Green energy: California poll finds overwhelming support

A new statewide survey of environment issues conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California found more residents favor climate change policy, want to cut greenhouse gas emissions and believe they are already experiencing the effects of global warming.

“This is a clear mandate that people want to move beyond dirty energy,” said David Graham-Caso, Los Angeles Sierra Club spokesman.

The survey, the 11th since 2000, sampled more than 2,500 people and found Californians are strongly supportive of policies that encourage fuel efficiency and renewable energy, according to Mark Baldassare, president and CEO of PPIC.

Most survey takers (67%) support the state’s law reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Across the board, state residents agree that automakers should be required to improve fuel efficiency standards (90% Democrats, 81% independents, and 76% Republicans).

They also overwhelmingly favor (79%) government regulation of the release of greenhouse gases from sources such as power plants, cars and factories to reduce global warming. While 79% favor greenhouse gas regulations, they are split between a cap and trade system (54% in favor) and a carbon tax (60% in favor).  

“People see it as a tax to discourage fossil fuel use and to improve state infrastructure,” said Jim Metropulos, senior advocate of the Sierra Club in Sacramento.  “The Sierra Club believes something like a carbon tax would make it easier to achieve outcomes that we want quickly.”

EPA Chief Lisa Jackson speaks at NAACP convention in Los Angeles

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson spoke to the NAACP National Convention at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Sunday about the impact of pollution on minority communities, an issue that will be also be explored during a Monday afternoon panel: "The air we breathe: taking action against toxic exposures in African American communities" from 2 to 4 p.m.

Before her speech, Jackson spoke with The Times about her approach to environmental justice.

Q: What does environmental justice mean to you?

A: It is one of my priorities and I define it fairly broadly. The simplest way to describe it is it’s really the unfinished business of the EPA; there are still communities in this country where there’s a disproportionate collection of smokestacks and tailpipes. Those sources of pollution mean that the communities that live around them have more exposure to pollution than other communities. Since air blows and water flows you can't really clean up this nation’s air and water without addressing those communities as well. We know about them and have really strong efforts underway in those communities, but I would like to see progress and the progress continue.

Q: What is being done to address pollution in minority communities?

A: You have to do it on a number of levels. Probably the one that is most germane here is air pollution. L.A. knows as well as anyone that air pollution is not just a problem for the environment, it’s a public health threat. Dirty air means premature death. Dirty air means respiratory illnesses, most notable asthma, but a number of respiratory ailments that are made worse on bad air days, and we’ve had a lot of that this summer, although not here in lovely L.A.

We have a study, a peer reviewed study, that said $2 trillion in healthcare costs saved from implementation of the Clean Air Act from 1990 to 2020. Usually that number stops people in their tracks. So implementing the Clean Air Act is not only because it’s the right thing to do, it’s to save lives, to make our children healthier and address issues for the elderly and people with health impairments.

Yucca Mountain nuclear storage in, renewables out in House energy, water bill

There's a small surprise in the energy and water bill that passed a key House panel Thursday: Funding was restored for licensing and development of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada.

Two years ago, the Senate's energy spending bill officially ended funding of the $13.5-billion project, fulfilling a promise by the Obama administration and the Nevada congressional delegation, led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Technically, the plan to store 77,000 tons of waste from the civilian nuclear industry at the site 90 miles north of Las Vegas never died; the 1987 law establishing Yucca Mountain as the nation's storage site remains on the books. And there has been nominal funding for work unrelated to waste shipment at the site. Two states that want to ship waste to the site have sued the Obama administration, and that case remains active.

The House spending bill offers only about $35 million for the project, $10 million of which goes to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to continue its license application review.

The provision is tucked amid steep cuts to renewable-energy programs, part of a $6-billion paring of the Department of Energy budget. That department's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy takes a $1.9-billion hit from what Obama had requested. 

The bill passed the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee and is expected to pass the full Appropriations Committee. It stands a chance in the Republican-controlled House but could face trouble in the Senate.

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Photo: The south portal of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site in Nevada. Credit: Joe Cavaretta/Associated Press

Nuclear plants, blackouts and carbon capture at FORTUNE conference

The U.S. must shore up its backup power infrastructure to avoid the electricity shortages that roiled Japan following the devastating earthquake and tsunami, a key federal energy official said Tuesday.

“We take electricity for granted in a lot of ways,” said Philip Moeller, commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, at a conference in Dana Point. “Right now, we’re vulnerable.”

In the case of a catastrophe, a bank of spare transformers or specially-designed substations could help prevent the rolling blackouts caused by idled nuclear plants in Japan, he said.

But even with public hesitation around nuclear power, Moeller’s fellow panelists at the Fortune Brainstorm Green conference said it remained a valuable energy source. 

“Can we do without nuclear? Probably, but I’d hesitate to take it off the table today,” said Bill Weihl, Google’s green energy czar.  “The key is figuring out how to get over the next 20, 30, 40 years with very low emissions and nuclear is a big part of that.”

Panelists suggested ramping up government and private investor support of other renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. But smart grids -– sophisticated electricity information and metering systems that can help integrate clean power –- are still being developed around the country “in fits and starts,” Moeller said.

“It’s a very difficult process that’s going very slowly,” he said. “There’s no real place to share the lessons learned, the best practices.”

And without nationwide legislation or incentives to encourage carbon capture and storage technologies, dirty coal will likely continue to dominate electricity production, said Michael Morris, chief executive of the American Electric Power utility.

“If there’s no law that causes the states to tell companies like mine or others to spend millions of dollars retrofitting plants to capture carbon, it’s just not going to happen,” he said, adding that competitors in China, India, Russia and other companies are all continuing to build coal facilities.

Alan Salzman, chief executive of VantagePoint Venture Partners, which invests in companies such as electric vehicles service provider Better Place and solar developer BrightSource Energy, wasn’t pleased.

“You can make a strong argument that coal is the new tobacco,” he said. “There are lots of things that are plentiful and inexpensive but we manage to get by without them, like child labor.”

-- Tiffany Hsu

Photo: Nuclear power: The seaside San Onofre plant is designed to survive a magnitude 7.0 earthquake. Credit: Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times

Japan's nuclear crisis: An opportunity for geothermal energy?

Japan is sitting on enough untapped geothermal power to replace all its planned nuclear stations over the next decade. But with plans to build 13 more nuclear power stations, it has yet to consider harnessing its estimated 23.5 gigawatts in geothermal potential -- other than to develop hot springs.

With the nuclear crisis in its Fukushima reactors, however, this may change. Geothermal energy has struggled in Asia, with limited government and funding support, but it is now likely to attract interest as investors rethink the outlook for nuclear power.

Straddled along the Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of seismic activity, Asia's geothermal reservoirs are among the world's largest. Indonesia alone holds about 40% of the world's total reserves, but less than 4% is being developed, leaving the sector wide open for growth.

Asia's leading, fast-growth economies have relied on nuclear power to feed their insatiable energy demands. About 112 nuclear power reactors run in six countries in Asia, and more than 264 are planned for construction, according to the London-based World Nuclear Assn.

As public scrutiny of the nuclear industry intensifies, Asian governments will likely come under pressure to reduce nuclear power's share in the energy mix. "The Japanese will be reviewing their nuclear capacity, and [so will] many other places in the world," said Jeffrey Higgs, managing director at Hong Kong-based asset management firm Environmental Investment Services Asia. "This will refocus attention on alternative energy. Others will begin to look at geothermal as an alternative, the safest, cleanest of all energy sources," Higgs said.

Report outlines problems at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant

 

The reactor at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in San Luis Obispo operated for a year and a half with some emergency systems disabled, according to a 2010 safety review by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The incident was one of 14 “near-misses” the NRC uncovered in its inspections of nuclear power plants where problems had been occurring. An analysis by the group Union of Concerned Scientists concluded that “many of these significant events occurred because reactor owners, and often the NRC, tolerated known safety problems.”

The NRC found a range of problems at the 14 plants, including poor design, equipment failure, poor training and human error.
 
The issue at the Diablo Canyon plant, which is operated by Pacific Gas & Electric, involved malfunctioning valves that prevented other valves from opening. The valves were improperly repaired and subsequent tests failed to detect  the problem, according to the report.

Analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that the NRC’s inspections suggest that nuclear plants “continue to experience problems with safety-related equipment and worker errors that increase the risk of damage to the reactor core.”

The  UCS report also cited three instances in which NRC inspectors aggressively pursued power plant operators to enforce safety standards.

-- Julie Cart

Photo: Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Colorado environmentalists challenge planned uranium mill

 

An environmental group has filed a lawsuit challenging Colorado's greenlighting of the first new uranium mill in the United States in 25 years.

Last month, Colorado's Department of Public Health and Environment approved a permit for the Pinon Ridge Uranium Mill, which would be located in the high desert in the remote southwestern part of the state.

The proposed mill is a sign of the revitalization of the nuclear fuels industry. Currently, the only operating uranium mill in the country is located in southeastern Utah. The Canadian company that wants to open the new mill, Energy Fuels Inc., says the processed uranium mainly would be shipped to fast-growing Asian countries.

State regulators said they followed all appropriate procedures when they approved the permit, but the lawsuit, filed Feb. 4 in state court by the Telluride-based Sheep Mountain Alliance, alleges that is not the case. It claims the state did not hold adequate public hearings and that the licensing violates a state law prohibiting uranium mills near areas that already have high levels of heavy metals in their water.

The suit also contends that the state did not require the mill's owner to set aside enough money for mitigation, noting that prior groundwater contamination in Colorado mills has cost up to $500 million to clean up. Energy Fuels is only required to set aside $11 million, according to the complaint.

“If state regulators ignore basic federal and state law to permit this mill, how can we ever trust them to monitor the mill once it’s in production?” asked Linda Miller, one of Sheep Mountain's board members.

State regulators had no comment on the lawsuit. The mill is opposed by environmentalists in Telluride and other mountain towns, but supported by many locals in the remote Paradox Valley as a possible source of good employment.

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Photo: The area in Colorado's Paradox Valley where the new mill would be constructed. Credit: Whit Richardson for Sheep Mountain Alliance

Colorado uranium mill approved

 

Colorado regulators on Wednesday approved the nation's first new uranium mill in more than 25 years, greenlighting construction of a new facility in the remote southwestern part of the state.

The state Department of Public Health and Environment gave a radioactive fuels license to Energy Fuels Resources Corp, a Canadian-based company that has long sought to open the mill near the small town of Naturita.

The mill is a sign of the uranium boom in the Four Corners region, as demand for the mineral has soared in the past decade. Only one mill in southeastern Utah currently processes uranium domestically, forcing many U.S. nuclear plants to import their fuel.

According to filings by Energy Fuels Resources, though, the yellowcake uranium at the new mill would predominantly be exported to Asian power plants.

The project is opposed by several environmental groups, which fear that radioactive tailings from the mill could contaminate the Colorado and Dolores rivers. They contend that tailings from old uranium claims still contaminate the Dolores. In the central part of the state, near Canon City, groundwater contamination persists from a now-shuttered uranium mill that was declared a Superfund site 25 years ago.

Colorado once had an active uranium industry in the sparsely-populated southwestern end of the state and elsewhere, but it collapsed in the 1970s. Locals in the Paradox Valley tend to back the project, while much of the opposition comes from areas like the ski town of Telluride, about 50 miles to the southeast.

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Photo: The area in Colorado's Paradox Valley where the new mill will be constructed. Photo credit: Whit Richardson for Sheep Mountain Alliance

Obama revisits energy policy, cap-and-trade and EPA regulation

Besides acknowledging a "shellacking" in midterm congressional elections, President Obama on Wednesday addressed some of the fronts on which Republicans and "tea party" activists claimed victory: Environmental Protection Agency regulation on greenhouse gas and the cap-and-trade approach to energy policy.

Although he said there were areas where Republicans and Democrats agree on energy, the president offered a dismal prospect for comprehensive energy legislation at least until 2012.

"I think there are a lot of Republicans that ran against the energy bill that passed in the House last year, and so it's doubtful that you could get the votes to pass that through the House this year or next year or the year after," Obama told reporters at the White House.

The president also defended the legal basis for the EPA to focus on reducing carbon dioxide emissions: a Supreme Court decision directing it to do so under the authority of the Clean Air Act.

"The EPA is under a court order that says greenhouse gases are a pollutant that fall under their jurisdiction. One of the things that's very important for me is not to have us ignore the science, but rather to find ways that we can solve these problems that don't hurt the economy, that encourage the development of clean energy in this country, that in fact may give us opportunities to create entire new industries and create jobs ... that put us in a competitive posture around the world."

The president also appeared to nuance his stance on a "cap-and-trade" bill to control greenhouse gas emissions through a trading market. Several analyses showed more than two dozen members of Congress who voted for the Waxman-Markey bill lost their elections. And he hinted at a more conciliatory tone between Congress and the EPA, which reportedly will be a target of GOP House committees.

"Cap-and-trade was just one way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way. It was a means, not an end. And I'm going to be looking for other means to address this problem. And I think the EPA wants help from the legislature on this. I don't think that, you know, the desire is to somehow be protective of their powers here. I think what they want to do is make sure that the issue's being dealt with." 

‘A Force for Nature’: John Adams and the Natural Resources Defense Council

There was a time in the United States when black soot, smokestacks and smog thick enough to choke commuters seemed set to take over urban areas. America had become an industrialized nation, but without many checks and balances.

In 1969, John Adams saw raw sewage floating in his hometown, New York City, and he wanted to do something about it. Together with his wife, Patricia, they helped found an organization; he was 33 when he became the first director of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

In a new book "A Force for Nature: The Story of NRDC and the Fight to Save Our Planet" (Chronicle Books, 2010), Adams and his wife explain how the council formed and the road to groundbreaking litigation that has become part of today’s keystone environmental laws. From the fight over nuclear power to the Exxon Valdez disaster to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the NRDC has been arguing for nature (and for people).

Today the NRDC has 1.3 million members and a staff of over 300 scientists, lawyers and policy experts. They see their collective mission as nothing short of "safeguarding the Earth."

Adams, in his last chapter, expounds on the organization's core philosophy: "You have to fight on many fronts at once; you have to develop a full menu of skills, starting with litigation and legislation and moving through science, economics and communications; you have to be equally adept at working inside the Beltway and out at the grass roots, with your members; and you have to dig in for as long as it takes."

Adams talked with The Times about his new book and the NRDC's history:

In 1969, you had a young family, and you write: "If our young children ... slept by an open window in our apartment, they would wake with soot on their foreheads."  At the very beginning, what prompted you to take action?

New York was burning a lot of garbage with incinerators. When papers and garbage were burnt, it would fly out everywhere. I would eat lunch with my colleagues near the Battery. We would go eat on sunny days, and we'd see floating sewage. It was disgusting.