Serious, sobering news on climate change

Last week, the U.S. Global Change Research Program (a group of federal agencies whose tag line is Thirteen Agencies, One Vision: Empower the Nation with Global Change Science) published the 2014 edition of the National Climate Assessment (NCA).

There was not much good news, not surprisingly.

There's still time to avoid the worst scenarios around climate change, but only if we move quickly. ("We" means the federal government, in this case -- and since Congress still refuses to act...thankfully, the executive branch is acting. More on this below.)

Climate change is hitting home, already.

The report chapter that focuses on states in the Northeast begins this way: "Heat waves, heavy downpours, and sea level rise pose growing challenges to many aspects of life in the Northeast. Infrastructure, agriculture, fisheries, and ecosystems will be increasingly compromised. Many states and cities are beginning to incorporate climate change into their planning."

This is hitting home viscerally to so many of us. Remember the gentle spring rains that were a standard feature of just a few decades ago? Now downpours, storms, and floods are the new standard.

Worsening public health

Those of us who routinely read global warming reports know about the "usual suspects" on the list of serious health threats that an overheated atmosphere brings: More cases of respiratory diseases such as asthma due to polluted air (warmer temps make smog worse), and diseases caused by insect vectors (Lyme disease, dengue fever, West Nile virus, among others). The NCA chapter on public health discusses these.  

What I find particularly interesting are two public health threats included in the NCA that I can't recall seeing associated with climate change until now:

• Mental health and stress-related disorders. If one loses their home -- or even a loved one, heaven forbid -- in a flood, of course that person could be more vulnerable to these sorts of mental health problems.
• Respiratory diseases will likely increase due to the  growth of indoor mold, mildew, and fungi. All those soggy basements from all these extra floods we just talked about will lead to more sick people.

What is the federal government doing?

Since Congress has refused for more than a decade to pass legislation to put a price on carbon dioxide, it falls on the executive branch to act (as required by the Clean Air Act). Fortunately, President Obama has instructed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to put forth standards to limit carbon dioxide from power plants (the biggest domestic source of industrial carbon pollution).

Stay tuned for the EPA's announcement on June 2 for how they propose to limit CO2 from existing power plants (including all those dirty old coal plants across Pennsylvania).

We promise that PennFuture will be all over this issue for the foreseeable future.

Joy Bergey is federal policy director for PennFuture and based in Philadelphia.

Are methane emissions from natural gas wells a bigger problem than previously thought?

Scientists from several leading research universities, including Purdue and Cornell, published an article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that calls into question the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) estimates for methane emissions during the drilling phase of fracking operations in the Marcellus shale. These findings could have a significant impact on the public debate surrounding the impact natural gas development has on climate change.

Scientists monitored methane emissions by airplane and attempted to trace significant methane emissions back to their sources. They determined that certain Marcellus shale wells in western Pennsylvania emitted 34 grams of methane per second during drilling, a phase of production not previously assumed to be a significant source of methane emissions. This is two to three orders of magnitude (100-1,000 times) higher than the EPA’s estimate for methane emissions during drilling.

The discrepancies in estimates of methane emissions are significant because methane, which is the primary component of natural gas, is a potent greenhouse gas. Although its lifespan in the atmosphere is shorter than that of carbon dioxide, methane is much more capable of trapping radiation than carbon dioxide. EPA estimates that methane can have about 20 times the impact on climate change as the same mass of carbon dioxide over 100 years.

It is clear that we still have a lot to learn about methane emissions from fracking activities and their role in climate change. EPA says that more studies are being conducted, and those data will be analyzed by government scientists. For now, this is another reminder that natural gas development must be approached cautiously.

Mike Helbing is a staff attorney for PennFuture and is based in Philadelphia.

Time to move way beyond "business as usual"

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released another important set of policy recommendations in Berlin this week. In light of the fact that heat-trapping emissions grew more quickly in the first decade of this century than in any of the three previous decades, we are reminded again that "business as usual" in the energy world isn't leading to a more stable climate.

Scientists have been telling us for years that to avoid dramatic disruptions in climate, the world needs to limit global warming to no more than two degrees Celsius (about 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit).

But we have collectively waited so long to start making serious cuts to emissions that the pressure is very much on: To stay within the "safe" levels of warming, we must lower greenhouse gas emissions by 40 to 70 percent by mid-century (with 2010 levels as the base point), and to near zero by the end of the century. Whoa!

The IPCC remains confident we can achieve these cuts, although the longer we wait, the more expensive it will be for all of us.

The report calls for policies that we at PennFuture have been recommending for years, recognizing that using less energy is as important as using clean energy. PennFuture played a keep role in enacting Pennsylvania's energy efficiency standard (Act 129) in 2008, and has been recommending to Harrisburg policymakers since then that we increase efficiency standards.

Although Pennsylvania's population isn't expected to change significantly in the decades ahead, global population seems likely to increase greatly, with billions of people simultaneously wanting to increase their standard of living -- both factors leading to potentially huge increases in energy demand. So, energy efficiency at the global level becomes ever more important.

As Youba Sokona (co-chair of the IPCC Working Group that released the report this week) points out, "The core task of climate change mitigation is decoupling greenhouse gas emissions from the growth of economies and population."

Take a look at PennFuture's new Clean Energy Wins report that offers a roadmap for how state government can grow Pennsylvania's economy while shrinking its carbon footprint.

Joy Bergey is federal policy director for PennFuture and is based in Philadelphia.

A quick overview of EPA's plans for power plants

The EPA is finishing up a series of listening sessions (informal hearings) in 11 cities around the country to gather the public's thoughts on what the rule on existing power plants might look like. PennFuture took the lead in the Philadelphia listening session on November 8, helping to generate 76 testifiers in support of the rule, with 16 opposed and 2 neutral comments.

An overview of EPA's process for limiting CO2 from power plants

PennFuture is delighted to see the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) moving ahead with plans to limit carbon dioxide (CO2) from power plants (the source of 40 percent of the country's global warming pollution). By the way, this forward motion by the EPA is required by law.

EPA is acting in parallel on two different aspects of power plant emissions: setting emissions standards on new (not-yet-built) power plants, and setting standards for existing power plants.

Quite different approaches are needed for regulating new versus existing plants, even though both are driven by the Clean Air Act. Here's a bit of background on each.

Regulating new power plants

You may recall that in April 2012, EPA first proposed a rule to limit CO2 from not-yet-built plants.  EPA later announced a delay to the finalizing of that rule.

In September 2013, EPA released a modified version of its original proposal, and the public comment period has been reopened. (Send a comment to the EPA). The EPA will consider all comments and issue a final rule by June 1, 2015, with states required to act (i.e., limit CO2 emissions from any new coal plants) by June 2016.

The regulation of new plants derives from Section 111(b) of the Clean Air Act, the New Source Performance Standards, or NSPS. Note that NSPS rules are applied at the plant level. For example, technology is incorporated into the power plant to capture or reduce CO2, and CO2 levels can be measured to ensure compliance (this is a somewhat simplified depiction). The emissions standards that were proposed include limiting CO2 emissions from 1,000-to-1,100 pounds of CO2/megawatt-hour. These emission rates are equivalent to a high efficiency, combined cycle natural gas plant.

This is quite different from the likely model for regulating existing power plants.

Regulating existing power plants

The EPA announced in October 2013 that it will formally propose a rule in June 2014 to regulate CO2 from existing power plants, driven by Section 111 (d) of the Clean Air Act.

Unlike new plants, where technology to limit CO2 can theoretically be incorporated when plants are designed and built, it's not always economically or technically feasible to retrofit existing power plants to limit CO2.

Hence, the approach will be entirely different from the NSPS rule on new plants. The rule on existing plants will likely be a regional approach, with a number of strategies deployed to lower the overall levels of atmospheric CO2 emissions within a given area. EPA will likely establish procedures and guidelines for the states to use in determining tailored strategies to meet emissions performance requirements. The states will develop these plans and seek review and approval from EPA to implement the emissions reduction strategies.

PennFuture hopes to provide input to the shaping of Pennsylvania's state plan. And we're quite optimistic that the state can meet the likely targets proposed by the EPA. The World Resources Institute has put together a terrific overview of how this might be accomplished in Pennsylvania.

Stay tuned for more information on this important and complex process as the rule takes shape in the months and years to come. You can trust us to keep you up to date.

It's (almost) always sunny in Pennsylvania: Keystone Solar Project is rockin' it!

Big-time solar farms are sprouting all across the Keystone state. I had the good fortune to tour one of them this month. Located on the Kreider farm just south of Lancaster, and currently the largest solar installation in Pennsylvania, this farm is the aptly-named Keystone Solar Project.

Developed by our friends at Community Energy, Inc., and built on the Kreider farm, Keystone came online last October. The ground-mounted panels can produce up to 7.5 million kWh of electricity a year, the equivalent of powering 950 homes. This avoids 4,200 tons of carbon dioxide every year. How cool is that?
 
And for the clean energy geeks out there: You can actually view the current power output of Keystone solar farm (the page is updated every 15 minutes). Gosh, it's almost as good as being there.