Examples of Energy Efficiency Upgrades Saving $ and Energy-

Capital Region businesses save big bucks with energy efficiency upgrades
	Apr 7, 2011	WNYT
	The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) announced today that 219 Capital Region businesses are reducing energy costs by nearly $4.5 million annually as a result of the energy efficiency upgrades and sustainable building projects supported by NYSERDA during 2010. According to a press release from NYSERDA, the energy savings—more than 48 million kilowatt hours—is equivalent to the amount of electricity consumed by nearly 7,000 single-family homes annually and will be realized by these companies every year for years to come. “NYSERDA commends these leaders in the Capital Region business community for their commitment to more environmentally sustainable business practices,” said President and CEO of NYSERDA Francis J. Murray Jr. in a statement. “And we encourage other companies to apply for the incentives available in 2011 for energy efficiency improvements for existing buildings and new building projects.” NYSERDA provided $6.5 million in incentives to businesses to make energy efficiency projects more affordable, enhance competitiveness and cut costs for businesses. These incentives are available to every sector of the economy, including retail, manufacturing, hospitality, health care, agricultural, commercial and others. Examples of Capital Region businesses that have benefited from participating in NYSERDA programs in 2010 include: • Adirondack Beverage Corp. in Scotia replaced old, inefficient lighting with newer high performance fixtures and replaced incandescent exit signs with LED fixtures. The project reduced annual energy costs by $116,000 and decreased electricity consumption by more than 1.1 million kilowatt hours. • Freihofer’s Cake Plant, a division of Bimbo Bakeries USA, in Albany replaced old, inefficient lighting with newer high performance fixtures and installed occupancy sensors in applicable areas. The project will reduce annual energy costs by nearly $47,000 and decrease electricity consumption by more than 1.8 million kilowatt hours. • Garelick Farms in Rensselaer upgraded existing lighting with more energy-efficient fixtures. The project will help reduce annual energy costs by nearly $42,000 and decrease electricity consumption by nearly 350,000 kilowatt hours. • Stewart’s Shops in Saratoga Springs replaced old, inefficient lighting with newer high performance fixtures and installed occupancy sensors in its 300,000 square-foot warehouse. The project will help reduce annual energy costs by $77,000 and decrease electricity consumption by more than 740,000 kilowatt hours. Stewart’s is achieving additional energy savings by retrofitting freezer cases with “zero energy” cooler doors and LED lighting at stores in Saratoga Springs, Ballston Spa, Gansevoort, Voorheesville and Wynantskill. cross posted courtesy of the Carbon Capture Report- Courtesy of Green Me UP-Scotty

Transcripts HR910-to Block Climate Pollution Rules

 Green Me UP-Scotty writes: If you are wondering why the GOP and TEA BAGGERS are so opposed to the EPA and the Climate Change Issue for the Government Shutdown- use opensecrets.org to find who funds your Elected Leaders in the House and Senate and their Political Ambitions, Monetary Donations and Re-Election Funds.  The majority of the Republican Party Receive Donations from Big Oil, Big Coal, and the Koch Brothers.

 

 Shutting down the government is not a solution. Shutting down the EPA is not a solution. Shutting down American innovation is not a solution.

Climate hawks (Democrats) fight GOP efforts to shut down the clean energy economy

Cross-posted from the Wonk Room-via Grist- A Beacon in the Smog


During yesterday's debate on the Upton-Inhofe bill (H.R. 910) to block climate pollution rules, Democrats who support clean energy manufacturing debunked conservative myths about the green economy. Reps. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) and Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) discussed their amendment to study the economic impact to American competitiveness of abolishing climate standards while the rest of the world wins the future. With the help of Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), they debunked the myths of a hapless Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.). Inslee decried the eagerness of the GOP to "shut down the government":

It is deeply disappointing that our Republican colleagues are so willing, able, and apparently eager to shut down the government. This bill fundamentally shuts down the government. It shuts down the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency to help lead us into a clean energy future. Why shut down the agency that can help develop these biofuels that we were just talking about? Why do they want to shut down the engine of innovation? Shutting down the government is not a solution. Shutting down the EPA is not a solution. Shutting down American innovation is not a solution.

Watch these excerpts from the debate:

Myth: China and India won't impose limits on climate pollution. The fact is, as Doyle explained, China is moving forward both with taxes on energy-intensive industries and cap-and-trade systems to limit carbon pollution. China also pased ambitious clean energy mandates in 2005 that are driving its explosion of green manufacturing. India imposed a carbon tax last year, and its energy efficiency progress is outstripping the United States.

Myth: Climate standards kill the manufacturing economy. In fact, Germany, which has some of the most stringent climate and clean energy regulations on the planet, now has $41.2 billion of private investment in the new economy, leaving the United States in third place behind Germany and China. Germany is one of the world's top economic powerhouses because its commitment to advanced manufacturing -- demonstrating that industrial jobs don't require a race to the bottom.

Myth: Cap-and-trade is a socialist-liberal-progressive plot to destroy the economy. As Ryan colorfully explained, Republican idol Ronald Reagan was the first president to implement cap-and-trade markets, successfully eliminating leaded gasoline and ozone-destroying pollutants. George H. W. Bush implemented a cap-and-trade market to stop acid rain pollution with supporters like Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.).

Kinzinger's claim that the Upton-Inhofe bill, which amends the Clean Air Act, "doesn't change the Clean Air Act at all," doesn't even rise to the level a debunkable myth. That's just a lie.

Unfortunately, the Tea Party climate zombies that run the House of Representatives ignored the reality today, voting to pass H.R. 910 by a vote of 255 to 172, with 19 Democrats supporting the Republican effort to deny science and deny America a clean and healthy future.

Transcript:

DOYLE: Just two days ago, a report came out, saying: "China to Tax Energy Usage of Energy-Intensive Industries." "China will impose a tax on energy usage of eight industrial sectors," including "iron and steel, aluminum and cement." Madame Speaker, "Xie Zhenhua, the vice chairman of national development and reform, said that China has launched pilot carbon emission trading schemes in some of their provinces." So much for this idea that all these jobs are going to China because there's no taxing there or they're not looking at a trading scheme.

KINZINGER: The fact that China, India, and other developing countries have no intention of imposing similar regulations is further evidence that such regulations are costly and economically damaging. ...

DOYLE: Maybe he wasn't here when I read the fact that China is imposing a tax on their industries, is looking at cap-and-trade. ...

RYAN: And I've been sitting here listening, and you have several members over there saying China isn't going to do cap-and-trade. The fact is, they're starting to do it. China's never going to tax carbon. The fact is, they're starting to do it. And now we have dropped from first place in leading the green revolution, to second, and now to third, behind China, Germany, and now: the United States. These are manufacturing jobs. Tons and tons of steel go into a windmill. Eight thousand component parts. They manufacture them in Illinois, in Ohio, and Pennsylvania. These are jobs for our people. Why else would the United Steelworkers of the America be against this and be for the green revolution? We're making this happen, and we've got to get out of our own way while we do it. ...

KINZINGER: I think green energy future is a code word for a no jobs, no manufacturing jobs future. ...

INSLEE: It is deeply disappointing that our Republican colleagues are so willing, able, and apparently eager to shut down the government. This bill fundamentally shuts down the government. It shuts down the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency to help lead us into a clean energy future. Why shut down the agency that can help develop these biofuels that we were just talking about? Why do they want to shut down the engine of innovation? Shutting down the government is not a solution. Shutting down the EPA is not a solution. Shutting down American innovation is not a solution. ...

KINZINGER: This does not shut -- this doesn't change the Clean Air Act at all -- this prevents them from going outside the legislative will of the American people and implementing a legislative piece of -- an idea. ...

RYAN: We hear a lot from the other side about Ronald Reagan and I know they burn incense and light candles to Ronald Reagan. In the 1980s, it was President Reagan who used cap-and-trade for leaded gasoline. George Herbert Walker Bush used cap-and-trade for sulfur. This is something that can be done if we put a price on this stuff. Lead the world, not be led. ...

DOYLE: Let's work together to find solutions to protect our industries while we clean up our environment for our kids and our grandkids.

Green Me UP-Scotty writes: If you are wondering why the GOP and TEA BAGGERS are so opposed to the EPA and the Climate Change Issue use opensecrets.org to find who funds your Elected Leaders in the House and Senate and their Political Ambitions for Re-Elections.  The majority of the Republican Party Receive Donations from Big Oil, Big Coal, and the Koch Brothers.

Cheap nuclear: an oxymoron

by: hotflash

Sun Apr 03, 2011 at 16:37:53 PM CDT

As the twentieth century came to a close, nuclear power was in disrepute because it was so much more expensive per kilowatt hour than coal. But people worldwide were beginning to face the reality of climate change; therefore, many of them were lured by promises the nuclear industry made about a new generation of nuclear reactors--safer, simpler in design and therefore cheaper. People hoped, with the turn of the century and the millennium, that those promises would materialize, as forecast, by 2010.

But they haven't. Stephen Thomas, professor of Energy Studies at the University of Greenwich in England, has worked on energy policy for the last 30 years with an emphasis on nuclear economics. He explained, on a conference call hosted by the Coalition for the Environment, that far from becoming cheaper, the "new generation" of plants is plagued with problems and far more expensive than predicted.

In 2002, the Bush government launched its nuclear 2010 programme on the basis that these new designs would be competitive enough to survive unsubsidised in free electricity markets. All that was needed was limited Federal subsidies, worth a few billion dollars for a handful of plants to demonstrate to nervous financiers that these new designs overcame the problems that had plagued earlier orders, then orders would need no subsidies. The first plants were expected on-line in 2010.

A decade on, and even before the Fukushima disaster, the timetable has slipped, and estimated costs have increased about 6-fold--the promise of safer, simpler and cheaper was either a delusion or a deception. None of the five new designs being considered in the USA has completed a review by the US safety authorities and, for example, the EPR's [Evolutionary Power Reactor, a design common in France] certification was pushed back in February 2011 to mid-2013. The scale of subsidies required has escalated massively, and it is clear that unsubsidised orders are not feasible.

The EPR is seen as the front-runner of these new technologies because it was the first to win orders and because France is often portrayed as the model of how to implement a nuclear power programme cheaply and efficiently. However, these advantages now seem questionable. EPR has won two orders in Western Europe: for Olkiluoto in Finland, construction work starting there in August 2005; and for Flamanville in France, where work started in December 2008. Two further orders were placed for China but these have been under construction for less than 18 months.

Things have gone wrong from the start of construction at Olkiluoto, and the forecast construction period of 4 years is now 8 years. The construction cost was supposedly set by a 'turnkey' or fixed price contract for €3bn, but the latest estimate is nearly double this. Areva is refusing to honour the contract price, and it and the utility are locked in an acrimonious dispute over who will pay these extra costs. This bad experience was written off by some as down to failures with the utility, and it was assumed that EDF, the French utility which operates 58 reactors, with its vast experience, would not suffer the same problems. However, things are going no better at Flamanville; and after two years' construction, it was two years late and 50% over-budget.

This EDF design is the one Ameren would presumably use, but it would do Ameren no good to consider any of the other designs. None of them, according to Thomas, have performed any better.

Add the economic reasons to avoid another nuclear plant to the fact that it would sit on the New Madrid fault line. Then factor all that into the knowledge that if Missouri would take steps to become more energy efficient, it wouldn't even need another plant of any type. What conclusion do you reach, class?

Right. No need even to spell the answer out, is there?

Show Me Progress:: Cheap nuclear: an oxymoron

Coalition for the Environment flat out opposes second nuclear plant | More by: hotflash Wed Mar 23, 2011 at 11:28:59 AM CDT

Ed Smith, of the MO Coalition for the Environment, contacted us at Show Me Progress to say that there's a third side to the argument about building another nuclear plant at Callaway County. The Coalition, alongside representatives from Walmart, Sierra Club, Missourians for Safe Energy and Missouri Votes Conservation (yes THE Walmart, to speak of strange bedfellows), flat out opposes any public funding help for Ameren in building a second nuclear plant. I wrote last week about the opposition of a coalition led by Sen. Joan Bray to Governor Nixon's proposal that ratepayers ante up $40 million to help Ameren apply for a license for that plant. Bray's group opposes giving Ameren the money but feels that the political reality is (or at least was) that the Republican legislature would grant the funds. Therefore, Fair Energy Rate Action Fund (FERAF), led by Bray, is working to get something in return for that sacrifice, namely that the Office of Public Counsel would be funded by profits from utilities rather than by the state and that the OPC would get more funding, which it could use to oppose building another nuclear plant. Charles Jaco interviewed Smith and gave him the opportunity to explain that nuclear power is very expensive, not to mention dangerous (think, Japan and then New Madrid fault line), and that coal is dirty. But if Missourians focused on improving their energy efficiency, we could save so much power over the next twenty years that not only would a new nuclear plant be unnecessary, but that the dirtiest coal plant Ameren operates could be closed down. Smith sees giving Ameren the forty Mill as the camel's nose: a way of chipping away at the anti-CWIP law, the law that forbids making ratepayers finance new facilities before they actually come on line. No doubt, Senator Bray understands and agrees with Smith's arguments. Her group just didn't want to lose the battle and have nothing to show for the effort. But now? It will be interesting to see how much or whether the danger of nuclear meltdowns in Japan changes the "fix is in" mentality in Jeff City on this issue. If that were to happen, FERAF and the Coalition might find themselves presenting a united front against the new plant.

hotflash :: Coalition for the Environment flat out opposes second nuclear plant

Show Me Progress:: Coalition for the Environment flat out opposes second nuclear plant