Compass

Coal Use Drops to Record Lows While Clean Energy Soars

It's amazing how much can change in a year. At this time in 2011, we were testing our hair for mercury as a way to encourage the EPA to adopt strong mercury pollution protections – which the agency did. I was also celebrating generating my first clean kilowatt of energy from brand new solar panels on my home.

A mere one year later, some jaw-dropping numbers have just come in: In the first quarter of 2012, coal made up just 36 percent of U.S. electricity generation – down from nearly 45 percent from the same period in 2011. That's a 9 percent drop in U.S. coal use in just one year.

The report, released this week by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), had even more bad news for big polluters. Electricity generation from coal may drop another 14 percent this year. The EIA also believes coal production will decline 10 percent in 2012.

Meanwhile, wind energy is thriving. In the first quarter of 2012, the U.S. installed 1,695 megawatts of wind, one of the industry's best quarters ever, up 53 percent from the same time last year, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). Wind projects are creating jobs and economic opportunity across the country, with 32 new projects installed in 17 states in the first quarter alone.

Plugging into the Focus

Last week, I had fun test-driving the Ford Focus Electric, which goes on sale this month in California, New York, and New Jersey -- and in other markets later this year.  Like the Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi i-MiEV, the other full battery electric vehicles I’ve had the chance to ride, it had a smooth and quiet feel with powerful pick-up. One of the exciting benefits of the Focus plug-in is its shorter charging time.  It takes just over three hours to charge from empty using a level-two charger, and it travels up to 100 miles per charge.

Consumers will also benefit from the plug-in Focus' 10 year battery warranty, longer than the eight-year battery warranty offered by other manufacturers. The base price tag, at $39,200, is more expensive than the Leaf and the i-MiEV and similar to the Chevy Volt, but the $7,500 federal tax credit is available for all models.

What fascinated me most about the plug-in Focus was what was possible with the MyFord Mobile app. Not only does it allow you to heat or cool the vehicle before you get inside it  -- conserving your state of charge -- but it will also show you directions to your destination through your vehicle navigation program and let you know what charging stations are available along the way. Additionally, it will tell you how you can save emissions and/or money by charging your vehicle at off-peak times.

Getting it Right

Metro Atlanta (and Georgia) can do better -- that's why Sierra Club's Georgia Chapter opposes ballot measures that will fund transportation projects set to come before Georgia's voters in July. The Chapter noted that its decision to oppose the measures -- Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (T-SPLOST) -- in 11 of the state's regions was easy; the decision to oppose the T-SPLOST for the Atlanta region was more difficult and therefore the Sierra Club backed up its decision with a detailed Plan-B.

While the Sierra Club notes that no plan is perfect, the Chapter leaders concluded that the list of projects that the Atlanta transportation ballot measure would fund was flawed to the point of outweighing its benefits. Concerns range from a lack of a cohesive vision for the area's transportation system, a failure to have an equitable and representative regional transit governance in place, a failure to address the core need of the existing transit infrastructure, and that even transit projects that the Club supports in concept are vaguely defined and underfunded.

The Chapter is calling for voters to hold out for Plan B to stop Atlanta's transportation future from heading in the wrong direction, and questions tax booster's claim that this must be passed because it's the only option. The Sierra Club points out "that there is indeed great potential for an alternative plan that achieves meaningful progress on commute alternatives for Georgians without needlessly subsidizing another wave of sprawl." It is hard to make a tough decision on a ballot measure that includes transit funding. As my colleague, Colleen Kiernan, notes in her op-ed in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, this is not a first for the Club:

A major American city faces a hotly debated referendum to expand its road and transit network. The local business community is solidly behind it, claiming that passage is vital to the region’s economic competitiveness. Meanwhile, a motley group of community organizations, including the state chapter of the Sierra Club, are opposing the measure.

The reaction to this opposition from proponents is fierce. "There is no Plan B!" they loudly proclaim. "This is the only chance we'll have for a generation!" others cry. "The political climate won't allow anything better!"

This may sound like Atlanta today, but the city in question is in fact Seattle, and the year is 2007. That city's "Roads and Transit" referendum, an awkward mixture of popular transit projects and sprawl-inducing road construction, would eventually go down to defeat at the polls.

Despite predictions that another chance was a generation away, a Plan B was put to voters the very next year, this time focused entirely on expanding and enhancing the region's SoundTransit rail and bus network — without the massive road expansion. The 2008 "SoundTransit 2" initiative passed handily, and Seattle is now actively building out an ambitious regional transit vision.

We can look further back to 1998, when the Club's San Francisco Bay Chapter opposed Measure B, a transportation ballot measure that was similar to those in Atlanta and Seattle. When the ballot measure failed, the then head of one of the involved transit agencies (AC Transit) said optimistically, "It just means we have to try and try and try again until we get it right. We'll fine-tune Measure B and put it back on the ballot."

And that's what happened. Two years later an improved Measure B passed Colleen's op-ed notes, "While the tax would fund initial segments of some popular transit projects like the Beltline, every new track-mile of light rail built would be matched by 16 lane-miles of road expansion — enough asphalt to cover Turner Field more than 200 times."

For the Sierra Club that was too much of a bad thing. Like San Francisco and Seattle, Atlanta can get this right. This position has disappointed some and created a vigorous debate. But we will continue to work to increase transportation choices that will help Americans literally move beyond oil -- in Atlanta and everywhere.

-- Ann Mesnikoff, Director of the Sierra Club Green Transportation Campaign

The Freedom Train: Canadian First Nations Ride to Stop Tar Sands

Drums and prayer songs, dances and garden-grown gifts greet riders on the Freedom Train wherever they stop on their journey across Canada. The riders represent the Yinka Dene Alliance and other First Nations groups who want the crude oil transporter Enbridge to hear their message: Our people have declared your tar sands pipeline project illegal. We have banned you from our land. We have rejected your hollow promises of jobs and profits. Respect our existence or expect our resistance.

The alliance fears, though, that the Canadian government will ignore First Nations law and help Enbridge push the project through. The riders, indigenous women and men aged 15 to 72, set off from their traditional territories near the Pacific coast bound for Toronto's financial district, thousands of miles away. The journey is part of the years-long movement of resistance to Enbridge's proposed "Northern Gateway Pipeline" that would transport tar sands oil from Alberta to British Columbia's Pacific coast, where it would be loaded onto huge tankers that then must navigate precarious and stunningly pristine waterways on the way to market. 

In Toronto, the Freedom Train riders will lead a rally as Enbridge convenes its annual shareholders meeting. This will put Enbridge on notice that the First Nations have banned the Northern Gateway Pipeline from their land, in accordance with First Nations law, and that the company should not attempt legislative acrobatics to push the project forward.

The Freedom Train was inspired by two First Nations struggles that are now at key turning points: the effort to assert the right of self-government, and the effort to avoid environmental disasters on First Nations lands. The alliance is especially concerned about the Northern Gateway pipeline project because it would transport tar sands oil, which is especially corrosive and much more likely to cause a spill than conventional crude. It is also far more hazardous to human health, contains far higher levels of heavy metals, and is far more difficult to clean up when it does spill. These facts were undeniably confirmed after repeated spills in the United States, including the Kalamazoo disaster of 2010 and the Yellowstone River spill of 2011.

Farm Owner Scatters Wife's Ashes to Protect Land From Natural Gas Fracking

This week, Aaron Mair represented the Sierra Club in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania where a local farmer, Dr. Stephen Cleghorn, held a special event to remember his late wife and deposit her ashes in defiance and opposition to the natural gas industry.

A Member of the Sierra Club Board of Directors, Aaron Mair is a twenty-six-year veteran urban environmental activist, regional and national Environmental Justice organizer and strategist from the State of New York, and Former Atlantic Chapter Chair of 41,000-member New York State Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter.

The Sierra Club stands with Dr. Cleghorn in opposition to the dangerous natural gas drilling known as "fracking," which is known to contaminate drinking water, pollute the air, and cause earthquakes.

The above photo: Dr. J. Stephen Cleghorn (left), owner of Paradise Gardens & Farm, greets Aaron Mair, a national board member of the Sierra Club, during an event Thursday at the farm. (Photo by Tom Chapin/The Punxsutawney Spirit)

My Mother's Day Wish

As the director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign, I have to do a lot of traveling, which means spending more time than I would like away from my two-year-old daughter, Hazel. Just this Wednesday, I got home from a trip to find Hazel and her dad pretty exhausted after three days without Mom. I hope that someday, she'll understand that I had to be away sometimes because I was working hard to protect her from the pollution that is a very real threat to her future.

For Hazel, I hope when she's my age that the air and water are clean and safe, the mountains of her home state of West Virginia are still standing, and the threat of climate disruption has passed. I think that future is within our grasp, thanks to the work we are doing to move America beyond coal.

In the past year, we celebrated a historic victory that brought us much closer to that cleaner, safer future, when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the first-ever national mercury standards for coal fired power plants. Believe it or not, while coal plants are our nation's #1 source of mercury pollution, until this year there were no national mercury standards in place for coal plants. None at all! Coal plants could just spew 100% of their toxic mercury into the air, which then made its way into our waterways and the fish that we eat.

These protections are long overdue, and will safeguard our families. According to the EPA, every year over 300,000 babies are born exposed to high enough levels of mercury to put them at risk of developmental problems, like lowered IQ and delays in walking and talking - problems that will stay with them for the rest of their lives. Babies come into contact with this toxic mercury if their mothers eat a lot of certain species of fish, even before they become pregnant.

I was one of hundreds of thousands of moms and dads who worked hard to secure these new mercury protections, which were finalized in January. Now these safeguards are under attack, and we have to defend them.

Unfortunately, Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma is preparing to file a measure in Congress that would not only stop these mercury protections, but would also prevent the EPA from ever taking action on mercury again. Yes, you heard that right.

This Mother's Day, my wish is that you will join me in taking action to defend these crucial mercury protections. I know all you moms and dads out there are busy, so we've made it simple for you - just click here to send a note to your Senator. Our kids are counting on us, so it's time to speak up in defense of these long-overdue safeguards from toxic mercury pollution.

Thank you. And happy Mother's Day!

-- Mary Anne Hitt, Director of the Beyond Coal Campaign

Senator Sanders and Rep. Ellison Introduce the 'End Polluter Welfare Act'

Every year, massive oil companies like Exxon and Chevron make headlines for the billions in profits they rake in at the expense of our environment, our economy and the health of our families. And every year, those exact same companies reap the benefits of tax giveaways that are expected to total more than $110 billion over the next decade.

Today, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) offered a solution at a press conference today backed by a coalition of environmental and taxpayer groups. These two environmental champions introduced the "End Polluter Welfare Act" in the House and Senate, calling for a halt to this economic absurdity with the most comprehensive legislation to end tax subsidies for oil companies to date. 

Sierra Club proudly supports this common sense bill and - as Rep. Ellison noted today - so do a vast majority of Americans. 80 percent of Americans agree - it's time to put an end to tax giveaways for big polluters.

"The fossil fuel industry considers us their servants," said Sanders at a press conference held outside the U.S. Capitol Building today. "They don't deserve it."

While oil executives roll in record profits, they’re demanding tax handouts to support the very industry that puts the health of our kids at risk. There is no reason that American taxpayers should be forced to invest in the bloated dirty energy industry of the 19th century when the clean energy economy is already creating tens of thousands of new American jobs while protecting our families. Rather than supporting dirty, outdated fossil fuels, we should be investing in efficient technologies that will benefit every American - not just a handful of billionaire CEOs.

Still, Big Oil has fought tooth and nail to protect their subsidies before - and they're guaranteed to fight this legislation, too. That's why Rep. Ellison says the fight is just beginning.

"We have to work together to get the rest of the voices of the American people heard," he said. "Spread the word - the coalition is not yet big enough."

-Athan Manuel, Sierra Club Public Lands Director

More From the India to Appalachia Trip: Grave Comparisons

"These are invisible communities. They aren't covered in the national media, and they aren't covered in the state media."
 
This is how Soumya Dutta described India's rural and tribal communities in the shadow of massive coal projects. After two days listening to stories from Appalachians fighting mountaintop removal coal mining, Soumya and Debi Goenka spoke at the quarterly Alliance for Appalachia meeting about what they are facing in India.
 
Soumya described the devastation that is already being caused by the proposed Tata Mundra 4,000 MW coal plant, which received IFC support from the World Bank in the name of development. The local people who will bear the brunt of the pollution from the plants may not have access to electricity now, but they also aren't connected to the grid, and even if they were they couldn't afford the power.
 
The proponents of the project say it will create 700 permanent jobs, but they ignore the fact that it is already putting the livelihoods of over 10,000 villagers who depend on the land and water at risk. Fishing communities are complaining that ash is contaminating their catch when they hang it to dry, as are villagers who rely on the sea to harvest salt. Livestock that used to roam free in the inter-tidal zones can no longer graze because the coal companies have erected fences blocking access to the commons. Meanwhile the same pollution that is killing the animals is infecting the local communities as they breathe the air and drink the water.

Energy Access Entrepreneurs Seek $500 Million from World Bank at Rio +20

Twenty of the world’s leading off-grid clean energy entrepreneurs sent a letter (http://bit.ly/IzuDSU) today to World Bank Group president Robert Zoellick requesting $500 million in financial commitments to help them deliver on the world’s energy access goals. The group’s letter was backed by a letter of support (http://bit.ly/JRLBOT) from the CEOS of more than 25 leading civil society organizations from around the world, which calls for these commitments to take the form of a pledge at the upcoming Rio+20 earth summit.

The call comes six months into the United Nations Sustainable Energy for All (UN SEFA) campaign, which seeks to deliver universal energy access by 2030. In order to make good on that pledge the International Energy Agency (IEA) has found (http://bit.ly/zNduXr) that half of all energy services must be provided by off-grid clean energy.

Unfortunately, today’s investments in energy access are heavily skewed toward traditional grid extension, with billions going to large scale centralized power projects which are often heavily polluting coal plants.  Worse, according to the IEA, an over reliance on these investments at the expense of off grid clean energy investments will leave one billion of the world’s poor without energy access by 2030.

“There are literally one billion reasons to change our current approach to energy access,” says Justin Guay, Washington Representative with the Sierra Club’s International Climate Program. “The World Bank has a tremendous opportunity to do just that by committing to rapidly scale up investments in off grid clean energy at Rio.”

Wind Has Big 1st Quarter, But Congress Is In the Way

There’s not much that Republicans and Democrats can agree on in Washington these days. But surprisingly, there’s one issue that not only has bi-partisan support, but is also an important way to help keep strong American jobs during this tough economy: the Production Tax Credit for wind power.

The PTC is a federal policy that helps level the playing field among energy sources by providing tax incentives to wind energy companies. It has helped support clean energy entrepreneurs building innovative wind energy companies here in America and has built a manufacturing base that didn't exist 5 years ago. Their work is helping us transition off of dirty fossil fuels that harm our health and our air, while also bolstering an industry that has already created 75,000 good, American jobs.

And this week it’s become clearer than ever that the Production Tax Credit is working.

According to the American Wind Energy Association’s first quarter report, the U.S. wind industry installed 1,695 megawatts during the first quarter of 2012 (53% more than in the first quarter of 2011) bringing the total U.S. wind power capacity installations to 48,611 MW.