The Volokh Conspiracy

There may be lots of good reasons to develop a “smart grid” for electricity transmission, but as Sunil Sharan explains, job creation is not among them.  Automating functions to increase energy efficiency can be worthwhile, but it will tend reduce the need for labor.  So, for instance, installing smart meters nationwide could produce a few thousand jobs in a relatively short-period of time, but would eliminate thousands more meter-reading jobs.  Other “green” sectors may experience some job growth, but they won’t produce the employment bonanza advocates claim.  Concludes Sharan, “those who take great pains to tout the ’ job-creation potential’ of the green space might just end up inducing labor pains all around.”

Yesterday the Vermont state senate voted overwhelmingly to block renewal of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant’s license after 2012.  The NYT reports:

In an unusual state foray into nuclear regulation, the Vermont Senate voted 26 to 4 Wednesday to block operation of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant after 2012, citing radioactive leaks, misstatements in testimony by plant officials and other problems.Unless the chamber reverses itself, it will be the first time in more than 20 years that the public or its representatives has decided to close a reactor.

The vote came just more than a week after President Obama declared a new era of rebirth for the nation’s nuclear industry, announcing federal loan guarantees of $8.3 billion to assure the construction of a twin-reactor plant near Augusta, Ga. . . .

In a small, ornate chamber packed with plant opponents, the Vermont senators voiced frustration over recent leaks of radioactive tritium at the 38-year-old plant as well as the collapse of a cooling tower in 2007 and inaccurate testimony by the plant’s owner, the Louisiana-based nuclear operator Entergy.

Plant officials had testified under oath to two state panels that there were no buried pipes at Vermont Yankee that could leak tritium, although there were. No tritium has turned up in drinking water, but even plant supporters expressed dismay at the leak and the misstatements.

According to the story, the facility will be forced to close unless both houses of the Vermont legislature pass a certificate of public  good before the current license expires in 2012.

The federal government’s love affair with ethanol subsidies drove up food prices, depleted plains state aquifers and subsidized the destruction of water fowl habitat.  Today’s Washington Post reports that that Biomass Crop Assistance Program is having similarly untoward and unintended consequences.

In a matter of months, the Biomass Crop Assistance Program — a small provision tucked into the 2008 farm bill — has mushroomed into a half-a-billion dollar subsidy that is funneling taxpayer dollars to sawmills and lumber wholesalers, encouraging them to sell their waste to be converted into high-tech biofuels. In doing so, it is shutting off the supply of cheap timber byproducts to the nation’s composite wood manufacturers, who make panels for home entertainment centers and kitchen cabinets. . . .

A range of renewable materials can be converted into energy sources: Wood pellets, rice hulls and fiber from sugar cane can produce electricity; algae and corn cobs can be converted into liquid fuel. The federal government is actively working to support the growth of as many of these biomass crops as possible, in part to meet requirements under the 2007 energy bill: The country must produce 5.5 billion gallons of advanced biofuels annually in five years, and 21 billion gallons by 2022. Right now, almost no U.S. land is devoted to raising biomass crops; according to congressional estimates, by 2022 the country will need between 22.2 and 55.5 million acres for this purpose. . . .

The federal government can provide up to $45 a ton in matching payments to businesses that collect, harvest, store and transport biomass waste to an authorized energy facility. That means sawdust or wood shavings may be twice as valuable if a lumber mill sells them to a biomass energy company instead of to a traditional buyer.This is bad news for the composite panel industry, which turns these materials into particleboard and medium-density fiberboard, and outranks the U.S. biomass industry in terms of employees and economic impact, with 21,000 employees and annual sales of $7.9 billion, according to 2006 U.S. Census data.

The biomass subsidy program could “wipe us out,” said T.J. Rosengarth, the vice president and chief operating officer of Flakeboard, the largest composite panel producer in North America. “You can say, ‘I’ve made more alternative energy,’ but at what expense?”

Many jurisdictions have begun installing LED traffic lights.  LEDs use less electricity, require less maintenance, and last longer than conventional bulbs.  But as the NYT reports, there’s also a catch for colder parts of the country.  LEDs generate less heat, and are more prone to collecting ice and snow, which can block the signal.  According to some other reports, this has led to numerous accidents and at least one death.  Some transportation officials believe the problem is easily manageable by having workers go out and manually remove the snow and ice, but reduces the cost-savings from switching to LEDs.

The NYT reports on how the push for environmentally friendly power soruces has driven up demand for rare-earth elements, which can have environmentally unfriendly consequences.

There are 17 rare-earth elements — some of which, despite the name, are not particularly rare — but two heavy rare earths, dysprosium and terbium, are in especially short supply, mainly because they have emerged as the miracle ingredients of green energy products. Tiny quantities of dysprosium can make magnets in electric motors lighter by 90 percent, while terbium can help cut the electricity usage of lights by 80 percent. Dysprosium prices have climbed nearly sevenfold since 2003, to $53 a pound. Terbium prices quadrupled from 2003 to 2008, peaking at $407 a pound, before slumping in the global economic crisis to $205 a pound.

China mines more than 99 percent of the world’s dysprosium and terbium. Most of China’s production comes from about 200 mines here in northern Guangdong and in neighboring Jiangxi Province.

China is also the world’s dominant producer of lighter rare earth elements, valuable to a wide range of industries. But these are in less short supply, and the mining is more regulated.

Half the heavy rare earth mines have licenses and the other half are illegal, industry executives said. But even the legal mines . . . often pose environmental hazards. . . .

The biggest user of heavy rare earths in the years ahead could be large wind turbines, which need much lighter magnets for the five-ton generators at the top of ever-taller towers. Vestas, a Danish company that has become the world’s biggest wind turbine manufacturer, said that prototypes for its next generation used dysprosium, and that the company was studying the sustainability of the supply. Goldwind, the biggest Chinese turbine maker, has switched from conventional magnets to rare-earth magnets.

Executives in the $1.3 billion rare-earths mining industry say that less environmentally damaging mining is needed, given the importance of their product for green energy technologies. Developers hope to open mines in Canada, South Africa and Australia, but all are years from large-scale production and will produce sizable quantities of light rare earths. Their output of heavy rare earths will most likely be snapped up to meet rising demand from the wind turbine industry.

It takes a lot of energy to hold a UN climate conference — and lots more for delegates, activists, journalists and others to get there.  That means a lot of carbon emissions.  Reuters reports: “Despite efforts by the Danish government to reduce the conference’s carbon footprint, around 5,700 tonnes of carbon dioxide will be created by the summit and a further 40,500 tonnes created by attendees’ flights to Copenhagen.” According to the same report, the this is the equivalent of the amount of CO2 generated in a year by 2,300 Americans or 660,000 Ethiopians.

UPDATE: Of course it’s impossible to have a carbon-free UN conference.  Some day, virtual interaction and teleconferencing might be a replacement for face-to-face negoations, but not yet.  Still, by any measure, the carbon use for this conference was excessive.  As the Telegraph reported, conference attendees rented over 1,200 limos, only a handful of which were hybrids or electrics.  The Copenhagen airport also reported an extra 140 private jets at the peak of the conference.  This exceeded the airport’s hanger capacity, so many of these planes had to fly to other regional airports to park.  If convention delegates and other attendees were really interested in sending a message, much of this excess would have been avoided.

The NYT reports:

The company in charge of a California project to extract vast amounts of renewable energy from deep, hot bedrock has removed its drill rig and informed federal officials that the government project will be abandoned.

The project by the company, AltaRock Energy, was the Obama administration’s first major test of geothermal energy as a significant alternative to fossil fuels and the project was being financed with federal Department of Energy money at a site about 100 miles north of San Francisco called the Geysers.

But on Friday, the Energy Department said that AltaRock had given notice this week that “it will not be continuing work at the Geysers” as part of the agency’s geothermal development program.

The project’s apparent collapse comes a day after Swiss government officials permanently shut down a similar project in Basel, because of the damaging earthquakes it produced in 2006 and 2007. Taken together, the two setbacks could change the direction of the Obama administration’s geothermal program, which had raised hopes that the earth’s bedrock could be quickly tapped as a clean and almost limitless energy source.

“This is a case about bats, wind turbines, and two federal polices, one favoring protection of endangered species and the other encouraging development of renewable energy resources.”  So begins a federal district court opinion halting expansion of a wind farm in West Virginia because of likely harm to endangered Indiana bats. The project must obtain an incidental take permit from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service if it is to proceed. Washington Post coverage here.

Congress demanded oil refiners use more ethanol, but meeting the federal targets is going to be a problem.  Now it’s up to the EPA to ease the mandate.  Will they act?

In last week’s National Journal of political bloggers, one question asked: “If unemployment remains at roughly the current level, what impact will that have on the 2010 midterm elections?” One hundred percent of the Right, and 89 percent of the Left bloggers thought it would hurt Democrats, and most thought it would hurt them a lot. I agreed: “It’s easy to imagine the Republican campaign ads which show the Democratic charts predicting how bad unemployment would get without the stimulus — juxtaposed with how much worse unemployment actually got after the Democrats’ deficit spending spree was adopted.”

For the other question, both Left and Right reversed their positions from last June. Sixty-five percent of the Left now think it is “somewhat likely” that Congress will pass Cap & Trade. Sixty-five percent of the Right now thinks passage is “very” or “somewhat” unlikely. So both Left and Right have become more optimistic in the past few years. Objective proof that “hope” is on the rise.

I was in the minority of the Right who thought C/T somewhat likely: “The bill will see lots of ‘no’ votes from Blue Dogs and from other Democrats who represent energy-producing states. But there may be enough support from urban/suburban Republicans for something to pass.” Certainly a C/T bill that included lots of the ideas which John McCain has proposed, and which greatly cut back on the rent-sales that appear in the House-passed bill, the bill would be nearly unstoppable.

While Congress considers legislation to impose a cap-and-trade regime on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, Warrne Buffet makes “a huge bet on coal.” Either Buffet’s made a blunder, or he realizes any cap-and-trade legislation that can pass Congress will do little to reduce coal consumption. (HT: Roger Pielke Jr.)

Last week’s National Journal poll of political bloggers asked Left/Right bloggers “Are [Democratic/Republican] leaders doing enough to police congressional ethics enforcement in their ranks?”  On the Left, 56% said the Democrats were not doing enough, and 60% of the Right said Republicans were not doing enough. I was among the “no” votes for Republicans, writing that “They have fewer opportunities for corruption now that they’re the minority, but I don’t see any evidence of a fundamental change in self-policing.”

Question 2 asked “Could you see yourself supporting a cap-and-trade bill if it included significant incentives for nuclear energy?” On the Left, 61% said yes. On the Right, I was the only one who said yes. I reasoned, “The last 10 years of real-world climate data have shown that the professional hysterics and their predictions are wrong. However, the last 10 years have also demonstrated the growing dangers of U.S. energy dependence on dictatorships like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. So it’s possible (but unlikely) that a C&T bill with a strong nuclear energy component might significantly reduce U.S. dependence on dictators’ oil, and therefore be worth supporting for national security reasons.” I do realize the nukes in themselves are not the answer to foreign oil dependence, since only a small percentage of our electricity comes from imported oil. But it’s still possible (albeit very unlikely) that a C&T bill could do a great deal to reduce American dependence on dictator oil.

The October 9 poll (which I didn’t post about at the time) asked, “If major health care legislation clears Congress this year, will it include a public option?” Seventy-two percent of the Left and 57% of the right said it would. I was in the majority: ““If one presumes that the bill will pass, near-unanimous support will be needed from the Dems’ left wing. They will figure out some new euphemism for the government-run program, to attempt to provide plausible deniability for moderate Dems.”

The other question “If unemployment continues to rise, should Congress pass another stimulus package?” Eighty-nine percent of the Left thought so, while 93% of the Right disagreed, including me: “The ‘stimulus’ is like a guy who is nearly broke from credit card debt deciding to cheer himself up by getting a new credit card and running up even more debt.”

Does it take substantial governmental intervention to encourage the growth of renewable energy?  It certainly takes some, as renewables remain more expensive than conventional energy sources, but how much?

Last Sunday, the New York Times contrasted the efforts of California and Texas.  Both states have renewable energy mandates, but energy development is heavily regulated in California, while Texas is comparatively laissez faire.

the oil-and-gas state has nonetheless emerged as the nation’s top producer of a commodity prized by environmentalists: wind power. Eager developers are covering its desolate western mesas with giant turbines. The world’s largest wind farm began operations in Texas this month, and the state now has close to three times as much wind capacity as Iowa, the second-ranked state.

This achievement puts Mr. Perry’s state in odd company. The race for clean-energy leadership is on — and big red Texas is going head-to-head with the gung-ho greens of California. That state has thrown itself into solar power and now leads the nation by a huge margin; it has also aggressively pursued energy efficiency. . . .

Texas’s secret, besides strong winds and lots of land, is its lack of regulation. Wind developers rave about the fact that, in essence, they need few state permits to build a turbine farm. They deal mainly with local officials, who are generally permissive (energy, after all, is a well-loved commodity in Texas).

California, by contrast, has all but stifled wind developers. The state built several big wind farms in the 1980s — but has added very few since, because of the cost and delays of complying with stringent state environmental regulations. The early turbines killed thousands of birds, for instance, and that memory lingers.

Such snags are a key reason California has turned to solar power. It’s more expensive than wind, but plastering rooftops of homes and businesses with panels takes up no extra land. There is still plenty of paperwork involved, but rooftop solar largely avoids regulatory snarls . . . .

California is struggling to build large solar thermal plants in the desert, which are in some cases opposed by environmentalists — the very groups that are also hoping to combat climate change. In Texas, the birds and beasts may suffer, but the projects get built. Laying transmission lines — the wires necessary to carry clean energy to the cities — is much easier in Texas, analysts say, although Southern California is inching forward on some projects.

The comparison illustrates how regulatory policy can have a large effect renewable energy development.  Mandates can certainly force investment into renewable energy sources, but regulations can also stifle otherwise productive investments as well.  Indeed, as I’ve discussed before, some companies seeking to advance renewable energy sources have found environmental regulations to be among their greatest obstacles.  (a point I’ve made before).  Land-use regulations may frustrate large energy developments and transmission lines, as can concerns about various environmental impacts, such as the effect of wind turbines on birds, viewsheds, and bats.  In some cases, if government regulators would get out of the way, relatively modest governmental interventions would stimulate substantial investment in alternative energy sources and free up opportunities for greater energy innovation.  In short, when it comes to solving environmental problems, more regualtion is not always the right answer.  Indeed, sometimesexcessive regulation is part of the problem.