What are 100 pennies worth?  $1.40 in zinc.  Zinc mining is an “environmental disaster”, and demand for the mineral is growing in China.

Source:  Eco Geek

Image:  wikimedia commons

Despite all the talk about solar energy, it only generates a measly .1% of electricity in the US. Meanwhile, national demand for electricity is growing by 2% annually. Considering that solar technology has been in use for decades, why is it not more widespread?

Cheap Fossil Fuels

Even though sunlight is free, fossil fuels in the US have been widely available at a very low cost. There are extensive coal fields all across the country. Nationally, coal produces about 50% of our electricity, with a majority of it being used for base load. That means that coal plants produce a steady stream of electricity a majority of the time.

Natural gas however has skyrocketed in price over the last 6 years. It is widely used to generate electricity during peak times, typically on warmer days when we are cranking up the air conditioning. Natural gas plants can start up quickly and come to the rescue when needed, but the cost of fuel has gotten quite high recently.

Solar energy is very capable of producing peak electricity and is ideally suited for for it. Solar radiation is what causes us to need air conditioning in the first place. The utility companies have started taking notice of solar energy’s potential to generate electricity during peak demand.

Real Cost Pricing

When we turn on a light, we don’t pay the real cost of generating that electricity. The federal government absorbs some of that cost through subsidies and the environmental cost is rarely taken into account. For example, asthma is linked to the burning of coal, but I don’t pay for asthma attacks when I pay my electric bill. A carbon tax is one method for accounting for some of these hidden costs.

Scale and Price

Remember how much cell phones cost when they first hit the market? When larger manufacturing plants are constructed, the cost per unit typically decreases compared to smaller plants. Germany, Japan, and California have all stimulated the solar market. Photovoltaic solar panels have already come down in price by 90% over the last 20 years.

Stable Solar Energy Policy

The US had impressive solar energy incentives under the Carter administration, which quickly vanished when Reagan took office. There is currently a 30% commercial tax credit for solar energy, but it is set to expire at the end of the year.

There are purchase agreements for 3.2 gigawatts of concentrated solar power during 2007, but solar power plants cannot be constructed before the tax credit expires. The coal, nuclear, and oil industries have stable energy policies and the same is needed for solar energy to thrive.

Related Posts:
Solar Thermal Electricity: Can it Replace Coal, Gas, and Oil?
Senate Coalition Introduces Clean Energy Tax Package
Solar Panels and the Quest for $1/Watt
Clean Energy Intro: Solar Businesses
4 Things to Consider Before Going Solar

Photo Credit: Ausra

Anyone else find this photo creepy?

Something about the sunglasses, I guess. Or the export of American culture.

The photo depicts clowns who were on hand to celebrate the opening of a McDonald’s in Beijing, and it was part of a New York Times article about the company’s record profits in February. McDonald’s profits jumped 11.7 percent internationally, fueled in part by Leap Year sales but also the weak U.S. dollar. You can get more Mac for your Yuan these days.

I’d like to use that story to play the Six Degrees of Separation game. But instead of people, in this instance, I’d like to look at the short distance between food news. We know McDonald’s is doing well – that’s one data point. Let’s put another marker by the story that University of Washington researchers determined that calorie for calorie, junk food is way cheaper than good-for-you food. According to the researchers, who compared foods in major grocery stores in the Seattle area, you pay $1.76 per 1,000 calories for sugary, fatty foods that have the most calories, but you pay $18.16 per 1,000 calories for the lowest-calorie foods (which are most often better for you, such as fruits and vegetables).

Now, here’s our third degree: increasing food costs overall. We’ve endured a 4.2 increase for meats, fish, veggies, fruit, dairy and eggs in 2007, and there’s a predicted jump of 3.5 to 4.5 percent in food costs for this year. May not sound like much to you as an individual, but when you add in higher fuel costs for gasoline and heating your home, you’re bound to notice it.

And finally, there isn’t enough grain to go around. We’re looking at a worldwide grain shortage brought about in part by more people on the planet, corn-hungry biofuels such as ethanol, and fewer acres to grow food successfully. Or, you can think of it the way Daniel W. Basse of the AgResource put it in this comprehensive look at grain shortages: “Everyone wants to eat like an American on this globe,” Basse said. “But if they do, we’re going to need another two or three globes to grow it all.”

When I look at the big, big picture, taking all this news and more into account, I’m scared by what I see coming together. A faltering U.S. economy. More people are cash-strapped and rely on unhealthy, calorie-dense foods. Those unhealthy foods gobble up lots of resources (transportation, grain for animal meats, land and plastics for packaging, among them). Global warming may restrict those resources even further. At the same time, prices for all foods are going up, driven in part by scarcity of supply. Already, some nations have to safeguard grain supplies that are distributed to keep people from rioting.

There’s no easy way to answer such a complex economic web of problems. But I think that if anything would bring about change to the American, Western diet that the world seems to embrace more and more often, it’s going to be the force wielded by economics. If there isn’t enough money to buy meat, or bread or milk, at some point we will be forced to go without it. I wonder how that will affect that jump in profit at McDonalds?*

*And I’m not picking on McD’s as the evil empire, but they are a mom and apple pie export of American living, as well as an enormous corporate success. About 47 million people each day eat at the 31,000 McDonald’s locations worldwide. That’s roughly the entire populations of Greece, Australia and the Netherlands combined.

Image credit: Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A theoretical US policy to cut carbon emissions by up to 40% over a 20 year period could still result in increased economic growth; this, according to an interactive website created by the Yale School of Foresty and Environmental Studies.

The website reviews 25 of the leading economic models used to predict economic impacts of reducing emissions, and identifies the seven key assumptions account for most of the major differences in the model predictions.

“As Congress prepares to debate new legislation to address the threat of climate change, opponents claim that the costs of adopting the leading proposals would be ruinous to the U.S. economy. The world’s leading economists who have studied the issue say that’s wrong — and you can find out for yourself,” said Robert Repetto, professor in the practice of economics and sustainable development at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

The interactive website allows visitors to define the truth of one of the seven statements, and then view the prediction of the models.

“The website shows that even under the most unfavorable assumptions regarding costs, the U.S. economy is predicted to continue growing robustly as carbon emissions are reduced,” said Repetto. “Under favorable assumptions, the economy would grow more rapidly if emissions are reduced through national policy measures than if they are allowed to increase as in the past.”

To check out the website click here, and proceed to the calculator via the link at the bottom.

Still, the “simple actions” approach to sustainability also runs the risk of becoming simplistic, and even moralistic. Many of us are probably guilty of looking aghast at someone when we find out they don’t recycle, or buy their produce from the neighborhood farmers’ market. “It’s so simple,” we tell ourselves. We feel justified, then, in judging others, perhaps harshly, for the actions they don’t take.

In the latest issue of The New Yorker (published today), writer Michael Specter takes a look at the “simple” actions not only taken by individuals and families, but also promoted by the business world to consumers. British supermarket chain Tesco, for instance, has announced it will look for an easy method for identifying the carbon footprint of the products it sells. Walkers crisps (potato chips) already carry such a label. These are steps forward, no doubt, in providing information that consumers want. But, as Specter points out, there’s nothing simple about determining the carbon footprint of a product:

In order to develop the label for Walkers, researchers had to calculate the amount of energy required to plant seeds for the ingredients (sunflower oil and potatoes), as well as to make the fertilizers and pesticides used on those potatoes. Next, they factored in the energy required for diesel tractors to collect the potatoes, then the effects of chopping, cleaning, storing, and bagging them. The packaging and printing processes also emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, as does the petroleum used to deliver those crisps to stores. Finally, the research team assessed the impact of throwing the empty bag in the trash, collecting the garbage in a truck, driving to a landfill, and burying them. In the end, the researchers—from the Carbon Trust—found that seventy-five grams of greenhouse gases are expended in the production of every individual-size bag of potato chips.

Potato chips are relatively simple because the list of ingredients is short. Once we move into food products with more ingredients, the process becomes much more complex. Of course, all of this ignores the nutritional content, which can create a real conundrum for a concerned shopper: what if a product has a small carbon footprint, but is high in fat and sodium? On what measurement of “goodness” does a consumer rely then?

Specter’s point isn’t that shoppers shouldn’t feel good about buying products with a small footprint, but, rather, that the criteria by which we make such judgments are often oversimplified. Take “food miles,” for instance (a concept I’ve discussed): does closer to home always mean a smaller footprint? According to Specter, not if we consistently analyze the lifecycle of a product:

The environmental burden imposed by importing apples from New Zealand to Northern Europe or New York can be lower than if the apples were raised fifty miles away. “In New Zealand, they have more sunshine than in the U.K., which helps productivity,” [agricultural researcher Terry] Williams explained. That means the yield of New Zealand apples far exceeds the yield of those grown in northern climates, so the energy required for farmers to grow the crop is correspondingly lower. It also helps that the electricity in New Zealand is mostly generated by renewable sources, none of which emit large amounts of CO₂.

While this doesn’t take into account other benefits of locally-produced food (freshness, lack of preservatives, connections with the sources of our food), the carbon equation is much more complex than “food miles” would have us believe.

Williams further complicates his own argument by noting that, even as we strive to create more transparency about the impact of the products we buy, informed consumption is only one piece of the puzzle: “Personal choices, no matter how virtuous, cannot do enough. It will also take laws and money.” Both government and business have larger roles to play in determining how the costs of carbon emissions figure into the global social and economic picture. While tying a price to carbon emissions is critical, can the private sector do this on its own through institutions like the Chicago Carbon Exchange? Or are government-imposed ceilings on carbon emissions necessary? Doesn’t putting a price on carbon mean that it’s OK to pollute if you can afford to do so? And how does the developing world play into such strategies? Do we run the risk of creating a system of “climate colonialism,” where poor nations must develop along prescribed paths in order to balance the impact of Western-style development? Even if rich nations pay poorer ones to maintain forests and other “carbon sinks,” doesn’t this still amount to a mindset of “we know what’s best for you?”

None of these questions are answered easily, but it’s critical that we engage with them as we step up to the challenges of climate change, water shortages, loss of biodiversity, and other environmental crises. Ecology is a study of complexity, and trying to deal with ecological issues in a simple manner is bound to come back and bite us (just think of all the hubbub over corn-based ethanol as a major weapon in the fight against climate change).

So, do we stop publishing the tips, and praising companies for green labeling strategies? No… again, I think these methods are useful for bringing others on board, at least in terms of their actions and purchasing choices. As we do these things, though, we have to make sure not to fall into simple thinking as we promote simple solutions. Tips, simple actions, and greener purchasing choices can engage and empower others, but we can’t lead either “green newbies” or ourselves to believe that they’ll provide the answers for the complex problems facing us, or that going green doesn’t require some recognition of the intricacy of our footprints.

Renewable energy has attracted a lot of attention lately as the world looks for cleaner ways to power our world. Wind and solar stand as the most recognizable clean, green dynamos, but they still struggle to compete with traditional and entrenched power producers. True to conventional economic values, competition is everything. Yet, in the U.S.A. these technologies have survived in the dog-eat-dog industry for decades mostly without the aid of government subsidies (unlike coal and oil), and many claim that renewables could take off with just a little help from Uncle Sam. What are the obstacles? Are government subsidies the only saving grace for renewables? This post hopes to shed some light on the topic and burn through the conflicting noise that surrounds this fundamental and controversial industry.

It seems like I’m always reading articles about improvements, investments, and the promise of renewable energy. For a more practical perspective, I recently asked a successful businessman, who sometimes works with solar panels, for his opinion. Did he think that solar was going to boom in the next few years? His opinion was that the industry would need more government subsidies to really take off. Even with high oil prices, it was still simply too expensive to invest on a small scale. You might regain your initial investment in 15+ years in ideal conditions. Even in states with incentives to support renewable energy, it’s expensive. His view echoed my cousin’s frustration. Yet despite the initial cost, renewables are still an attractive option. As expensive as it may be to buy and install solar panels, it’s also very expensive ($1.8-billion and rising) to build a new coal-fired power plant with “clean coal” technologies. Hidden costs also plague coal power plants: the cost to clean up mercury emissions, the water required to operate, and in some places, the cost of carbon credits. Finally, the bottom line: how much does it cost to generate each kilowatt hour? Compare two graphs, one for coal and one for solar, and you may be surprised.

But what about the cry for “subsidies!”? I’ll state right out that I don’t intend to offer an analysis, or interpretation of U.S. energy subsidies. There is enough information out there to fill a multitude of posts, and books have already been published on the issue. Boiled down, the federal government tends to support traditional oil and coal over renewables like solar and wind. Ethanol has received a lot of attention and support from the Bush administration, but studies show that it poses its own problems. There is a new proposal to extend renewable energy subsidies after similar measures were shot down in the last energy bill. There’s increasing pressure for Uncle Sam and other international governments to lend a hand or even tax carbon. Subsidies could help make renewables not just competitive, but accessible and profitable - much in the same way subsidies currently reduce the price of gasoline for consumers. But are subsidies the one and only answer? How long can we afford to wait for the government to draft and pass complicated and contentious legislation?

Enter Google. This year Google announced that it would invest millions in renewable energies to support R&D and building facilities. The idea seemed so attractive that it started a craze: this week, “U.S. institutional investors… pledged $10 billion dollars over two years in renewable energy technologies and project development, energy efficiency, green building and clean technologies” (my emphasis). These are investors we’re talking about - people who assess risk and intend to make a profit. With a multi-billion dollar injection into the industry, maybe some of the new advances I get so excited over will leap off the drawing board and into our lives. But we need not wait for new technology to save us. I agree with Peter A. Darbee, Chairman, CEO and President of PG&E Corporation when he says the technology is already available.

“In conversations with other business leaders, I have heard more times than I can count that it’s impossible or impractical to make much headway on greenhouse gases until we have better technology,” Darbee said. “That is not the case. It’s a red herring…. The biggest obstacle right now is a lack of will — not invention.”

In case you don’t know, PG&E stands for Pacific Gas & Electric company. They are a major energy provider that supports renewable energy. Looking at all of this information, I admit that I feel a little overwhelmed. I’m not an economist but I’ve come away with the strong sense that renewables are valuable for more than their guilt-free eco-friendly qualities. Right now, they stand firmly on the cusp of competitiveness with other forms of electricity generation, and constant improvements in technology will push them into the forefront of the industry even if legislation and subsidies do not. This fact is proved by commitments of large international corporations to invest not millions, but billions of dollars into the development and implementation of renewable technologies. Even if we cannot agree on the politics of renewables, I think we can agree that investments on this scale signal an economic shift. Renewable technologies have already been around for decades, but now it seems certain that they’ll move into the spotlight of our energy generation as the promise of their benefit comes to outweigh crumbling economic obstacles.

Admittedly this article is limited as it has focused on comparing solar to oil and coal. I had difficulty finding the statistics and numbers I wanted for wind power. Other options of energy production, such as non-food ethanol, plasma gasification, hydrogen, wave or tidal power, and other technologies are either controversial, still under development, or both. They may play a larger role in the future, but I wanted to limit my scope for the sake of simplicity and brevity.

Do you have any ideas, opinions, links, or comments?

Resources:

Solar Buzz

Earth Track: for detailed info on subsidies.

Images provided courtesy of Smart Planet and the Roosevelt Institution

Back then, my connection to my work ended at the end of my 3.5 inch business card. No purpose, no passion, no desire to do anything other than fill a job description someone else gave me and pay my mounting credit card bills.

Flash forward to today, as I say hello from my 5.5 acre organic Wisconsin farmstead and bed & breakfast Inn Serendipity. Passion for the diversified entrepreneurial “hats” I now wear long ago replaced my former grindstone approach to a job. I truly love what I do, from writing to innkeeping to consulting on various green projects, and that passion keeps me fueled into the night, long after my am caffeine buzz wears thin.

For me, finding purpose in my work paralleled finding a sense of place. Living and working where I can see stars and silos, I found my creativity started to bloom. As I planted zucchini and found 100 post-consumer waste paper options, I realized we can create businesses that enhance — rather than exploit — the earth. As I left that staid job description that fit on a business card and entered the world of self-employment, I discovered I actually possessed an entrepreneurial soul — despite my former cookie-cutter corporate career path. And as I juggle a daily schedule of writing deadlines, B&B guests, farm duties, homeschooling our young son and an array of other fulfilling endeavors, I realized you can have it all and do good for the planet — if you call your own shots.

As my husband, John Ivanko, and I write about in our book Rural Renaissance and our forthcoming book ECOpreneuring: Putting Purpose and the Planet Before Profits, find the joy in the journey of continually learning, innovating, evolving and creating. Ideas bloom, doors open mentors appear if you follow your heart. I look forward to sharing my ecopreneuring experiences with you on this Ecopreneurist site. Where are you on your journey right now? Still needing to escape on a Friday night — or working with purpose?

Rather than spend most of my life in a carpeted cubicle, earning-and-spending and, in my case, pimping for the culture of consumption at a large advertising agency in Chicago, my wife, Lisa Kivirist, and I exited corporate America. We resettled on a 5.5 acre small farm in southwestern Wisconsin, endeavoring to learn how to grow our own food, generate our own electricity and in various other ways reclaim the ability to meet our own needs without depending on Corporate America to provide all that we need, for a price. That goes for providing a job as well. The business school I attended as an undergrad primed me for a “successful career” earning income from a Corporation, paying taxes to the government and owing much to the banks that would one day own my home, car and credit worthiness.

By exiting the fast track overflowing with Lattes and legions of consumables (remember, you have the look the part of an Advertising Executive), I’ve settled into my own skin, weeding our bountiful gardens, harvesting more solar and wind energy than Lisa and I can use on our farm, and raising our son with the Earth in mind. Our business, Inn Serendipity Bed & Breakfast, when paired with our other enterprises like writing, speaking and “green marketing consulting”, provides a lifestyle and workstyle that’s sustaining to us and the ecological community in which we’re inexorably linked. Our journey is reflected in the pages of our book, Rural Renaissance: Renewing the Quest for the Good Life. What we now do about our nourishment is captured in Edible Earth. And how we live well, on less and without the need to grow bigger and bigger, is found in the pages of Ecopreneuring: Putting Purpose and the Planet Before Profits. Our business and our life is devoted not to growth, but making things better: for our community, the environment and future for our son (and the Seventh Generation). These issues guide our daily experience and practical resources I’m eager to share through my contributions to Ecopreneurist (they won’t be taught at most business schools or found in the pages of the Wall Street Journal).

In a nutshell, ecopreneuring, as Lisa and I have come to define it, will change the way you perceive money, the role of business in solving some of today’s most pressing problems and the responsibility we must seize to reclaim the commons of commerce and cooperatively — not competitively — restore our planet in peril. For many ecopreneurs, it’s a return to family scaled, local, nature-based enterprises where quality of life is the barometer of “success”, not size of bank account or year-after-year growth in net income. We have a ROE (return on environment) not just a ROI (return on investment).

I welcome your ideas, your enthusiasm and your commitment to making the world a better place, be it through organizations you start or work for, profit-based enterprises you launch, or in a lifestyle you’ve created that helps sustain all the inhabitants of the planet.

If you already operate an ecopreneurial business in either the for-profit or non-profit sector and would like to share your story on the ecopreneuring.biz website we’re developing with inspiring and practical success stories, I’d welcome hearing from you. This website created around our Ecopreneuring book will provide support and resources for finding purpose, living well, and restoring the Earth through your business. While the politicians are talking about making the world a better place, millions of ecopreneurs already are. Are you one?

The globalized trade of products like gold, bananas, pork-bellies, sugar and wheat, to name a few, creates a market where consumers do not know where the good was actually grown, mined, plucked, or processed. Not only that, but it may not be so easy to buy something even though it is all around you (as my search for locally-grown soybeans proved). Why does this matter? It all boils down to consumer choice. On one hand, the modern globalized economy consists of consumers that are primarily concerned with getting a given commodity for the best price possible. On the other hand, some consumers may want more than whatever is cheapest.

There are some consumers who will want to weigh such variables as the ecological sustainability of a good and the process of manufacturing it; the human rights records in the country the good is produced; workplace health and safety records; environmental practices, or any of a number of monetary and non-monetary variables. Consumers who choose to shop with their conscience are faced with tough choices every day, and they usually go something like this: Pay more for a product because it is organically grown, or fair-trade certified and feel better about how your money affects the larger social, ecological and political climate, or, pay less for virtually the same product and spend the difference on something else you wanted.

As consumers, we are constantly being bombarded with choices that can challenge the strength and conviction of our beliefs. Most of the choices seem minute, but depending on how loud that little voice inside your head shouts, other choices may present some rather sticky cognitive dissonance at an uncomfortable level. Don’t believe me? What is the first thing you think of when you are faced with the ubiquitous ‘paper or plastic?’ Concerned about the consequences of all that Styrofoam, do you calculate differences in total resource depletion when asked ‘dine-in or carry-out?’ Do you buy organic or conventional fruits and vegetables? always? why? why not? Do you buy your gas at Exxon/Mobil or BioWillie? do you care? Would you rather have a Budweiser or a Fat Tire? Do you prefer Starbucks, the coffee cart, or your French press? Would you rather go to to WAL-MART or AL-MART?(*) Would you choose fresh, crisp apples from New Zealand or last autumn’s apples from upstate? Would you like bananas that were grown by a company that pays extortion money to violent crime syndicates? or would you rather have no bananas at all?

As electricity consumers, we have no way of determining exactly where the electricity that powers our homes and businesses is generated. Unless you live off the grid or you’ve got the ability to completely disconnect from the grid and generate your own electricity, you cannot distinguish between an electron generated from coal and one generated from wind, natural gas, solar, hydro, or any other source. We can determine the probability that our electricity is of a specific mix, but that is about it. Electricity consumers also often lack any specific knowledge of when electricity is expensive and when it is cheap; we generally know that electricity is more expensive in the morning and in the evening but most of us do not have the ability to monitor those price fluctuations and act accordingly. However, as the issues of energy use and its relationship to climate change are achieving greater acceptance among the general public, consumers want more control over how the energy they consume is produced and how they consume energy. People would be much more interested in the production cost of coal if they were paying the actual cost of coal-fired electricity. Energy generated from “traditional” fossil fuels is only cost-effective because the formula used to determine those costs omits too many of the social and ecological externalities of production.

The current and projected costs of coal do not adequately account for the increased volume and intensity of resources that will be required to extract coal from perennially deeper deposits in increasingly remote regions of this planet. As long as the pathological miscalculations dominate energy pricing, the real costs of fossil-fuel production will remain hidden… (to be continued).

(*) AL-MART is located at 10,353 feet above sea-level in Alma, CO.

Last week I attended a sold-out conference in downtown Denver that addressed the future of Colorado’s ‘New Energy Economy.’ In the absence of any substantial federal legislation to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, state-level government initiatives in such states as California, Vermont, New Jersey, Minnesota, Massachusetts and Colorado to name a few, are giving shape to a technological ‘race to the top’ scenario where states are competing with each other to attract the type of businesses that can spur the development of a regional new energy economy.

While renewable energy technologies are receiving much needed attention from Wall St. to Main St. and from Cape Cod to Capitol Hill, the consensus at the conference seemed to be that planners, policymakers and investors should focus their immediate gaze on the ‘low hanging fruit’ of energy efficiency.

A rather interesting group was assembled for this event; it attracted CEOs of major utilities, well-known environmental advocates (and lesser known ones), coal advocates, reps from big oil, governors, farmers, mayors, contractors, energy researchers, policy wonks, etc. It is these sort of interdisciplinary events that have the effect of expanding the green movement beyond the constraints of its traditional boundaries.

In a smart political move, the Governor’s Energy Office and the Colorado Public Utilities Commission have already posted links to PowerPoint presentations and high-quality audio of the conference sessions. I have no intention of pouring through the entire conference agenda for you, but if you are interested, I can suggest some worthwhile speeches and panels. The morning began with a pep-talk from Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter who touted a few of the state’s legislative initiatives passed in the last session which included a doubling of the renewables portfolio standard (rps) for publicly owned utilities. Ritter delivered his remarks in a high-energy, high-spirited address that started the event off on the right foot. The governor did hint at the proposed policies in his new climate change initiative, but refrained from getting too specific about the details, which will be appropriately announced Monday at Coors Field in Denver. If you do listen to the Governor’s talk, pay attention to the Q&A at the end and see if you can pick out which one of the questioners was yours truly! Other worthwhile talks in the morning plenary session came from Ron Binz from the Co. Public Utilities Commission, and from the Director of the Governor’s Energy Office, Tom Plant.

If you are interested in traditional fuel sources, you might be interested in listening to the session titled “Coal and Gas: What are the Challenges…” I personally did not attend this session but instead attended the “Consumer Demand” session which featured political analyst Floyd Ciruli and was moderated by the excellent environmental historian Patricia Limerick. During the same time period there was another session for the technically-minded featuring “New Generation Technologies.” In the second afternoon session I attended “Meeting Future Demand” which featured some spirited debate between Matt Baker, Executive Director of Environment Colorado and Jim Sims, who is best known as being a part of Vice President Dick Cheney’s infamous energy task force (you remember, the one that was criticized for being cloaked in secrecy). This last session was informative but, unfortunately, the equivocating and loquacious Mr. Sims prevented too many questions from being asked by the audience because he was too busy reiterating his redundant messages.

Image Credit: Alexsandar Rodic

Finally getting up to speed here — of course, that must mean it’s the last day of the symposium. Here’s my report from yesterday’s morning session, which is also published on Green Options.

Thursday morning’s session at the Papandreou Foundation’s Symi Symposium focused on the “green economy”: how to craft economic policy that both internalizes the costs of a carbon-based economy, and creates incentives to move away from carbon-intensive energy sources. The presenters in this session were Joseph Stiglitz, professor of economics at Columbia University and former member of the Clinton administration, and Angelo Consoli, Director, Codeco s.s., European Affairs and Progressive Communication.

Professor Stiglitz’s presentation picked up on a theme that has run throughout the conference: the question of the best economic mechanisms to address climate change. Stiglitz argued (as have others) that a carbon tax is preferable to a cap and trade system (the model embraced by the Kyoto treaty, and much of the business world). Because changes in the market away from fossil fuels will inevitably make those energy sources less expensive, carbon taxes keep their prices high, reflecting the costs imposed on society by carbon emissions. Stiglitz also argued that such taxation responds to another reality: market-based approaches won’t work by itself, and government investments in infrastructure, research, and preparedness will be needed to round out a comprehensive approach to fighting climate change.

Other costs that the developed world likely will face stems from advancing the concepts of energy security and independence. If countries like China and India act in accordance with these concepts, that inevitably means that they’ll be burning more coal — China is already building coal-fired power plants at the rate of one/week. This could be disastrous in terms of climate change, but it points to the need for developing countries to build their energy infrastructure. If countries like China and India have to impede their own development to play a part in a global response to the climate crisis, Stiglitz argued that they should probably be compensated.

All of these question are important for the next round of climate negotiations. Stiglitz noted that in order to bring the developing world into this process, measuring carbon emissions on a per capita basis will be critical, as will a strict enforcement system. His last point: trade sanctions will likely be the most effective means of enforcing adherence to carbon mitigation strategies adopted by the international community.

Consoli’s presentation dealt with a completely different issue: the necessity (his argument) of developing the hydrogen economy in order to address global warming. He argued that one of the major impediments facing the growth of renewable generation technologies is storage, and that by using renewables such as wind and solar power to electrolyze water and create hydrogen, we can overcome that impediment. Consoli noted that the development of such systems, which would be decentralized, also has the benefit of empowering (in every sense of the word) people around the globe without access to electricity, or the capital to create it with current centralized generation technologies. The economic effect of such a transition involves a move from carbon-intensive energy sources, which require high amounts capital, to renewable sources that require high amounts of labor, so renewable production of hydrogen as an energy storage mechanism ends up boosting employment and economic growth.

Consoli presented the EU Parliament’s Written Declaration on energy, and it’s five pillars:

• Efficiency
• Renewables
• CO2 Reduction
• Hydrogen
• Smart Grids

As you might imagine, the questions and responses came quickly and furiously to these presentations, and included thoughts about the political reality of carbon taxation, the idea that such taxes create a right to pollute, the problem of hydrogen generation from “dirty” sources, and the methods by which governments can encourage their citizens to accept changes that could be painful in the short term. As usual, I’m giving a quick and dirty overview here — feel free to ask questions or offer your own responses.

Editor's note: Fair Trade is a topic that GreenOptions.com has been covering for some time now, so we thought it might be interesting to debate from the progressive vs. conservative perspective. Brady and Alicia offer us some excellent background on the discussion. Now, it's Jimmy and Shirley's turn...

Jimmy: Although I am generally conservative on fiscal matters and would normally lean toward unfettered free trade, I understand the importance of Fair Trade to our country’s interest and as a humanitarian influence on the world. Fair Trade levels the playing field. Where we have certain standards for the treatment of our workers and environmental restrictions, while other countries do not; therefore, they have a competitive advantage. In circumstances where slave and prison labor is used to compete with American labor the need for Fair Trade standards is obvious. But what about circumstances where the cost of living in undeveloped countries is simply so much lower that this allows the country to clobber the US with low cost labor?

I’ve run the numbers and done the math. Because of our progressive tax structure I could easily quit my job and do just as well financially as I do now. My wife and I are a pretty typical two income professional household. Given income tax, social security taxes, sales taxes, etc. about one half of the second income ends up going to taxes in one form or another. It would be easy to fire the housekeeper, clip coupons, mow my own grass, change my own oil, dine out less and basically play defense with the family budget to the point where our lifestyle would actually be improved over the way we live now.

So what is it that drives me and everyone else like me to continue on this gerbil wheel of production and consumption? I’m not sure; but whatever it is, it is good for society.

Currently oil energy imports represent 40% of our trade deficit. Worse, we are spending this money both directly and indirectly in a way that supports regimes that are hostile America. At the same time we are subsidizing our farmers to keep U.S. agriculture viable; often paying farmers not to grow various crops. Now I don’t know what the added geopolitical cost per gallon of gasoline is but I do know that if we consider these facts it substantially narrows the gap between the cost of ethanol and the cost of gasoline.