A Company that Specializes in Profiting from Harm

A must read for anyone who likes articulate scientists writing very approachable articles about important subjects!
Corn Can’t Solve Our Problem – washingtonpost.com

If every one of the 70 million acres on which corn was grown in 2006 was used for ethanol, the amount produced would displace only 12 percent of the U.S. gasoline market. Moreover, the “new” (non-fossil) energy gained would be very small — just 2.4 percent of the market. Car tune-ups and proper tire air pressure would save more energy.

Proper tire pressure is not sexy, and does not lead to billions of dollars of profits!

The net effect is that ethanol from corn grown in the Corn Belt does increase atmospheric greenhouse gases, and this increase is only about 15 percent less than the increase caused by an equivalent amount of gasoline

Corn is such a boondongle, it’s amazing what the ADMs and Monsantos of the world can do.

This means that when tropical woodland is cleared to produce sugar cane for ethanol, the greenhouse gas released is about 50 percent greater than what occurs from the production and use of the same amount of gasoline. And that statistic holds for at least two decades.

Brazil will not solve all your problems (unless they’re samba related!). Increased demand for ethanol from Brazil could lead to clearcutting of the rain forest/other fallow grassland.

Across the full process of growing high-diversity prairie hay, converting it into an energy source and using that energy, we found a net removal and storage of about a ton and a half of atmospheric carbon dioxide per acre. The net effect is that ethanol or synthetic gasoline produced from this grass on degraded land can provide energy that actually reduces atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide.

It’s a very well written article.

Well, looks like old fashioned regulation actually stands up to Cost Benefit analysis. The problem is that the costs are to Industry, a well organized bunch of folks with lobbies, scientists, and such, and the benefits are primarily to the general population, well, they get a choice every few years!

Chemical & Engineering News: Latest News – Budget Office Reports On Regulations:

Budget Office Reports On Regulations EPA air pollution rule helps boost overall societal benefits of federal actions Cheryl Hogue A 2005 air pollution rule is a major reason why benefits from federal regulations continue to outpace costs, says a draft White House Office of Management & Budget report released on April 13. Federal regulations issued between 1996 and 2005 generate total annual benefits estimated to be between $94 billion and $449 billion, the OMB report says. Costs of those rules, which range from health and education standards to transportation and labor regulations, are estimated to be between $37 billion and $44 billion yearly, the draft report says. The document is the 2006 installment of an analysis that OMB by law must prepare each year for Congress. The ratio of benefits to costs is higher for the 1996–2005 decade than it was between 1995 and 2004 primarily because of a single rule reducing air pollution from power plants, the draft report says. That EPA regulation requires 28 eastern states and the District of Columbia to control sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, two key pollutants released by coal-fired power plants. According to the draft report, that rule will generate from $50 billion to $60 billion a year worth of health benefits by reducing public exposure to fine particulate matter. This rule will cost about $1.8 billion annually to implement. Most of the costs and benefits of federal regulation are due to EPA rules, the draft report adds. During the 1996–2005 decade, the annual benefits of the agency’s rules are calculated to be between $59 billion and $394 billion, while estimated costs ranged from $24 billion to $26 billion. The draft report is available at www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/reports/2006_draft_cost_benefit_report.pdf. Chemical & Engineering News ISSN 0009-2347 Copyright © 2006 American Chemical Society

Environment North Carolina is co-sponsoring 2 events featuring Dr. James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute and the nation’s foremost climate expert. In the past year, Dr. Hansen has lead the charge in calling for action on global warming, stating, “We have at most ten years-not ten years to decide upon action, but ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse gas emissions.”

RSVP-NASA’s Dr. James Hansen coming to North Carolina – Environment North Carolina

Well, if I’d been keeping normal bogging hours, this would have been up last week, anyway… Full report on the talk later tonight/tomorrow. It figures to be exciting, always great to see visionary scientists in person.

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Tags: climatechange, Hansen

Through the most excellent Environmental Valuation & Cost-Benefit News blog comes notice of a book that answers a question that’s been on my mind off and on.

Environmental Valuation & Cost-Benefit News – Post details: Reality Check: The Nature and Performance of Voluntary Environmental Programs in the United States, Europe, and Japan

Despite a growing theoretical literature trying to explain how and why voluntary programs might be effective, there is limited empirical evidence on their success or the situations most conducive to the approaches. Even less is known about their cost-effectiveness.

The book’s called Reality Check (and long byline) and at $40 is too expensive for a look see! But here’s a teaser:

The central goals of Reality Check are understanding outcomes and the relationship between outcomes and design. Most of the programs it studies have positive results, but they are small compared with business-as-usual trends and the impact of other forces–such as higher energy prices. Importantly, potential gains may be quickly exhausted as the “low-hanging fruit” is picked up by voluntary programs. By including in-depth analyses by experts from the U.S., Europe, and Japan, the book advances scholarship and provides practical information for the future design of voluntary programs to stakeholders and policymakers on all sides of the Atlantic and Pacific.

So, the answer is no, I guess. Voluntary programs catch the bulk of changes that can be carried out easily anyway and may have been part of the company plans. They also make for good Company PR. The greater the threat of regulation and good enforcement, I guess, the more power you have to set up a good voluntary program. But if it is all carrot and no stick, who knows…

For an example of what a voluntary program looks like, here’s Climate Wise from the EPA.