Energy Exchange

Today we introduced Environmental Defense Fund’s (EDF) Energy Innovation Series.  Over the next 12 months, EDF will select more than 20 innovations to highlight across a broad range of energy categories, including smart grid and renewable energy technologies, energy efficiency financing, and progressive utilities, to name a few. This series will demonstrate that cost-effective, clean energy solutions are available now and imperative to lowering our dependence on fossil fuels.

The buzz surrounding energy innovation
Can you name a company that has invented or completely changed a global industry in the last 10 years? Was it an energy company? Probably not.

You don’t have to surf the web too long to find a lot of people talking about energy innovation. Business leaders. Politicians. Environmentalists. And you don’t have to watch TV too long to see oil, gas and coal companies selling the idea that they’re hard at work in search of tomorrow’s miracle fuel.

The fact that so many companies are talking about energy innovation is a good thing. It shows they understand the business case for clean energy and realize that carbon reduction is necessary. But too many of these conversations end without action or result in little change.

We need paradigm shifts
We need energy innovation on par with the light bulb, assembly line, personal computer and iPhone. These breakthroughs didn’t slightly improve existing technologies, they revolutionized them.

Certainly, Apple has a unique history of introducing new products that displace current ones. Steve Jobs said that if anyone was going to make Apple’s products obsolete, he wanted it to be Apple. But that approach is absent among the “energy elites.”

Tomorrow’s smart energy technology is being developed by small, innovative and entrepreneurial businesses around the world. These businesses are raising and risking capital to push our country into the next century. As in all industries, these businesses realize that many will fail for each one that succeeds. They have chosen to take that risk not to build a better widget or launch a new website, but to help us innovate our way to less dependence on fossil fuels.

We’re shining a light on energy innovation bright spots
It’s time our country celebrated, rewarded….even demanded…innovation in the energy industry the way it has nearly every other industry from telephones to computers. Those of us on the environmental side of things know there’s a benefit bigger than profit, but in a trillion dollar (and growing) market, there’s room for more than a few Apples or Googles.

The EDF Energy Innovation Series promotes the role innovation has played in the energy industry and highlights clean energy technologies and new business models that hold the promise of revolutionizing the way we create, transport, manage and use energy.  The series will showcase original news stories on featured energy innovations as well as videos and animations, interviews with clean energy experts and webinars that discuss the future of clean energy, among others.  Stay tuned to the Energy Exchange for more information on featured energy innovations throughout the year.

Learn more at www.edf.org/energyinnovation.

Source: Cleanwater

EDF helped write another chapter in the history book on polluting coal generation this week.   Along with our partners, we announced a settlement with North Carolina-based Duke Energy that will legally require the utility to retire more than 1,600 megawatts of coal-fired generation.

The retiring plants represent about 4.5 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), 30,000 tons of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and over 5,000 tons of nitrogen dioxide (NOx) annually.  People who live near or downwind of one of those plants have reason to celebrate.

Retiring the oldest, dirtiest and least efficient facilities requires Duke Energy to head toward cleaner generation and modernization of its fleet.  That’s good news for everyone, considering Duke’s proposed merger with Progress Energy will create the largest utility in the country.

In late December, a federal court district judge in Fresno ruled that California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) was unconstitutional because it violates the limits imposed on states by the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. The ruling halted its enforcement pending appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

The suit was filed by refiners, truckers, and fuel production companies – most of which have the bulk of their operations out of state and would rather litigate than innovate, putting profits before people. It is yet another industry attack on the state’s landmark climate and energy law, AB 32, which consists of measures such as the LCFS that will be used to reduce California’s greenhouse gas pollution to 1990 levels by 2020.

California’s LCFS is a scientifically credible standard that was carefully designed to cut climate change pollution, protect and improve public health and drive innovation that delivers economic benefits. These are among the key reasons why Environmental Defense Fund joined California and three other environmental organizations in an appeal of the suit asking to keep the LCFS intact.

Cutting climate pollution

As designed, the LCFS reduces the amount of carbon released during the production, shipping and use of transportation fuels sold in California by 10% between now and 2020. This “lifecycle” approach to managing emissions from fuels was pioneered by Argonne National Labs and is the accepted standard used by the federal EPA and other states and nations.

Improving air quality

California has some of the worst air quality in the country. In addition to fighting climate change, the LCFS cuts pollution that poisons our air and water and results in respiratory ailments and diseases that cost us tens of billions of dollars a year in health care costs. By facilitating newer, less polluting transportation fuels, the LCFS can help California finally achieve attainment of federal health standards for air quality.

Driving innovation

The standard would deliver significant benefits to the state and national economy. California is home to the world’s most advanced biofuel and electric car companies, hydrogen infrastructure, and transportation fuel research institutions. These entities operate here because California has created an environment where scientific enterprises can prosper, and in the case of the LCFS, earn a return on investment by reducing pollution cheaply and quickly. Over the next decade, the standard provides new opportunity for innovators in and out of California to reap the rewards of developing cheap and lasting alternatives to gasoline.

The deep-pocketed oil industry can easily afford to protect its profits. Yet, as The New York Times recently noted in an editorial under the headline, ‘California’s Persistence,’ the industry is up against a state that ‘has a long and productive history as a leader in environmental policy, requiring cleaner cars and power plants and more energy-efficient appliances.’

We are confident that this standard will be restored on appeal, enabling California to continue doing what it excels at: driving advances in energy that grow the economy and protect our environment.