In an average year, pollution from power plants residents about 70,000+ lost work days, 400+ premature births, 100+ hospital emergency room visits and almost 9,000 asthma attacks. [source:  The Particulate-Related Health Benefits of Reducing Power Plant Emissions, Abt Associates, 10/2000]

The cost from burning coal is even higher than most other fuels.  This more than half the US electric production.

Coal dust kills 2,000 US miners yearly, and since 1973 the federal black lung disease benefits program has cost $35 billion.

Health and environmental costs bring the total price for coal-based energy to $0.055 to $0.083 kWh.[source:  Science Magazine 8/24/01]

In comparison the cost of producing electricity from wind energy has steadily declined by more than 80% since the early 1980s.[source:  American Wind Energy Association]

Significant environmental risks are created in extracting, transporting and refining oil.  Birds and marine life are endangered by oil spills and ballast cleanouts in routine offloading operations.  Although rare, oil tanker spills can destroy our beaches and put wildlife at severe risk.

Currently, America relies heavily on foreign oil.  A reliance that has increased steadily since the early 1970s. At that time, only about a third of petroleum was being imported. Today more than half of oil needs are being provided by foreign sources.  And if nothing changes, it is expected that the US will become even more dependent on foreign oil. Estimates state that by the end of the decade 75% of oil could come from sources outside the US.

To rely on a strategic resource controlled by foreign sources puts the country at risk to political pressures and interruption in supply.  Seeking to offset this dependence by using new US sites, such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, new risk arise like destroying irreplaceable ecosystems.

Plutonium and radioactive cesium, strontium, iodine and krypton is regularly produced by nuclear plants, which needs to be transported and stored safely. This waste remains lethal for thousands of generations. If to fall in the wrong hands, the plutonium can be used to make weapons.  Generating plants and storage facilities require complex security because of the security risks associated with nuclear energy.

In the 22-month study, the agency will not consider any new proposals for solar energy developments on public land in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico or Utah.

Solar industry leaders claim that this moratorium could hurt a lot of companies in the blooming U.S. industry.  They further added that companies could face huge fines if they don’t deliver on previously signed agreements to supply power, and a blanket freeze on the industry is a mistake.  Most companies are expected to be hurt by this freeze if they have ongoing projects.

According to Linda Resseguie, the project manager of the study of the Bureau of Land Management saod tjat prior to the effect of the freeze at the end of May, the government had received about 130 applications for development on over one million acres of land.  She further added that they’d continue working with the said applications that are already with them noting that it seemed best for them not to continue to build on it until they have a better understand as to which public lands were best suited for solar energy development.

The applications currently being assessed by the Bureau of Land Management have the potential to generate 70 billion watts of electricity, enough energy to power about 20 million homes in the United States.

This move is being criticized having brought up at a time where record high gasoline prices and calls from the presumptive presidential candidates of both major parties for development of energy alternatives to oil.  Solar industry leaders find it ludicrous that the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) moves to put a moratorium on new projects when they have yet to process a single application.  They claim that there are 80 million acres of US land leased to the oil and gas industry but not one acre for solar.  This freeze on new applications appeared to show a “big disconnect” from public support for solar power.

It is hoped that the agency would reconsider the blanket policy in favor of a program that would allow what is called “real” projects – where long-term agreements to supply power have already been signed — to be evaluated.

The Bureau of Land Management, an agency of the Interior Department, controls 258 million acres of land, or about 13 percent of the total surface land in the country, primarily in Western states. The sunny desert land that makes up a large portion of the six states is the ideal terrain for solar energy development.

The Apollo Alliance, a coalition working to promote green jobs and clean energy, has been struggling with how to offset the global warming pollution that results from its day-to-day operations, especially from its travel.

“Our carbon footprint is ridiculous,” its co-director, Kate Gordon, said referring to the amount of greenhouse gases emitted each year by the organization.

Air travel is its worst offender, Ms. Gordon said. The quest for renewable energy has its employees on the move for speaking engagements and lobbying.

“Our president, Jerome Ringo, is probably on the road 250 days a year,” Ms. Gordon said. “I travel about 25 percent of the time. We do a ton of travel as an organization.”

To help reduce the role it plays in the release of carbon emissions, the Apollo Alliance has tried to develop a two-pronged approach. One, cut back on air travel, seemed obvious.

Air miles are responsible for 3 percent to 13 percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, according to various reports. A single round-trip coast-to-coast flight can create about three tons of carbon dioxide emissions, about the same amount as driving a midsize car for six months.

Another, more controversial, option that the Apollo Alliance considered was carbon offsets.

On paper at least, offsets pay for reductions in carbon dioxide production. Offset providers, both nonprofit and for-profit, finance renewable energy projects that reduce the need for electricity from fossil fuel, provide upfront costs for energy efficiency programs, or pay to plant trees.

But there has been criticism of offsetting, with some likening them to medieval papal indulgences, allowing individuals, companies and organizations to continue their polluting ways by simply paying a fee.

As carbon offsets increase in popularity — sales in the United States rose to $88 million in 2007 from $39 million in 2006, according to the research firm New Carbon Finance — many travelers have questions about the practice.

“I talk to a lot of people about carbon offsets these days,” said Rusty Pritchard, a former environmental economist at Emory University who serves as outreach director for the Evangelical Environmental Network, a national Christian organization. “They have questions that range from the scientific, like, ‘How does paying for energy efficiency in Brazil offset the carbon you’re emitting on a flight to New York?’ to ‘Is it fair to claim this as a business expense?’ I’ve even had people at universities ask, ‘How do we explain this to our donors?’ ”

Specialists in global warming say the best way for business travelers to reduce their carbon emissions is to limit the time they spend on the road. “The average American creates about 20 tons of CO2 — about twice the emissions of the average European and far more than people in the rest of the world,” said Anja Kollmuss, senior scientist at the nonprofit Stockholm Environment Institute, a science-based policy institute. “So, if you fly to Europe and back a couple of times, that adds quite a lot to your carbon footprint.”

Once a traveler has reduced flying time, “carbon offsets are worth doing, if you do them right,” said Mark C. Trexler, a carbon reduction strategies consultant and author of a 2006 report, “A Consumer’s Guide to Retail Carbon Offset Providers.”

The challenge is to find quality offsets, because no universally accepted method of certification or verification exists, though some voluntary standards — like the Voluntary Carbon Standard, the Gold Standard and Green-E Climate certification — are gaining acceptance.

“You need careful monitoring to make sure these offsets are transparent and verifiable, that you can document that the offset is permanent and additional,” said Representative Peter F. Welch, Democrat of Vermont and a sponsor of the Carbon Neutrality Act of 2007. The legislation would guarantee that offset providers deliver what they promise, much in the way the Agriculture Department verifies organic farming practices.

Crucial to finding quality carbon offsets is looking for what in the field is called “additionality.”

“You want to invest in a project that would not have happened otherwise,” Ms. Kollmuss said. Consider a program that helps build wind farms, she says. If a particular wind farm would not have been built without the capital provided by the offset vendor, the project is additional.

“But if it’s required by law,” to, say, help meet a state’s renewable energy requirements, “it’s not additional.”

To help sort through the confusion and decide which providers to use, John B. Izzo, an author of business books and a management consultant, used several online references, including a guide to offsetting published by the Nature Conservancy and an offset-provider rating compiled by the Tufts Climate Initiative.

He chose a Swiss-based offset provider, Myclimate, because of its high ranking on the Tufts survey.

Similarly, Mr. Welch offsets the travel associated with his work by using the Vermont-based offset provider Native Energy. He pays more than $800 out of pocket to offset 71-plus tons of carbon each year.

Source:  www.nytimes.com

SAN FRANCISCO — California, known for its far-ranging suburbs and jam-packed traffic, is close to adopting a law intended to slow the increase in emissions of heat-trapping gases by encouraging housing close to job sites, rail lines and bus stops to shorten the time people spend in their cars.

The measure, which the State Assembly passed on Monday and awaits final approval by the Senate, would be the nation’s most comprehensive effort to reduce sprawl. It would loosely tie tens of billions of dollars in state and federal transportation subsidies to cities’ and counties’ compliance with efforts to slow the inexorable increase in driving. The goal is to encourage housing near current development and to reduce commutes to work.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has not said whether he will sign the bill.

The number of miles driven in California has increased at a rate 50 percent faster than the rate of population growth for the past two decades. Passenger vehicles, which produce about 30 percent of the state’s heat-trapping gases, are the single greatest source of such emissions.

The fragile coalition behind the measure includes some longtime antagonists, in particular homebuilders and leading environmental groups in California. Both called the measure historic.

“What California is doing for the first time,” said Ed Manning, a lobbyist who represents the state’s 25 largest homebuilding companies, “is planning for housing needs, transportation needs and climate-change needs all at the same time.”

Thomas Adams, the board president of California’s League of Conservation Voters, said the changes were “all going to support a development pattern that will help the state meet its climate goals.”

The bill yokes three regulatory and permit processes. One focuses on regional planning: how land use should be split among industry, agriculture, homes, open space and commercial centers. Another governs where roads and bridges are built. A third sets out housing needs and responsibilities — for instance, how much affordable housing a community must allow.

Under the pending measure, the three regulatory and permit processes must be synchronized to meet new goals, set by the state’s Air Resources Board, to reduce heat-trapping gases.

Seventeen regional planning groups from across the state will submit their land-use, transportation and housing plans to the board. If the board rules that a plan will fall short of its emissions targets, then an alternative blueprint for meeting the goals must be developed.

Once state approval is granted, or an alternative plan submitted, billions of dollars in state and federal transportation subsidies can be awarded. The law would allow the money to be distributed even if an alternative plan fails to pass muster.

State Senator Darrell Steinberg, a Democrat who is sponsoring the bill, said in an interview that he expected the Senate to approve the bill soon.

Mr. Steinberg, who will be the Senate majority leader in the legislative session beginning next year, said Wednesday that he met with Governor Schwarzenegger this week and received “positive signals, no guarantees.”

Environmentalists have long blamed profit-driven land-use planning around the country for creating the expansive, sometimes redundant network of roads that have carved up farmland near urban areas.

They have also praised regional planners in Portland, Ore., for that city’s clustered growth and pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly communities.

The tools Portland planners have used are called urban growth boundaries, efforts to control sprawl by encouraging higher density development within an area and largely prohibiting it outside.

These boundaries have gained little traction in California, where developers have seen them as too restrictive and local governments have been jealous of their own planning powers.

Sacramento and San Diego have recently tried to build coalitions to support clustered development.

Most environmental groups strongly support the pending bill. Among them is the Natural Resources Defense Council, a major force in the development two years ago of the landmark state law to limit heat-trapping emissions from all sectors of the economy.

But some groups have expressed reservations, objecting to the relaxation of some existing environmental constraints on developers.

Jan Chatten-Brown, an environmental lawyer in Santa Monica, wrote in an e-mail message that the bill “gives up an important tool” by relaxing some requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act and making it harder for citizen groups to sue developers.

Communities that take part in the process will be able to revise their housing plans every eight years instead of five; developers working with a state-approved plan will have to do less extensive environmental reviews of their projects.

Ms. Chatten-Brown also said the legislation overlapped with some of the provisions of the 2006 law committing the state, by 2020, to a 30 percent reduction in the projected level of emissions of heat-trapping gases.

The Natural Resources Defense Council and the League of Conservation Voters estimate that $15 billion to $20 billion in annual federal, state and local transportation grants support highways, bridges, bike paths and light-rail systems.

Because there is no assurance that regions would lose transportation dollars if their plans fail to win state approval, a few environmental groups stayed in a neutral corner.

But Mr. Adams, with the League of Conservation Voters, said that “a land-use bill of this magnitude had not been successful since the 1976 passage of the California Coastal Act.”

Source: www.nytimes.com