In an aggressive move to do its part to fight climate change, Washington State has barred utilities from signing long-term contract with coal-fired power plants that produce “excessive” global warming pollution.

Governor Chris Gregoire signed the measure into law late last week, along with establishing an emissions performance standard for power plants, state goals to cut emissions in the next 40 years, and a goal for creating new jobs in the clean energy sector. She explained:

“This bill is a testament to the unique, broad-based coalition that came together – utilities and environmentalists, faith communities and business leaders – in support of taking action. Today, we are saying that, here, in this Washington, no more delay, no more doubt, no more excuses. Today, together, we take action.”

While the bill did have broad support, some urged lawmakers to not rest on their laurels. Stopping the most devastating impacts of climate change will require even more aggressive action.

Washington, like many other areas of the globe, is seeing their climate change already. Decreasing snow pack, lower summer stream flows, more wildfires, and rising sea levels threaten the state’s economy and water supply.

Associated Press
Office of Governor Chris Gregoire

Pacific Gas & Electric, California’s largest electricity utility and one of the largest in the nation, is showcasing a Toyota Prius that it has converted into a plug-in hybrid at the Silicon Valley Leadership Group Alternative Energy Solutions Summit in California this week. The utility may be the first in the U.S. to demonstrate that a plug-in hybrid can power a home.

Like a traditional hybrid, plug-in hybrids have both an electric motor and a gasoline engine. But their larger batteries and ability to be charged with any 120-volt outlet allows for even better gas mileage than the 55 mpg average of a regular Prius. Since plug-in hybrid batteries can power the vehicle for up to 60 miles, about half of the cars in America could go everywhere they needed to go in a day without using any gas. Some estimates set the average fuel economy at 100 miles per gallon.

So what’s different about PG&E’s plug-in hybrid? Unlike most plug-ins that take in electricity from the grid and then are driven around during the day, the PG&E concept car demonstrated that any plug-in can also be used as a two-way generator.

These “vehicle-to-grid,” or V2G, cars are charged by plugging into a three-prong, 110- to 120-volt outlet. But if a home needs energy, like during a blackout or during high demand when electricity prices increase, a switch can be flipped to send the charge the other way, from the car to the home.

PG&E’s plug-in hybrid car powered a small electric heater and lights. The car could supposedly even run home appliances for several hours with a full battery charge. The utility hopes that the new concept car will demonstrate new ways to use hybrids and increase the demand for the cleaner vehicles. California’s renewable energy laws are pushing utilities to cut global warming emissions. Plug-in hybrids help them reach that goal by allow ing homeowners to use more energy at night – when wind power and cleaner fuels are available - and less energy during high-demand days when natural gas and coal plants produce the energy.

Prices for plug-in hybrids are expected to range from $3,000 to $5,000 more than typical hybrids, and it’s unclear how much money a homeowner would save by charging a hybrid with electricity. Although they would be buying more energy from their utility, they would save on gas costs. And although many areas of the country would be powering their plug-in hybrids with coal-fired power from the grid, governoment studies have shown that powering cars with electricity creates much less global warming pollution than power them with gasoline.

CalCars, a nonprofit organization that has converted about 20 hybrids to plug-in hybrids in the past three years, expects the two-way generator technology to be about 5-6 years away.

CalCars
PG&E
Plug-In Partners
Reuters
San Jose Mercury News, via Green@WorkToday

At the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, developing nations pointed out that cutting global warming pollution – mainly, carbon dioxide emissions – will not be done at the expense of their booming economies, and indeed cannot be done in a way that outpaces the growth of their economies.

Representatives from China and India reported that both are implementing emissions cuts in various economic sectors, but neither is convinced that mandatory limits are the fastest way to cut global warming pollution. Besides, they rightfully pointed out, the developed nations are missing their Kyoto Protocol targets, and the big Kahuna – the United States – isn’t even participating. Rather than hefting this unfair burden of limits, they instead want greater access to clean energy technologies.

The problem is that coal is an abundant resource in this area of the world, so “clean” coal technologies is what many are talking about. But the technology needed to burn the coal without releasing carbon dioxide isn’t available. Asia is crucial to the global warming fight, but the transition to a global clean energy economy will be too slow unless the existing technologies out there like wind, solar, hydro, etc are made available and purposefully developed on a massive scale.

The next phase of the Kyoto Protocol includes getting developing nations – which were exempt from the mandates in the current plan - to sign onto emissions targets starting in 2012.

Yahoo! News
Wikipedia: Kyoto Protocol

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) - the world's biggest fund for environmental projects – is managed by the World Bank and United Nations agencies. This week, it announced that it would give $45.5 million USD to revamp some of India’s oldest and dirtiest coal-fired power plants.

According to its website, the GEF

…helps developing countries fund projects and programs that protect the global environment. GEF grants support projects related to biodiversity, climate change, international waters, land degradation, the ozone layer, and persistent organic pollutants.

Then what’s up with the coal money?

Monique Barbut, GEF’s CEO, said the debate about whether to fund coal plants has been going on for awhile. But in the end, they had to recognize India’s limitations.

We cannot cover the planet with wind turbines…We do argue that renewable energy is the best … but at the same time India is clearly not going to develop for the next 20 years without coal. We have to cooperate with that.

India burns more coal than any other nation on the planet, so cleaning up the coal plants and making them more efficient is believed to be the fastest, most direct way for India to reduce its global warming pollution.

So what does $45.5 million get you? Along with another $300 million USD from the World Bank and Indian commercial banks, the bill should cover upgrading about 1 percent of the country’s total coal plant capacity in the next few years.

Reuters, via Environmental Health News
Global Environment Facility

More and more utility executives are speaking out about future carbon regulation and how they are preparing for it. This weekend, the New York Times interviewed AES Chief Executive Officer, Paul Hanrahan. AES is a global power company operating in both developed and emerging markets.

Primarily a fossil fuel-based company, AES is branching out to the renewable energy sector and the carbon trading market, which allows companies to exchange credits to offset global warming pollution. AES plans to invest $1 billion over three years in renewable energy projects like wind power and biomass. Hanrahan pointed out that wind power is expected to triple in size by 2015, so the explosive growth in this sector makes excellent business sense, whether AES is buying wind companies or developing wind projects.

Carbon trading is also expected to be profitable:

…but looking at [carbon credits] now not as a social responsibility project but as something that has profit potential given that people are buying these credits in Europe and are likely to continue buying them.

But many utility executives double dip: They’ll chat all about global warming and renewable energy with you and then you turn your back to grab some hummus and they’re dipping their hands in the coal bowl again; constructing expensive, mostly obsolete coal-fired power plants. At its Dresden, NY coal plant, AES has plans to install technology to reduce some pollution like SO2, NOX, and mercury. Hanrahan goes on to explain,

You can reduce the carbon emissions from a power plant very cheaply, so we think there is a lot of potential to produce electricity in an environmentally responsible way.

The news release about the Dresden plants make no mention of carbon emission reductions, so I’m finding it misleading to talk about the plant and reducing CO2 in the same sentence. Besides, reducing CO2 while building more new coal plants is not actually reducing the CO2 that needs to be cut to mitigrate the effects of global warming. And they're not fooling shareholders or ratepayers, either.

New York Times: A future with wind

AES

Maria Enegia: Energy CEOs expecting carbon regulation