Monthly Archives: June 2013

Strong Federal Air Measures Still Needed

This blog post was written by Tomás Carbonell, Attorney in EDFs Climate and Air Program.  Jack Nelson, a legal intern in EDF’s Washington, D.C. office, assisted in the preparation of this post. 

Source: EPA

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency put in place last year important standards to protect public health and reduce emissions of harmful air pollutants from oil and gas storage tanks and related equipment.  EPA wisely issued those standards after thousands of comments were provided by concerned public advocates for cleaner air.  With oil and gas production expanding quickly, tough standards are needed now more than ever to assure air quality protections for people living near oil and gas producing areas.

Recently, EPA proposed changes to standards for storage tanks in the oil and gas sector — a major source of pollutants that contribute to smog, climate change, and other threats to public health and the environment.  These changes would undermine the progress made thus far and would lead to significant and unnecessary increases in emissions of volatile organic compounds, methane, and other pollutants.  EDF is urging EPA not to finalize the proposed revisions in comments filed together with Clean Air Council, Clean Air Task Force, Environmental Integrity Project, Natural Resources Defense Council and  Sierra Club.

Proposed Changes to the Storage Tank Standards

Last fall, oil and gas industry groups petitioned EPA for changes to the storage tank standards, arguing that less stringent standards are needed because these tanks are even more numerous and emit at higher levels than EPA predicted when it was developing the current standards.  If anything, this new information indicates the need to maintain or strengthen health-protective standards for storage tanks.  EPA’s proposed changes would instead: Read More »

Posted in Methane, Natural Gas, Washington, DC / Comments are closed

NYC’s Storm Preparedness Means Rethinking How We Make And Use Energy

Source: Metamatic/Flickr

This commentary, authored by Andy Darrell, originally appeared on EDF Voices.

Last Tuesday, I caught a ferry from the lower Manhattan waterfront (just south of the substation that shorted out so dramatically in the midst of Hurricane Sandy) to the Brooklyn Navy Yard. There, Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled his vision of a New York that will be far better able to withstand the battering from giant storms that, thanks to climate change, are likely to arrive with increased frequency and fury.

The Mayor began by noting some stark facts:

  • “We expect that by mid-century up to one quarter of all of New York City’s land area, where 800,000 residents live today, will be in the floodplain.”
  • “[Wi]ithin FEMA’s new 100-year flood maps there are more than 500million square feet of New York  City buildings – equivalent to the entire city of Minneapolis.”
  • “About two-thirds of our major substations and nearly all the city’s power plants are in flood plains today.”
  • “A day without power can cost New York City more than a billion dollars.”

A lot of media attention in the wake of the speech focused on Bloomberg’s call for levees and seawalls to keep rising waters at bay. But embedded in the address was also an ambitious but practical rethinking of how New York City makes and uses energy. The plan frames a future in which solar, wind and microgrids play a much larger role in the city: Read More »

Posted in Climate, Energy Efficiency, New York, On-bill repayment / Tagged | Comments are closed

How Policy Can Drive Progress In The Energy Efficiency Market

Energy efficiency is one of the fastest and most affordable ways to reduce harmful pollution.  Why, then, aren’t we financing more energy efficiency upgrades?

Well, simply put, there are quite a few barriers that must be addressed and broken down before energy efficiency skyrockets.  Yes, there are already many buildings that have set the bar high for others to follow, but some investor and lender hesitancies still exist that we need to overcome.

Furthermore, the efficiency market cannot create itself.  And it is currently stifled, despite investors’ eagerness to take part.

The problem, as the investment community sees it, is that there is no secondary market for energy efficiency loans.  In other words, the pool of loans is currently not large enough to make these investments worthwhile for institutional investors.   Furthermore, there is a lack of uniform standards for energy efficiency loans, limited data on loan and project performance and an insufficient pipeline of projects.  There are also challenges to bringing efficiency to scale, namely:

  • the split incentive—disconnect between the building owner and the residents, who actually pay the utility bill;
  • utility disincentives—utilities generally make money by selling more energy, not by reducing wasted energy; and
  • limited information available to consumers on their energy use.

Read More »

Posted in Energy Efficiency, Investor Confidence Project, On-bill repayment / Comments are closed

Investor Confidence Project Releases Enhanced Energy Efficiency Protocols

This blog post was written by guest blogger Matt Golden, Senior Energy Finance Consultant.

Source: City-Data.com

The EDF Investor Confidence Project (ICP) is a multi-year initiative to help spur growth in the commercial energy efficiency retrofit market by reducing transaction costs and engineering overhead, and increasing the reliability and consistency of savings. EDF has worked with a cross-functional team of industry experts to assemble existing technical standards and best practices into a straightforward Energy Performance Protocol (EPP) that defines a standard investment quality energy efficiency project to enable deal-flow and investment.

In November of 2012, we released the initial version of the Energy Performance Protocol for Large Commercial (EPP-LC). We received encouraging reviews from industry allies and many industry leaders have committed to join our growing ICP Ally program, a broad based network of organizations that helps us develop, test, and implement the ICP Protocols.

New Release: Large Commercial – Version 1.1

Building on our initial success and market feedback, ICP is now releasing a new and updated version 1.1 of the EPP-LC, which incorporates a wide array of important improvements that will streamline the project development process and improve results.

Our ICP team is incredibly grateful to all individuals that contributed their time and energy to this process resulting in a more streamlined protocol, especially our committed team of experts who dedicated untold hours and contributed a wide array of industry, research, and public sector experience.

Read More »

Posted in Energy Efficiency, General, Investor Confidence Project, On-bill repayment / Read 1 Response

Energy From The Sea: Closer Than You Think

This commentary, authored by Rod Fujita, originally appeared on EDF Voices

The ocean absorbs energy from the sun, stores it, and then releases it slowly.  Sounds like a prescription for meeting the world’s energy needs, since the ocean is the largest feature of our planet.  But can ocean energy be tapped in a way that doesn’t create more problems than it solves?

That’s the promise behind a recently announced deal between Lockheed Martin and Reignwood Group, a resort developer based in Beijing. The two companies will develop a 10-megawatt power plant using ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) technology in waters off southern China’s Hainan Island. Construction is expected to be completed in 2017.

The process

Scientists have long been interested in the potential for generating energy from the difference in temperature between warm surface waters and deep water.  When this difference is large – for example, in tropical locations with narrow continental shelves – the warm water can be used to convert a liquid (like ammonia) into steam.  The steam drives a turbine, producing electricity, and then is recondensed into a liquid using cold water pumped up from the deep ocean so that the cycle can be repeated.

Benefits

The OTEC process can produce a number of benefits in addition to clean electricity.  The large volumes of cold water pumped through the system can be used to cool buildings, saving on air conditioning (and associated greenhouse gas emissions from this major energy consumer).  Lots of freshwater condenses on the cold water pipes, especially in humid tropical environments – so much that it can become a viable supplement to local water supplies or even the major water source for local communities. Read More »

Posted in Renewable Energy / Comments are closed

Methane Research: The Data Pursuit Continues

Source: Kinder Morgan

Is natural gas really better for the climate? This may seem like a simple question. After all, natural gas is the cleanest burning fossil fuel.  And data from the Energy Information Administration in April showed a downward trend in U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. A move many experts believe is largely attributed to the increased production of U.S. natural gas and the shift it has caused in the power sector – old, dirty coal plants being retired because new natural gas plants are more competitive.

But, this is only part of the story. Natural gas is comprised primarily of methane, and unburned methane is an incredibly potent greenhouse gas – 72 times more powerful than CO2 over the first two decades it is released.

The oil and gas industry is one of the largest domestic sources of methane, and while new gas reserves are being drilled every day,  too little is known about how much and from where methane is leaking out from across the natural gas system. Lack of direct measurements has been a challenge, as EDF’s Chief Scientist Steven Hamburg explains here.

The need for better data to understand and control methane emissions in order to understand the true climate opportunity of natural gas led to EDF’s largest scientific research project. This effort currently involves about 85 academic, research and industry partners subdivided over five areas of the value chain (production, gathering and processing, transmission and storage, local distribution and transportation).  Read More »

Posted in Climate, Methane, Natural Gas / Comments are closed