Climate Law Update: Climate Change & Sustainable Energy News : Thelen Reid Law Firm : Renewable Energy, Construction, Project Finance Lawyers & Attorneys

Wind power developers in the United States built new installations at a fast rate during the first quarter of 2008, according to an industry group. But the American Wind Energy Association, which issued the report, also warned that the boom could go bust if Congress doesn't move to renew tax credits.

The association documented installations of 1,400 megawatts of new capacity, or about $3 billion worth, in its quarterly market report (see press statement here; text of report here). In its statement, the group said the industry was working at a "breakneck pace." The new installations were enough to serve 400,000 homes, according to the group. However, executive director, Randall Swisher, issued some caveats:

"But if Congress does not act quickly, this momentum could be derailed at the worst possible time for the economy, placing 76,000 jobs and over $11.5 billion in investment at risk. While 2008 is shaping up to be another great year, we could see a very different story in 2009 as uncertainty looms over investment in wind power projects and manufacturing due to continuing delay in extending the production tax credit (PTC).”

The tax credit for the production of energy from renewable sources is the primary federal incentive program for wind power, the association said in its public statement. The credit expires at the end of the year, along with other federal incentives for alternative energy.  

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Gov. Ted Strickland of coal-heavy Ohio has signed a bill pushing his state's electric distribution utilities to make sure that 25 percent of the power they sell comes from "alternative" resources by 2025.

Under Senate Bill 221, that would include juice coming from such renewable sources as wind and solar, to other forms of generation, including "clean" coal, fuel cells and advanced nuclear, according to a statement by Strickland (see statement here; bill text here) and a report in the Toledo Blade (see story here).

To meet the mandate that at least 25 percent of the power come from "alternative energy resources," Ohio's legislation requires that "at least half shall be generated from renewable energy resources, including one-half per cent from solar energy resources," in accordance with a number of annual benchmarks. 

The Blade reported that the measure allows utilities to avoid full compliance with the standards if they can demonstrate that their attempts to comply would raise consumers' bills by 3 percent or more, a provision that disappointed some environmental groups.

In his statement, Strickland (pictured) lauded the measure:

"This bill, Senate Bill 221, will ensure predictability of affordable energy prices and maintain state controls necessary to protect Ohio jobs and businesses.

We will safeguard Ohio families by empowering consumers and modernizing Ohio’s energy infrastructure.

And we will attract the jobs of the future through an advanced energy portfolio standard—and today’s action by Ohio means that a majority of states now agree that these technologies represent the future of energy in the United States." 
 

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This saving the planet stuff just isn't complicated enough, it seems.

Underscoring the importance of the finer points involved in establishing a market-based approach to controlling greenhouse gas emissions, a new report (accessible here) sponsored by a fascinating collection of interests shows how huge sums are at stake depending on how such a program is structured.

The most intriguing part of the document examines one of the most controversial parts of a cap-and-trade scenario: the distribution of emissions credits or "allowances" that will determine how many tons of heat-trapping gases that, say, a power plant can emit over a year. It looks at the differences in formulas contemplated by two bills now before Congress, the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act and the Bingaman-Specter Low Carbon Economy Act. The document also adds another twist, such as examining what would happen if credits were allocated based on each company's electricity output, versus its share of emissions.

The report generally seems to side with Lieberman-Warner. That bill would require selling more of the credits initially and it would also allocate some credits for sale to benefit the public.

The document also finds that some utilities, such as those with relatively cleaner technologies, would fare vastly better under a system in which credits were distributed on the basis of power output. However, both bills so far propose to allocate the allowances to electric providers based on their historic carbon dioxide emissions. 

The bills are named for their sponsors, Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., John Warner, R-Va., Jeff Bingaman, D-New Mexico, and Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

 

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• The Arctic and the Antarctic experience similar greenhouse gas levels and solar radiation but are responding in dramatically different ways, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which reported on a new study soon to be published in EOS, a publication of the American Geophysical Union.
• Consumers who reduce the amount of meat and dairy in their diets will do more to reduce their carbon footprint than buying all local all the time, writes Science Times, reporting on a new study of the issue.
• The United Nation's new top adviser on food is urging a freeze on investments in biofuels, reports the BBC.
• Great Britain is experiencing a boom in installations of  "green roofs" and rainwater harvesting technologies in response to a changing climate, reports The Times of London. 
• A company called OptiSolar wants to build the largest solar farm in the world about 100 miles north of Los Angeles, says a report on C-Net's news.com.
• Shell's decision to drop out of a large offshore wind project has caused an uproar in the United Kingdom, according to the Guardian.
• Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has raised $1.2 billion in two distinct funds, one of them entirely "to help speed mass-market adoption of solutions to the world's climate crisis," the San Jose Mercury News reports.  
• Hawaii's Legislature has voted to require all new homes to have solar water heaters installed starting in 2010, says the Associated Press in a story appearing in the Houston Chronicle.  
  
  
  
  
  

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Maryland's Gov. Martin O'Malley has signed a package of energy bills to among other things beef up renewable portfolio standards in that state, set goals for reducing energy consumption and funnel proceeds from the sale of greenhouse gas credits to clean energy projects.

The governor (pictured) also signed a measure, SB 1013, that ratifies a settlement of a dispute with Constellation Energy Group and ends ratepayer obligations for decommissioning nuclear power plants in the future. The settlement, according to the Baltimore Sun newspaper, also gives the state some assurances a nuclear power plant will be built (see article here). 

In a statement, O'Malley, a Democrat, held out high hopes for the a package of bills on energy and other environmental issues (see text here):

"With today’s bills, we are creating a sustainable energy policy, securing relief for thousands of Maryland ratepayers through a global settlement with Constellation Energy, protecting our environment and helping to restore the Chesapeake Bay for future generations.” 

Among the bills signed by O'Malley was a measure that, according to various reports, about doubles the state's renewable power mandate. The new law, HB 375, requires 20 percent of Maryland's electricity to come from renewable sources by 2022. That's a more modest goal than some other states, including California, which is prodding utilities to meet the 20 percent goal by 2010 and is considering imposing a 33 percent goal by 2020 (see background on California mandate here). 

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On Earth Day, attention naturally turns to all things green – as in money.

Pocketbook issues are at the center of a number of new reports that assess the impact of efforts to combat climate change and promote the development of renewable sources of energy. One report shows government subsidies taking a big jump in recent years with renewables such as solar and wind getting a proportionately large share of the money.

The Environmental Defense Fund has come out with a document that studies the studies out there on the economic cost of a cap-and-trade system to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. Perhaps coming as no shock, the organization concludes that “a clear consensus” among the models demonstrates such a market system “is consistent with long-term economic growth.” The overall cost of capping the gases would amount to less than 1 percent of household budgets over the coming two decades, according to the EDF, which supports market approaches to the problem (see press statement here; text of study here).

Release of the analysis comes as the U.S. Senate is readying to take up the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, which would establish a cap-and-trade system in the country. It also comes against a background of other reports issued by the government and business organizations showing potentially significant  economic impacts from such a system (see Climate Law Update story here).

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The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has partially approved Pacific Gas and Electric Company's request that allows the company to recover from customers at least some of the costs related to a 1,000-mile transmission project intended to deliver power from renewable sources.

In the words of a statement from the federal agency, it gave partial approval to the Northern California utility's "petition for a declaratory order for recovery of prudently incurred pre-commercial and abandonment costs" related to the effort (see text of statement here; see full text of decision here). The $3.2 billion project would deliver up to 3,000 megawatts of new renewable power to California from Canada's British Columbia and from states in the Pacific Northwest.

The project will also be designed to take advantage of the fact that demands in the region peak at different times of the year, according to a statement from one of the commissioners. 

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 gave the commission authority to encourage greater investment in the power grid, including granting incentives allowing the recovery through rates of the costs associated with the projects. Barbara Connors, a spokeswoman for the commission, declined to put a dollar figure on the items so far approved by the panel.

     

 

 

 

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A new report published by the California Public Utilities Commission suggests a robust beginning for a state program to provide incentives for residential and commercial solar projects.

The document, issued this week, reported that the California Solar Initiative, launched in January 2007, has received more than 10,000 applications. It has more than 9,800 on file, equaling more than 249 megawatts of new solar and $649 million in incentives (see full text of report here). The initiative, which covers existing residences and both existing and new commercial, industrial and agricultural properties, is one of several in California intended to boost solar installations.

Among the report's highlights:

• Applications for more than 40 megawatts were added in the first quarter of 2008;
• The program has 33.4 megawatts of installed projects, including more than 14 MW in the first quarter of 2008;
• Residential applications make up 89 percent of all the applications received but the total capacity of non-residential projects account for more than 80 percent of the electric capacity.

Officials estimated that based on applications received by the end of 2007, at least 100 MW of capacity should be installed under the initiative in 2008. Project applicants have 12 months to complete their installations.

The nearly $2.2 billion ratepayer-funded program offers financial incentives to customers in the territories of the state’s large private utilities, Pacific Gas and Electric; Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric. The report found that so far the most interest in both residential and non-residential project has been in PG&E’s territory, although that could change under the program’s provisions allowing incentives to decrease once certain levels of capacity are met in each area.

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Global warming is bad, and developing renewable energy to help solve the problem is good, right? While that might be a popular view, the reality is a bit more complicated, as experts in the field have begun noting with some frequency lately.

Talk of what UCLA School of Law Professor Ann Carlson (pictured) calls “localized environmental values clashes” over renewable projects was in the air at a recent conference at the University of California-Berkeley’s law school, Boalt Hall.

Speakers at the two-day event, “California and the Future of Environmental Law and Policy,” noted that, in particular, legal and policy fights over transmission lines pose a significant challenge for renewable development. Among them was Karen Douglas, who formerly spearheaded California climate change efforts for the  group Environmental Defense (now known as Environmental Defense Fund). She is now a member of the California Energy Commission which, among other duties, licenses large new thermal power plants in the state, as well as the transmission lines connecting them to the grid. Douglas crystallized the issue this way:

“It’s kind of a different challenge to do renewables because you’ve got to generate the power where the renewable resources are and then bring it where the people are. So that means often a lot of power lines. People don’t want that through their neighborhoods. It’s hard to site and hard to build and so on, so one issue is transmission.”

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California utility regulators have voted to commit more than a half-billion dollars – paid for by the ratepayers of the state’s privately owned utilities -- to a research and development effort devoted to finding new technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and getting them to market.

The five members of the California Public Utilities Commission, meeting at the commission's San Francisco headquarters (pictured) unanimously approved the proposal creating the California Institute for Climate Solutions. However, not all of them were fully pleased with the result. Commissioner John Bohn said the decision pushed the boundaries of the commission’s jurisdiction almost to the breaking point and he questioned charging ratepayers for investigating new technologies that might never be successful.

Commission President Michael Peevey, who carried the proposal, said California had long been a leader in environmental issues and that it was again time “to take bold and immediate action.”

The plan (see CPUC press statement here; full text of decision here) calls for $60 million a year for 10 years in ratepayer funds to go toward the institute. Most of that money, at least 85 percent, would be used to fund grants for applied research intended to support greenhouse gas reductions, as demanded by California’s landmark law, AB 32.

The institute was charged with targeting research focused on “practical and commercially viable technologies that will reduce" greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the means of adapting to the impacts of climate change that may now be inevitable. It is also intended to speed "the transfer of these technologies from the laboratory to market place," according to the lengthy decision approved by the commission Thursday. 

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The U.S. Senate Thursday moved forward with its version of an extension of tax credits for renewable energy. But it did so without identifying how to pay for the estimated $6 billion in incentives for wind, solar and other projects.

Introduced by Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, and John Ensign, R-Nevada (pictured), only a week ago (see Climate Law Update story), the Clean Energy Tax Stimulus Act (see text here) was grafted as an amendment onto a housing bill before the Senate. Lawmakers adopted the energy amendment on an 88-8 voted and passed the entire bill 84-12.

In many ways, the Senate bill is roughly similar to a measure the House passed earlier in the year extending incentives known as the investment tax credit and the production tax credit. The renewable industry has been pushing hard for Congress to adopt some kind of legislation extending credits which expire at the end of the year.

Both bills provide short-term extensions of credits for producing electricity from renewable sources and for a longer period, until 2016, for business investment tax credits for solar and fuel cell projects. Residential solar and energy efficiency projects would also benefit under the Senate bill.

But the major difference in the Senate legislation lies in the fact that bill avoided the House approach of funding the incentives through reducing tax breaks for the oil industry. Instead, the Senate bill contains no identified funding mechanism. That could give the bill a difficult road in the House.

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British Columbia is moving forward with a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gases, laying the groundwork for the province's involvement in a Western North American regional trading system.

The development occurs as one new report strikes a cautionary note about how to establish a market, warning that free allocation of emissions credits has helped produce large windfall profits in Europe (see full document here). But the Western Climate Initiative, the regional system to which British Columbia and a number of states belong, is contemplating at least a partial sale of credits (see text here). 

British Columbia officials recently announced the introduction of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act, also known as the Cap and Trade Act. They said it would put British Columbia out front of other Canadian provinces as it prepares for the onset of the new trading system (see press statement here, see text of legislation here).

“The Cap and Trade Act will make British Columbia the first Canadian province to introduce legislation authorizing hard caps on greenhouse gas emissions,” said Environment Minister Barry Penner (pictured) in a statement. A “hard” cap means that each emitter will face a set target, regardless of the growth of its operations, according to a report in the Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mail (see story here).

One expert quoted by the paper said no one in North America has done what the province is proposing. Officials from the petroleum production industry and elsewhere also expressed some concerns about the measure and how it might mesh with regulations set by other provinces and the nation’s government, as well as the province’s own newly introduced carbon tax.

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Legislation extending tax credits for renewable energy including wind, geothermal and solar for at least a year was introduced Thursday in the U.S. Senate by a bipartisan group of lawmakers. The move drew immediate praise from the solar industry.

Senate authors of the measure, who left out a controversial hit on the oil industry that was contained in a recent House bill, hoped to break a logjam that has blocked progress on keeping incentives for renewable energy in place. Backers stressed the need to act quickly, with billions of dollars in projects possibly on the line. The bill also includes financial encouragements for energy efficient buildings, homes and appliances.

Introduction of the Clean Energy Tax Stimulus Act of 2008 in the Senate (see bill summary and text), comes more than a month after the House passed its own multi-year extension measure. The Senate legislation is sponsored by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington (pictured), and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nevada. It has 21 other co-sponsors. Cantwell urged swift action (see full statement):

“Critical tax incentives are set to expire this year. If both houses of Congress don’t pass a bill, and the president doesn't ’t sign it into law within the next one to two months, we will start to see as much as $20 billion of anticipated investments in 2008 delayed or canceled. This could result in more than 100,000 U.S. jobs lost at a time when the country is skidding into a recession, and energy prices keep getting higher.”

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Governors in Vermont and Utah have become the latest to sign legislation intended to curtail greenhouse gas emissions, boost renewable energy generation, or both.

Of the two, Vermont’s was the more comprehensive (see text of bill). Senate Bill 209, signed by Gov. Jim Douglas, establishes an efficiency program he said was intended to help homeowners and businesses reduce fuel consumption and save money (see press release). At least part of the money would come from the state’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative’s cap-and-trade program.The first auction under that fast-developing program is scheduled for this fall (see press release).

One key provision in the bill appears to encourage cooperative efforts among the population to develop local renewable energy projects. 

Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman put his name to a measure that establishes a renewable portfolio standard for the state. Senate Bill 202 (see text) sets a goal for Utah utilities, both municipal and privately owned, that would mean 20 percent of their “adjusted” electric sales would come from renewable sources by 2025. That’s somewhat more modest than standards set in other states, including California, which has established a 20 percent renewable goal by 2010 and is considering efforts to increase that proportion.

 

      

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The coal war, it seems, is heating up by the day. And the battlegrounds are not always in places commonly associated with aggressive environmentalism

Take Kansas and Utah, for instance.

The Kansas City star reports that lawmakers are trying to revive a modified version of a bill vetoed last week by Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius that would have allowed construction of two new coal-fired plants over the greenhouse gas-related opposition of a state regulator.  Among her objections was the lack of support for wind power in the legislation (see text of vetoed bill and Sebelius press release with attached veto message). 

Farther west, a dispute over a proposed new coal plant in Utah is creating a legal vortex drawing industry, environmentalists and other states, including California, into a debate over the extent of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate emissions blamed for climate change.

All of this comes against a background of work in Congress on greenhouse legislation that would establish a market system for reducing emissions (cited by Sebelius), and more coal-specific developments, including a recent decision by a federal agency to back away from funding such projects (see recent Climate Law Update story). Lawmakers are also working on other federal legislation that would allow new coal plants to move forward only if they can capture and store the vast majority of their carbon emissions (see press release and text of bill).

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Despite all the talk about greenhouse gas reductions and the means to achieve them, including establishing new trading schemes for carbon, a pair of new studies suggests the nation has a ways to go.

One of the documents, in which a former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official has parsed the latest government data, shows that carbon dioxide emissions from power plants appear to be back on the rise (see press release and report and appendices). That follows on the heels of government study released only this month showing overall carbon emissions, including those from power generation, had fallen just a year earlier (see study and Climate Law Update article).

In addition, a Department of Energy study of Western utilities suggested that some of them are including fairly optimistic estimates about the impact of trading mechanisms on carbon prices. The study (which can be seen here) appeared to gently urge them to boost those figures. At the same time, it found that the utilities are aggressively planning to increase efficiency and add new renewable generation to their portfolios.

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Led by Washington state, where the governor just signed a new law charting a path to reduced greenhouse gas emissions, Western states have made several recent moves on the climate change and renewable energy fronts.

Oregon and South Dakota put in place new laws to boost the renewable energy industry. Oregon’s statute is aimed at manufacturers of renewable energy equipment, while the South Dakota legislation gives breaks to wind energy facilities and transmission lines serving them.

The new Washington statute, signed by Gov. Chris Gregoire, firms up goals established in a law passed last year and a 2007 executive order that would reduce Washington’s climate-related emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, the same as California’s AB 32. The Washington statute also sets goals for later years, including a 50 percent reduction below 1990 levels by 2050. (See here for text of 2007 law; the 2007 executive order; Gov. Gregoire's press release upon signing the 2008 legislation, House Bill 2815, into law and the full text of the 2008 statute, as well as a legislative analysis.)

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It’s not billed as picking winners and losers but a new report issued by consultants to a multi-agency effort planning California’s transmission infrastructure gives some idea of what types of renewable energy projects have a bright future, at least when it comes to getting access to the grid.

The document in effect recommends that for some technologies, including anaerobic digestion and landfill gas, no further planning should be done on access to transmission lines. But it is much more favorable toward technologies such as biomass, solar (both thermal and photovoltaic), small hydro, wind and geothermal. Wave and marine current energy fell into a gray area, with the consultants recommending no further planning right now but instead keeping an eye on further developments.

Prepared by Black & Veatch Corporation, a large international consulting and contracting firm, the report, dated March 14, could be significant because it constitutes a first step in the state’s Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative, which is often known by its acronym, RETI. The project is designed to take a strategic and unified approach to siting transmission lines to serve renewable generation resources located in California or elsewhere in the West. The next phase of the process involves ranking the cost-effectiveness of delivering power from specific interconnection points.

 

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Legislation in Congress to reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions might carry a hefty economic price tag, according to a new analysis released Friday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. But sponsors of the bill, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said the report actually demonstrates that the country could accomplish the cuts without sacrificing its prosperity.

Even as the costs of addressing climate change sparked discussion,  there were new signs global warming itself could prove economically destructive. Earlier in the week, another government study suggested potentially dire consequences from unchecked climate change on the nation's Gulf Coast, a vital part of the nation's shipping and petroleum infrastructure.

EPA's forecasts covered a variety of possible impacts. The agency predicted the economy might feel a drag on growth of less than 1 percent by 2030, but that the punch could also be nearly four times as strong. Among the "many uncertainties" it cited were the availability of new technologies and what other countries do regarding climate change.   

The EPA’s report followed by a day another set of estimates – this one prepared by the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Council for Capital Formation – showing the bill dragging on the economy to the tune of millions of fewer jobs and slowing the growth of the gross domestic product (see press release). The Environmental Defense Fund, an environmental group, immediately attacked the business groups’ findings, noting they did not analyze the costs of doing nothing to stop climate change.

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Utility and power plant regulators in California this week agreed on basic approaches, including implementing a cap-and-trade system, for reducing the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. But they left some critical decisions until later in the year.

In separate unanimous votes Wednesday and Thursday the California Energy Commission and the California Public Utilities Commission approved a joint set of recommendations for how the state’s electricity and natural gas industries should meet the demands of the groundbreaking 2006 law, AB 32 (see CPUC press release here). The CPUC regulates privately owned utilities in the state, while the energy commission carries out a number of forecasting and planning duties, as well as licensing large generating plants. 

The document now goes to the California Air Resources Board, the primary agency charged with implementing the California Global Warming Solutions Act. The law aims to reduce California’s greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, approximately a 25 percent cut. Electric power generation accounts for more than one-fifth of the state’s greenhouse gases, according to the energy commission.

The recommendation approved this week endorses a mix of methods for achieving the reductions, and it reflected proposals put forward by Michael R. Peevey, president of the state utilities commission, last month. They include prodding electricity providers, regardless of ownership, to exceed the state’s current goal of having 20 percent of their power come from renewable sources; backing the establishment of a cap and trade program for the electricity sector and designating the companies that deliver power to the state’s grid as the entities directly responsible for complying with AB 32’s requirements under such a program.

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A flurry of new reports from consultants, industry officials and scientists paint a decidedly upbeat picture for renewable energy -- with the startling possible exception of electricity from Hoover Dam. The overall conclusion: Government policies and larger market trends are boosting the fortunes of non-traditional energy, even in the face of a stressed economy.

Experts, in analyses released over recent days, see mushrooming growth in both revenues and investments in alternative energy, including wind, solar, biofuels and fuel cells. One report produced by Clean Edge Inc., a West Coast research company, showed sales for those sectors worldwide had grown by 40 percent from last year, to $77.3 billion. The four sectors are likely to be valued at $254.5 billion by 2017, Clean Edge predicted (see press release here).

At the same time, Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21), an international research organization based in Paris, reported a nearly 30 percent increase in investments in renewable capacity, to $71 billion, over 2006. Almost half of that money was going toward wind power, according to the institution's press release and report.

But still another estimate went even further. Analysts at New Energy Finance, headquartered in London, calculated that total new investment in clean energy – which the firm defines as biofuels, biomass, geothermal, small hydro, wind, marine and solar – actually hit $148.4 billion in 2007. That figure is up 60 percent compared to the year before and is even higher than an estimate produced by New Energy in January that did not include some transactions reported until later. Venture capitalists, private equity investors and public market investors all played major roles, New Energy reported.

The influx of capital is “the big story here,” Ron Pernick, co-founder of Clean Edge, told Climate Law Update Tuesday. Clean Edge’s report, which also incorporated the New Energy findings, estimated venture capitalists poured $2.7 billion into clean-energy investments, nearly 10 percent of the total VC activity for the year.

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The U.S. Department of Energy recently announced it had worked out a cooperative arrangement with the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit whose research is supported by electric utilities, to look at ways to promote energy efficiency.

One primary goal of the agreement was to promote widespread adoption of  "demand response" programs to curtail energy use during peak periods. Officials also drew connections between the agreement and efforts to deal with climate change.   

A memorandum of understanding between EPRI and the energy department called on them to coordinate efforts to support research related to demand response and energy efficiency in buildings and on other projects, such as developing ways for utilities to account for carbon dioxide reductions. The document notes that the private institute has launched an initiative to gain the support of up to 50 utilities "to enable expansion of programs, activities and technologies to encourage greater energy efficiency and widespread adoption of electric demand response."

In a DOE statement announcing the initiative, EPRI Senior Vice President Michael W. Howard said the pact, which the memorandum described as non-binding, would "facilitate the development of energy efficiency technologies needed to help slow, stop and ultimately reverse the nation's carbon footprint."

(Department of Energy photo showing March 6 signing ceremony: L-R: Kevin Kolevar, assistant secretary for electricity delivery and energy reliability, DOE; Alexander Karsner, assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, DOE; Michael Howard, senior vice president of research and development, EPRI)

  

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Emissions of greenhouse gases in the United States dropped a small but eye-catching 1.5 percent between 2005 and 2006, according to a new inventory (which can be accessed here) put forward by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA cited a number of reasons for the decrease -- which saw the first drop in carbon dioxide emissions since 2001 -- including greater reliance on renewable power generation.

Overall, according to the annual Inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emission and Sinks, the amount of pollutants believed to contribute to global climate change decreased by about 1.5 percent. Carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion was down by 1.9 percent.

    

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