Clearing Up Cap-And-Trade

  • In cap-and-trade, businesses can purchase the right to pollute from other companies that reduce their emissions more than they need to. (Photo courtesy of the US EPA)

Congress is considering restricting
carbon emissions causing climate
change with a cap-and-trade scheme.
But, recent polls show only a handful
of people have heard of cap-and-trade.
Even fewer understand what it is.
Lester Graham reports cap-and-trade
is not new:

Transcript

Congress is considering restricting
carbon emissions causing climate
change with a cap-and-trade scheme.
But, recent polls show only a handful
of people have heard of cap-and-trade.
Even fewer understand what it is.
Lester Graham reports cap-and-trade
is not new:

We’ve been using the market-based tool to reduce other pollution.

Frank O’Donnell is with the environmental group Clean Air Watch. He says ‘remember acid rain?’ The government ‘capped’ the pollutants causing acid rain. And then came the ‘trade’ part.

“Sources can either reduce their emissions further or purchase the right to pollute from other companies that reduce their emissions more than they need to.”

O’Donnell says that cap-and-trade was cheaper than anybody predicted, and it reduced acid rain. But it didn’t eliminate it.

“And the reason is that the cap-and-trade target was essentially a politically-driven target. It was not one based fully on science.”

In fact, the US EPA is now proposing cutting acid rain pollutants more.

O’Donnell thinks a cap-and-trade scheme for carbon emmissions could be far more susceptible to political maneuvering.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Hawaii Picks Up Pricing Model

  • Hawaii has the highest energy prices in the nation. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

Some states have been looking at
new ways to get more renewable energy
on the grid. This year, California,
Vermont, and now Hawaii implemented
a German-style pricing model that pays
people for the green electricity they
generate. Ben Markus reports:

Transcript

Some states have been looking at
new ways to get more renewable energy
on the grid. This year, California,
Vermont, and now Hawaii implemented
a German-style pricing model that pays
people for the green electricity they
generate. Ben Markus reports:

Hawaii imports fossil fuels – namely oil – to meet 90% of its energy needs –
including electricity.

“We’ve been saying for decades that this is foolish, and yet we haven’t changed. Well, now we’re
changing.”

Ted Peck is the state’s Energy Administrator. He says recent approval of
the new pricing model will help spark that change.

It offers a premium price for renewables. That makes it easier for solar and
wind companies to secure financing because they know what they’ll be
paid.

Mark Duda is president of the Hawaii Solar Energy Association. He says
it’s not as wide-open as the German model, but it will make a difference.

“Many of the key design elements went in the direction that the solar industry wanted, and so we’re
definitely pleased with that.”

The big sticking point is setting what will be paid for renewables. And some
are worried about how this will affect ratepayers.

Hawaii already has the highest energy prices in the nation.

For The Environment Report, I’m Ben Markus.

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Germany Sets Energy Example

  • Nearly 20 years ago, Germany passed a law requiring utility companies to pay homeowners more for creating green energy. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

Many European countries are taking
climate change seriously. Since
1990, Germany has slashed their carbon
emissions nearly 23%, emerging
as a leader in green energy. Conrad
Wilson explains the country’s transformation
to an alternative energy leader:

Transcript

Many European countries are taking
climate change seriously. Since
1990, Germany has slashed their carbon
emissions nearly 23%, emerging
as a leader in green energy. Conrad
Wilson explains the country’s transformation
to an alternative energy leader:

Nearly 20 years ago, Germany passed a law requiring utility companies to pay
homeowners more for creating green energy. Today that includes wind and
geothermal, but the big winner is solar.

Dr. Silke Karcher is a scientist at the German Ministry of Environment in Berlin.
She says the solar industry is growing, despite the lack of sun.

“One of the instruments, one of the legal instruments that we would really like to
export that has really been successful is the way that we’re supporting renewable
energies and electricity. We have a so-called ‘feed in tariff law,’ which mean that
wherever in Germany you produce renewable energy, you can feed it into the
grid and you get a specific price.”

And that policy has put Germany way ahead to the US. Even with all the rebates
and other recent incentives in the nation’s most pioneering green tech states, it
takes longer for homeowners in the US to pay off an investment in a solar array.

“What Germany does is that they say we’ll pay x amount of euros for every
kilowatt produced, period.”

That’s Jim Rarus, principal of InPower. It’s a Colorado-based solar installation
company. Rarus says rather than comparing renewable fuels to less expensive
fossil fuels, Germany accounts for the costs of pollution.

“They don’t compare certain technologies like solar, which obviously have a
higher cost basis, to other technologies like coal and natural gas, which have a
lower costs basis. So they’re paying a price that reflects the fact that it’s a little
more expensive to build a solar plant and allows the people that put it in to either
get their money back or to make a reasonable return.”

For homeowners investing in solar arrays in the US, the process can be
unpredictable and even frustrating. Johnny Weiss is executive director of Solar
Energy International. It’s a Colorado based nonprofit that trains people for
careers in the solar industry. He says the incentive system in the US is too
complex.

“Over here, it’s different and a more complicated system. We all have states that
are free to do their own incentive programs. We have incentives at the national
level. We have incentives at the local level. But the result is that it’s a bit
overwhelming for not just solar professionals, but the public as well. And it’s not a
consistent thing people can count on.”

Some communities in the US are trying out the European model. But the limited
government support in the US has driven competition as solar companies try to
make the energy source affordable. That’s something some fear isn’t happening
anymore in Germany.

Dr. Kurt Christian Scheel heads up the Department of Climate and Sustainable
Development for the German private industry association. Scheel worries that
government incentives have stifled innovation.

“I mean, let’s put it this way. Whoever produces solar panels in Germany has a
safe earning and no motivation in anyway to, and not enough competition to,
innovate and to make things better.”

But even if in the long-term some feel a feed-in tariff slows innovation and
growth, it’s proven that in a short period of time it can drive energy consumers to
become producers.

For The Environment Report, I’m Conrad Wilson.

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Citizen Scientists Help Uncle Sam

  • Citizen scientist divers brave the chilly waters of Washington State to count the marine life below. (Photo by Ann Dornfeld)

As governments tighten their belts,
it’s getting harder for them to pay
scientists to monitor the health of
the nation’s ecosystems. So increasingly,
they’re turning to citizens who do
that kind of work for free. Ann Dornfeld
reports on the growing influence of these
“citizen scientists”:

Transcript

As governments tighten their belts,
it’s getting harder for them to pay
scientists to monitor the health of
the nation’s ecosystems. So increasingly,
they’re turning to citizens who do
that kind of work for free. Ann Dornfeld
reports on the growing influence of these
“citizen scientists”:

It’s the kind of cloudy, wet day that most people spend indoors. But the cold and wet doesn’t matter as much when you’re planning to spend your day at the bottom of a Puget Sound fjord.

(sound of divers splashing into water)

About 75 miles from Seattle, these scuba divers are conducting volunteer surveys for REEF, an organization that monitors fish populations around the world. The data help researchers understand where fish live, and in what kind of numbers. It’s the kind of information governments need to understand how fishing and pollution are affecting waterways.

Back on the boat, surveyor Janna Nichols has just emerged from the 48-degree water. She pulls out her survey and goes down the list marking off what she’s just seen.

“Sunflower stars, definitely, many of those – saw a lot of those around. No sand dollars, no sea urchins. Ah! Ooh! Ah! Here’s an exciting one! I saw a giant nudibranch! A very small giant nudibranch. But those are very cool to see – a treat!”

Identifying fish can be tricky, because the same species can have different coloration depending on its age, gender, or even time of the year.

“Black-eyed gobies were everywhere. I would say under a hundred of them. And – they were mating! Because I don’t know if you noticed, they had black pelvic fins. And they kind of hover around and say “Hey, baby baby, look at me!”

As much fun as these “citizen scientists” have, professional scientists take the data these divers collect seriously. Last summer volunteer surveyor David Jennings went diving in Washington’s Olympic National Park Marine Sanctuary. He was excited to see the colorful tiger and china rockfish he’d heard were abundant at the park. But when he got there, he only saw a couple. So he looked at the past six years of REEF survey data to see how the rockfish populations had changed.

“One of the best sources was someone that wrote up a diving experience he had in 2002 where he saw dozens of tigers and many chinas. Whereas I in a week of diving saw two tigers and just three chinas. so it was a very big contrast to what people saw in the past.”

Jennings took the data to the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife. That’s the agency that decides fishing limits. Greg Bargmann is a department fisheries biologist who’s working on next year’s catch limits for rockfish. He says even though the REEF divers aren’t as highly-trained as the state biologists, the data they collect are more current and cover a wider area.

“The REEF survey shows a very dramatic decrease in abundance over the last five years. Our state surveys don’t show that, but we have a lot of imprecision in our surveys so we’re relying on the REEF surveys to look for changes in population.”

That’s because the state can’t afford to send its biologists out as often or to as many sites as the volunteers dive.

“We really appreciate the interest of our citizens to spend time going out there and using their own transportation costs and their own equipment to go out and collect data, and to listen to us and collect things that are not easy to do sometimes.”

You don’t have to dive to be a citizen scientist. In Ohio, citizens track everything from salamanders to spiders. In California, tighter budgets mean more poaching – and not enough game wardens. So states are training volunteers to do more work. And across the country, the Environmental Protection Agency relies on citizens to monitor water quality in lakes and streams.

Bargmann says while governments rely on citizen scientists more during budget crunches, he sees programs like these becoming increasingly important for keeping track of the health of the environment.

For The Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld.

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Your Power Bill in the Future

  • The Energy Information Administration says power bills could also fluctuate based on whether we develop cheap low-carbon coal technology. (Photo source: Frank C. Muller at Wikimedia Commons)

The price we pay for power in the
future will depend on the kind of
power plants we invest in. That’s
according to a report that examines
proposed climate change regulations.
Shawn Allee has more:

Transcript

The price we pay for power in the
future will depend on the kind of
power plants we invest in. That’s
according to a report that examines
proposed climate change regulations.
Shawn Allee has more:

The Energy Information Administration is the federal government’s crystal ball when it comes to energy policy.

The EIA looked at the House version of a big climate change bill. The Senate takes it up next month.

Forecast director John Conti says new regulations could cost each household between $12 and $227 more each year within a decade.

Conti says there’s a range because it’s not exactly clear how much it’ll cost to switch to low-carbon power sources, like nuclear.

“For most technologies, you have a good idea of how much they’re going to cost. Of course, we haven’t built a nuclear plant in twenty or so years and, as a result, there’re varying cost estimates and people can debate, I think, for a large extent, until that first plant is indeed built.”

Conti says power bills could also fluctuate based on whether we develop cheap low-carbon coal technology.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Dollars and Streams

  • A creek runs through Melvin Hershberger's farm in Holmes County, Ohio. He was able to clean up the water with money from the Alpine Cheese Company. The company needed to offset phosphorous pollution from its factory, so it pays farmers to reduce their manure runoff. (Photo by Julie Grant)

When you hear about dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Lakes, they’re largely caused by pollution draining from the farm belt. It can take a long time and a lot of money to reduce pollution at factories. So they’re starting to pay farmers to cut pollution instead. Julie Grant explains:

Transcript

When you hear about dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Lakes, they’re largely caused by pollution draining from the farm belt. It can take a long time and a lot of money to reduce pollution at factories. So they’re starting to pay farmers to cut pollution instead. Julie Grant explains:

When you eat cheese, you might not realize that something so delicious creates a lot of waste. And that waste – that pollution – ends up going into the drain. It eventually ends up in rivers and lakes.

(sound of a factory)

We’re at a cheese factory in Holmes County, Ohio where they make nearly 60,000 pounds of cheese a day.

The big stainless steel vats look immaculate. But our shoes are wet.

Bob Ramseyer is CEO of the Alpine Cheese Company.

He says the floors are covered with water because the equipment is constantly being washed.

“We have a pre-rinse – that goes to drain. We have a final rinse, and that goes to drain. And we have all the floors that are flushed down and so forth, so that all ends up as part of the wastewater.”

The cheese factory’s wastewater includes not only those caustic chemical cleaners, but wasted milk by-products. One milk nutrient is the chemical, phosphorous.

About a decade ago, the Environmental Protection Agency told Ramseyer that the cheese company had to reduce the phosphorous it was releasing into the nearby river. Ramseyer was concerned.

“The equipment alone was going to cost a half million dollars. We projected it was going to cost between a half million dollars and a million dollars a year in operating costs. So we were looking for any way we could to reduce that cost. That’s where we got into the nutrient trading program.”

Alpine Cheese was among the first to negotiate what’s called a nutrient – or water quality – trading program. Instead of reducing the phosphorous coming from his factory, he pays farmers to reduce manure – another source of phosphorous – from washing from feedlots into the river.

(sound of cows)

Mervin Hershberger is an Amish dairy farmer with 125 acres and 54 milking cows.

(sound of a stream)

His farm looks like a postcard – beautiful hilly green pasture.

But a lot of the manure was washing off his farm into the streams. Herberberger says the cows were grazing right around the water.

“With the cows being in the creek we could see dirty water. The rocks were covered with dirt from cow’s waste. You walk through the stream, you’d kick up dirt and waste from the cows.”

Hershberger didn’t like it, but he didn’t have money to change it.

So when the County Soil and Water Conservation District held a neighborhood meeting to explain that Alpine Cheese was going to pay to reduce pollution from nearby farms, Hershberger saw a way to afford to clean up his farm.

He did about a dozen projects to reduce manure run-off into the water, like building a fence to keep the cows out of the stream.

And the little creek is bouncing back:

“As of now, it’s just totally clean, what you see. For the minnows and all the critters that are in the creek.”

Hershberger gets paid for the amount of phosphorous he keeps out of the water.

About 25 other farms in Holmes County are doing similar projects to reduce water pollution. And Alpine Cheese foots the bill. In exchange, the company doesn’t have to clean up wastewater coming from the cheese factory.

It’s a lot like a cap and trade program on water pollution.

There are a growing number of small programs like this around the country. But some people are trying to create water trading projects on a much larger scale.

That would mean a factory in one state might be able to pay farmer in another state. Eventually, all of the thousands of factories in just one river basin could pay farmers enough to reduce dead zones like the one in the Gulf of Mexico and in some of the Great Lakes.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

What Counts as Green Collar?

  • President Obama has said that a move toward clean energy production has enormous job creation potential. But some researchers say that’s overblown. (Source: Kmadison at Wikimedia Commons)

At the heart of President Obama’s economic recovery plan is the promise of new green collar jobs. Workers concerned about being laid off from their blue collar jobs are starting to wonder what those new jobs will look like. Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

At the heart of President Obama’s economic recovery plan is the promise of new green collar jobs. Workers concerned about being laid off from their blue collar jobs are starting to wonder what those new jobs will look like. Julie Grant reports:

Michelle Forte has been a dye maker at the General Motors plant in Parma, Ohio for 15 years. She says everyone at work is worried about the future of the plant, and the prospects of the whole company.

“It’s a scary industry to be in right now. They keep on sending our work to China. And my job could be next, you just don’t know. It’s scary to live in that environment every day. You go into work and it’s negative all the time.”

Forte hasn’t gotten a raise in 6 years. And in the future, if she stays as autoworker, she’s going to be making a lot less.

“I will tell you what I made last year, and that was $80,000. And this year, with the concessions that we’ve took and the overtime that we’ve lost, I will be lucky to make $60,000. So, yeah, it’s a drastic cut.”

Forte decided to take advantage of job training money available at GM. She gets up a five in the morning to start work, then after her shift she heads to school.

She and two co-workers have started taking courses at the new Green Academy at Cuyahoga Community College. They’re learning what it takes to install solar panels, wind turbines, and to make buildings energy efficient. It’s tough getting home after 10 at night. But Forte says learning to work in the clean energy field is a positive step for their future.

“Because we wanted to get in on the ground floor. If it breaks open like we think it is, we want to have the education under our belt already.”

But most autoworkers aren’t betting on an explosion of green jobs. At least, they aren’t spending their time in training classes – even if they’ve already been laid off.

Joe Rugola is president of the AFL-CIO of Ohio. The union represents everyone from musicians to office workers to electricians.

Rugola says people who’ve been laid off have to make impossible choices if they decide to start training in a new industry – do they continue looking for jobs to keep the unemployment check coming in – or do they go to school for retraining?

“Am I going to go for training, if I’m already laid off, am I going to risk my unemployment benefits, and go for training in an industry that may or may not produce real work down the road? A person in that situation should not have to make that choice.”

And that’s the big gamble. Do they invest time and effort to retrain for jobs that might never materialize?

President Obama has said that a move toward clean energy production has enormous job creation potential. But some researchers say that’s overblown.

Andrew Dorchak is a researcher with the Case Western Reserve University law library. He coauthored a study titled Green Job Myths.

The first myth: that there is a common understanding of what makes something a green job.

“We’ve figured out that there wasn’t a really good definition of green jobs. Especially if there are political subsidies involved that might be problematic.”

Problematic because many of the jobs classified as green today aren’t making wind turbines and solar panels in the Midwest. They’re lobbyists, administrative assistants, and janitors working for environmental organizations in New York and Washington.

And he’s concerned the definition of green jobs will get even wider as government pockets get deeper.

“It’s subject to maneuvering. To people fighting to classify their jobs as green.”

Dorchak says companies will chase the subsidies. That could take away from government money to create productive jobs.

Jobs that could help people like Michelle Forte find work – and improve the environment at the same time.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Farmers to Help With Flooding

  • Farmers have until the end of this week to apply for a program that would pay them to let in more flood water (Photo by Keith Weller, courtesy of the USDA)

Some federal stimulus money will be used to help reduce reduce flooding problems. Chuck Quirmbach reports the government wants farmers to store more water in floodplains:

Transcript

Some federal stimulus money will be used to help reduce flooding problems. Chuck Quirmbach reports that the government wants farmers to store more water in floodplains:

The federal stimulus package has 145-million dollars to buy easements on farmland.

Farmers have until the end of this week to apply for a program that would pay them to let in more flood water.

Land that’s flooded within the last year or twice in the last decade is eligible.

Don Baloun is with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. He says farmers would eventually stop growing some crops and instead allow the planting of water-absorbing trees or grasses.

“If it has been obstructed and farmed let’s say with a dike or levee, we would breach that dike or levee and open up the floodplain, the field in particular, to store floodwaters and relieve the downstream damages.”

Baloun says allowing more water back into floodplains might reduce the threat of flooding to towns and cities along rivers.

For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Not Much Green From Eco Jobs

  • A manufacturing job in a wind or solar plant sometimes pays as little as $11 an hour - much lower than the national average for workers making other durable goods (Source: Man-ucommons at Wikimedia Commons)

One of the big plans for kick-starting the nation’s economy is to invest in green jobs: solar and wind energy projects, mass transit, and energy efficiency. But a new report finds some of those jobs might not pay as well as some people expect. Julie Grant has the story:

Transcript

One of the big plans for kick-starting the nation’s economy is
to invest in green jobs: solar and wind energy projects, mass
transit, and energy efficiency. But a new report finds some
those jobs might not be pay as well as some people expect.
Julie Grant has the story:

A manufacturing job in a wind or solar plant sometimes pays
as little as $11 an hour – much lower than the national
average for workers making other durable goods.

Kate Gordon is with the Apollo Alliance, a group that
advocates jobs in renewable energy. She helped to write
the report on green jobs.

“Just because something’s a green job does not necessarily
mean it’s a good job. There are a lot of jobs emerging in
renewable energy and energy efficiency companies where
the workers are being paid minimum wage or slightly more
or don’t have benefits.”

At the same time, the report finds that some U.S. wind and
solar companies are already outsourcing jobs to China and
Mexico.

But Gordon says the government can change this direction
with its investments – by requiring local job creation, labor
standards, and domestic content.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Epa Fines Go Unpaid

  • A Government Accountability Office report finds the EPA doesn't actually collect a lot of their fines (Photo by Lester Graham)

A government report reveals that some
polluters do the crime, but don’t pay the fine.
Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

A government report reveals that some
polluters do the crime, but don’t pay the fine.
Lester Graham reports:

The Environmental Protection Agency issues a lot of press releases that announce
big fines against companies that have been caught polluting. But, a Government
Accountability Office report finds the EPA doesn’t actually collect a lot of those fines.
It still reports them as penalties against polluters.

Matt Madia is with the government watchdog group OMB Watch.

“First of all, EPA is not doing a good job collecting the fines that they do assess. And
across the board under the Bush administration there just simply hasn’t been a big
emphasis on enforcement. The second thing is that the public is really kept in the
dark about what EPA is doing.”

That’s because an EPA official says the public should not be told whether
the agency actually collects the fines, even though the agency is quick to announce
when it levies fines.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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