia has become the world's third largest emitter of carbon dioxide, ranked after the United States and China, according to a study released in December by researchers from Wetlands International and Delft Hydraulics, both based in the Netherlands.

The 2003 European Union Biofuels Directive, which required all member states aim to have 5.75 percent of transportation run on biofuel in 2010, is now under review. In the Netherlands, the data from Indonesia has prompted the government to suspend palm oil subsidies.

In Europe a small amount of rapeseed and sunflower oil is used to make diesel fuel, however increasingly plant oils are being imported from the tropics, since there is simply not enough plant matter or land for biofuel production at home. So while the billions of dollars in European subsidies appear to have reduced carbon emissions in European countries by importing biofuels, this has been achieved by exporting them and increasing their impact many times by the permanent destruction of rainforest and peatland in South East Asia.

For anyone familiar with how the ethanol industry works in the United States, they will be unsurprised to learn that the palm oil industry was promoted long before there was adequate research. Biofuel Watch, an environment group in Britain, now says that "biofuels should not automatically be classed as renewable energy." It supports a stop on subsidies until more research can determine if various biofuels in different regions are produced in a nonpolluting manner. The group also suggests that all emissions arising from the production of a biofuel be counted as emissions in the country where the fuel is actually used, providing a clearer accounting of environmental costs.


BEFORE: rainforest on the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo

Friends of the Earth estimates that 87 percent of the deforestation in Malaysia from 1985 to 2000 was caused by new palm oil plantations. In Indonesia, the amount of land devoted to palm oil has increased 118 percent in the last eight years.


AFTER: a palm oil plantation

Peat is an organic sponge composed of 90 percent water that stores huge amounts of carbon, which when it is drained emits huges amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.

Even worse peatland is often burned to clear ground for plantations. The Dutch study estimated that the draining of peatland in Indonesia releases 660 million tons of carbon a year into the atmosphere and that fires contributed 1.5 billion tons annually.


Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
the haze has covered much of SE Asia for extended periods of time since 1997

The total is equivalent to 8 percent of all global emissions caused annually by burning fossil fuels, the researchers said. "These emissions generated by peat drainage in Indonesia were not counted before," according to a Wetlands spokesperson. "It was a totally ignored problem."

While for the moment the widescale destruction of rainforests in South East Asia continues, hopefully the palm oil story will serve as a cautionary tale which will lead to much better informed policymaking and behaviour. Politicians must resist the urge to rush to legislate and subsidise in order to bask in the glow of being seen to be "doing something" while a number of so-called green companies profit from taxpayer subsidised destruction. Energy policy must make sense from a scientific (i.e. it should be energy positive), economic and environmental viewpoint. However the continued promotion of ethanol and coal-to-liquids calls for continued skepticism.