Federal agents swooped in on Gibson Guitar Wednesday, raiding factories and offices in Memphis and Nashville, seizing several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. The Feds are keeping mum, but in a statement yesterday Gibson's chairman and CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, defended his company's manufacturing policies, accusing the Justice Department of bullying the company. "The wood the government seized Wednesday is from a Forest Stewardship Council certified supplier," he said, suggesting the Feds are using the aggressive enforcement of overly broad laws to make the company cry uncle.
It isn't the first time that agents of the Fish and Wildlife Service have come knocking at the storied maker of such iconic instruments as the Les Paul electric guitar, the J-160E acoustic-electric John Lennon played, and essential jazz-boxes such as Charlie Christian's ES-150. In 2009 the Feds seized several guitars and pallets of wood from a Gibson factory, and both sides have been wrangling over the goods in a case with the delightful name "United States of America v. Ebony Wood in Various Forms."
The question in the first raid seemed to be whether Gibson had been buying illegally harvested hardwoods from protected forests, such as the Madagascar ebony that makes for such lovely fretboards. And if Gibson did knowingly import illegally harvested ebony from Madagascar, that wouldn't be a negligible offense. Peter Lowry, ebony and rosewood expert at the Missouri Botanical Garden, calls the Madagascar wood trade the "equivalent of Africa's blood diamonds." But with the new raid, the government seems to be questioning whether some wood sourced from India met every regulatory jot and tittle.
It isn't just Gibson that is sweating. Musicians who play vintage guitars and other instruments made of environmentally protected materials are worried the authorities may be coming for them next.
If you are the lucky owner of a 1920s Martin guitar, it may well be made, in part, of Brazilian rosewood. Cross an international border with an instrument made of that now-restricted wood, and you better have correct and complete documentation proving the age of the instrument. Otherwise, you could lose it to a zealous customs agent—not to mention face fines and prosecution.
John Thomas, a law professor at Quinnipiac University and a blues and ragtime guitarist, says "there's a lot of anxiety, and it's well justified." Once upon a time, he would have taken one of his vintage guitars on his travels. Now, "I don't go out of the country with a wooden guitar."
The tangled intersection of international laws is enforced through a thicket of paperwork. Recent revisions to 1900's Lacey Act require that anyone crossing the U.S. border declare every bit of flora or fauna being brought into the country. One is under "strict liability" to fill out the paperwork—and without any mistakes.
It's not enough to know that the body of your old guitar is made of spruce and maple: What's the bridge made of? If it's ebony, do you have the paperwork to show when and where that wood was harvested and when and where it was made into a bridge? Is the nut holding the strings at the guitar's headstock bone, or could it be ivory? "Even if you have no knowledge—despite Herculean efforts to obtain it—that some piece of your guitar, no matter how small, was obtained illegally, you lose your guitar forever," Prof. Thomas has written. "Oh, and you'll be fined $250 for that false (or missing) information in your Lacey Act Import Declaration."
Consider the recent experience of Pascal Vieillard, whose Atlanta-area company, A-440 Pianos, imported several antique Bösendorfers. Mr. Vieillard asked officials at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species how to fill out the correct paperwork—which simply encouraged them to alert U.S. Customs to give his shipment added scrutiny.
There was never any question that the instruments were old enough to have grandfathered ivory keys. But Mr. Vieillard didn't have his paperwork straight when two-dozen federal agents came calling.
Facing criminal charges that might have put him in prison for years, Mr. Vieillard pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of violating the Lacey Act, and was handed a $17,500 fine and three years probation.
Given the risks, why don't musicians just settle for the safety of carbon fiber? Some do—when concert pianist Jeffrey Sharkey moved to England two decades ago, he had Steinway replace the ivories on his piano with plastic.
Still, musicians cling to the old materials. Last year, Dick Boak, director of artist relations for C.F. Martin & Co., complained to Mother Nature News about the difficulty of getting elite guitarists to switch to instruments made from sustainable materials. "Surprisingly, musicians, who represent some of the most savvy, ecologically minded people around, are resistant to anything about changing the tone of their guitars," he said.
You could mark that up to hypocrisy—artsy do-gooders only too eager to tell others what kind of light bulbs they have to buy won't make sacrifices when it comes to their own passions. Then again, maybe it isn't hypocrisy to recognize that art makes claims significant enough to compete with environmentalists' agendas.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904787404576530520471223268.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read
Monday, August 29, 2011
An EPA Moratorium
Since everyone has a suggestion or three about what President Obama can do to get the economy cooking again, here's one of ours: Immediately suspend the Environmental Protection Agency's bid to reorganize the U.S. electricity industry, and impose a moratorium on EPA rules at least until hiring and investment rebound for an extended period.
The EPA is currently pushing an unprecedented rewrite of air-pollution rules in an attempt to shut down a large portion of the coal-fired power fleet. Though these regulations are among the most expensive in the agency's history, none were demanded by the late Pelosi Congress. They're all the result of purely bureaucratic discretion under the Clean Air Act, last revised in 1990.
As it happens, those 1990 amendments contain an overlooked proviso that would let Mr. Obama overrule EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's agenda. With an executive order, he could exempt all power plants "from compliance with any standard or limitation" for two years, or even longer using rolling two-year periods. All he has to declare is "that the technology to implement such standard is not available and that it is in the national security interests of the United States to do so."
Both criteria are easily met. Most important, the EPA's regulatory cascade is a clear and present danger to the reliability and stability of the U.S. power system and grid. The spree affects plants that provide 40% of U.S. baseload capacity in the U.S., and almost half of U.S. net generation. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, which is charged with ensuring the integrity of the power supply, reported this month in a letter to the Senate that 81 gigawatts of generating capacity is "very likely" or "likely" to be subtracted by 2018 amid coal plant retirements and downgrades.
That's about 8% of all U.S. generating capacity. Merely losing 56 gigawatts—a midrange scenario in line with FERC and industry estimates—is the equivalent of wiping out all power generation for Florida and Mississippi.
In practice, this will mean blackouts and rolling brownouts, as well as spiking rates for consumers. If a foreign power or terrorists wiped out 8% of U.S. capacity, such as through a cyber attack, it would rightly be considered an act of war. The EPA is in effect undermining the national security concept of "critical infrastructure"—assets essential to the functioning of society and the economy that Mr. Obama has an obligation to protect.
He would also be well within the law to declare that the EPA's rules are technologically infeasible. Later this year, for example, the EPA will release regulations requiring utilities to further limit mercury and other hazardous pollutants. Full compliance will be required by 2015, merely 36 months after the final rule is public, and plants that can't be upgraded in time will be required to shut down.
Yet this is nearly impossible to achieve. Duke Energy commented to the EPA that its average lead time for retrofitting scrubbers was 52 months, including the design, purchase and installation of equipment and the vagaries of the environmental permitting process. For Southern Co., another big utility, it was 54 months, over 16 scrubber systems. Filter systems usually take anywhere from 34 to 48 months end to end.
The environmental regulatory system is so rigid that once a rule is in motion it is almost impossible to stop or roll back in a way that can withstand scrutiny in the courts. Mr. Obama allowed Ms. Jackson to begin the process, but we rehearse these details to show that he has the legal authority to minimize her damage. An executive order would not make these rules more rational or change them in any way. All it would do is delay them, giving businesses more time to prepare and to amortize the costs over a longer time.
The larger issue is whether the Administration's green campaign is more important than economic growth. The EPA's own lowball cost estimate for the mercury rule is $11 billion annually, though the capital expenditures to meet the increasingly strict burden will be far higher. That investment could be put to more productive uses than mothballing coal assets and replacing them with more expensive sources like natural gas. With nearly a tenth of America out of work, $11 billion year after year adds up.
We don't expect Mr. Obama to take our advice and tell his regulators to cool it, but no one should believe the excuse that his hands are tied. Whatever he decides will speak volumes about his real economic priorities.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903327904576524423674218998.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
The EPA is currently pushing an unprecedented rewrite of air-pollution rules in an attempt to shut down a large portion of the coal-fired power fleet. Though these regulations are among the most expensive in the agency's history, none were demanded by the late Pelosi Congress. They're all the result of purely bureaucratic discretion under the Clean Air Act, last revised in 1990.
As it happens, those 1990 amendments contain an overlooked proviso that would let Mr. Obama overrule EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's agenda. With an executive order, he could exempt all power plants "from compliance with any standard or limitation" for two years, or even longer using rolling two-year periods. All he has to declare is "that the technology to implement such standard is not available and that it is in the national security interests of the United States to do so."
Both criteria are easily met. Most important, the EPA's regulatory cascade is a clear and present danger to the reliability and stability of the U.S. power system and grid. The spree affects plants that provide 40% of U.S. baseload capacity in the U.S., and almost half of U.S. net generation. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, which is charged with ensuring the integrity of the power supply, reported this month in a letter to the Senate that 81 gigawatts of generating capacity is "very likely" or "likely" to be subtracted by 2018 amid coal plant retirements and downgrades.
That's about 8% of all U.S. generating capacity. Merely losing 56 gigawatts—a midrange scenario in line with FERC and industry estimates—is the equivalent of wiping out all power generation for Florida and Mississippi.
In practice, this will mean blackouts and rolling brownouts, as well as spiking rates for consumers. If a foreign power or terrorists wiped out 8% of U.S. capacity, such as through a cyber attack, it would rightly be considered an act of war. The EPA is in effect undermining the national security concept of "critical infrastructure"—assets essential to the functioning of society and the economy that Mr. Obama has an obligation to protect.
He would also be well within the law to declare that the EPA's rules are technologically infeasible. Later this year, for example, the EPA will release regulations requiring utilities to further limit mercury and other hazardous pollutants. Full compliance will be required by 2015, merely 36 months after the final rule is public, and plants that can't be upgraded in time will be required to shut down.
Yet this is nearly impossible to achieve. Duke Energy commented to the EPA that its average lead time for retrofitting scrubbers was 52 months, including the design, purchase and installation of equipment and the vagaries of the environmental permitting process. For Southern Co., another big utility, it was 54 months, over 16 scrubber systems. Filter systems usually take anywhere from 34 to 48 months end to end.
The environmental regulatory system is so rigid that once a rule is in motion it is almost impossible to stop or roll back in a way that can withstand scrutiny in the courts. Mr. Obama allowed Ms. Jackson to begin the process, but we rehearse these details to show that he has the legal authority to minimize her damage. An executive order would not make these rules more rational or change them in any way. All it would do is delay them, giving businesses more time to prepare and to amortize the costs over a longer time.
The larger issue is whether the Administration's green campaign is more important than economic growth. The EPA's own lowball cost estimate for the mercury rule is $11 billion annually, though the capital expenditures to meet the increasingly strict burden will be far higher. That investment could be put to more productive uses than mothballing coal assets and replacing them with more expensive sources like natural gas. With nearly a tenth of America out of work, $11 billion year after year adds up.
We don't expect Mr. Obama to take our advice and tell his regulators to cool it, but no one should believe the excuse that his hands are tied. Whatever he decides will speak volumes about his real economic priorities.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903327904576524423674218998.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Wild world: Millions of unseen species fill Earth
WASHINGTON (AP) - Our world is a much wilder place than it looks. A new study estimates that Earth has almost 8.8 million species, but we've only discovered about a quarter of them. And some of the yet-to-be-seen ones could be in our own backyards, scientists say.
So far, only 1.9 million species have been found. Recent discoveries have been small and weird: a psychedelic frogfish, a lizard the size of a dime and even a blind hairy mini-lobster at the bottom of the ocean.
"We are really fairly ignorant of the complexity and colorfulness of this amazing planet," said the study's co-author, Boris Worm, a biology professor at Canada's Dalhousie University. "We need to expose more people to those wonders. It really makes you feel differently about this place we inhabit."
While some scientists and others may question why we need to know the number of species, others say it's important.
There are potential benefits from these undiscovered species, which need to be found before they disappear from the planet, said famed Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson, who was not part of this study. Some of modern medicine comes from unusual plants and animals.
"We won't know the benefits to humanity (from these species), which potentially are enormous," the Pulitzer Prize-winning Wilson said. "If we're going to advance medical science, we need to know what's in the environment."
Biologists have long known that there's more to Earth than it seems, estimating the number of species to be somewhere between 3 million and 100 million. Figuring out how much is difficult.
Worm and Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii used complex mathematical models and the pace of discoveries of not only species, but of higher classifications such as family to come up with their estimate.
Their study, published Tuesday in the online journal PLoS Biology, a publication of the Public Library of Science, estimated the number of species at nearly 8.8 million.
Of those species, 6.5 million would be on land and 2.2 million in the ocean, which is a priority for the scientists doing the work since they are part of the Census of Marine Life, an international group of scientists trying to record all the life in the ocean.
The research estimates that animals rule with 7.8 million species, followed by fungi with 611,000 and plants with just shy of 300,000 species.
While some new species like the strange mini-lobster are in exotic places such as undersea vents, "many of these species that remain to be discovered can be found literally in our own backyards," Mora said.
Outside scientists, such as Wilson and preeminent conservation biologist Stuart Pimm of Duke University, praised the study, although some said even the 8.8 million number may be too low.
The study said it could be off by about 1.3 million species, with the number somewhere between 7.5 million and 10.1 million. But evolutionary biologist Blair Hedges of Penn State University said he thinks the study is not good enough to be even that exact and could be wrong by millions.
Hedges knows firsthand about small species.
He found the world's smallest lizard, a half-inch long Caribbean gecko, while crawling on his hands and knees among dead leaves in the Dominican Republic in 2001. And three years ago in Barbados, he found the world's shortest snake, the 4-inch Caribbean threadsnake that lays "a single, very long egg."
The study's authors point to other species as evidence of the growing rate of discovery: the 6-inch, blind, hairy lobster-type species found in 2005 by a submarine looking at hydrothermal vents near where the Pacific meets Antarctica and a brilliant-colored frogfish found by divers in Indonesia in 2008.
Of the 1.9 million species found thus far, only about 1.2 million have been listed in the fledgling online Encyclopedia of Life, a massive international effort to chronicle every species that involves biologists, including Wilson.
If the 8.8 million estimate is correct, "those are brutal numbers," said Encyclopedia of Life executive director Erick Mata. "We could spend the next 400 or 500 years trying to document the species that actually inhabit our planet."
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20110824/D9PA5FI80.html
So far, only 1.9 million species have been found. Recent discoveries have been small and weird: a psychedelic frogfish, a lizard the size of a dime and even a blind hairy mini-lobster at the bottom of the ocean.
"We are really fairly ignorant of the complexity and colorfulness of this amazing planet," said the study's co-author, Boris Worm, a biology professor at Canada's Dalhousie University. "We need to expose more people to those wonders. It really makes you feel differently about this place we inhabit."
While some scientists and others may question why we need to know the number of species, others say it's important.
There are potential benefits from these undiscovered species, which need to be found before they disappear from the planet, said famed Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson, who was not part of this study. Some of modern medicine comes from unusual plants and animals.
"We won't know the benefits to humanity (from these species), which potentially are enormous," the Pulitzer Prize-winning Wilson said. "If we're going to advance medical science, we need to know what's in the environment."
Biologists have long known that there's more to Earth than it seems, estimating the number of species to be somewhere between 3 million and 100 million. Figuring out how much is difficult.
Worm and Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii used complex mathematical models and the pace of discoveries of not only species, but of higher classifications such as family to come up with their estimate.
Their study, published Tuesday in the online journal PLoS Biology, a publication of the Public Library of Science, estimated the number of species at nearly 8.8 million.
Of those species, 6.5 million would be on land and 2.2 million in the ocean, which is a priority for the scientists doing the work since they are part of the Census of Marine Life, an international group of scientists trying to record all the life in the ocean.
The research estimates that animals rule with 7.8 million species, followed by fungi with 611,000 and plants with just shy of 300,000 species.
While some new species like the strange mini-lobster are in exotic places such as undersea vents, "many of these species that remain to be discovered can be found literally in our own backyards," Mora said.
Outside scientists, such as Wilson and preeminent conservation biologist Stuart Pimm of Duke University, praised the study, although some said even the 8.8 million number may be too low.
The study said it could be off by about 1.3 million species, with the number somewhere between 7.5 million and 10.1 million. But evolutionary biologist Blair Hedges of Penn State University said he thinks the study is not good enough to be even that exact and could be wrong by millions.
Hedges knows firsthand about small species.
He found the world's smallest lizard, a half-inch long Caribbean gecko, while crawling on his hands and knees among dead leaves in the Dominican Republic in 2001. And three years ago in Barbados, he found the world's shortest snake, the 4-inch Caribbean threadsnake that lays "a single, very long egg."
The study's authors point to other species as evidence of the growing rate of discovery: the 6-inch, blind, hairy lobster-type species found in 2005 by a submarine looking at hydrothermal vents near where the Pacific meets Antarctica and a brilliant-colored frogfish found by divers in Indonesia in 2008.
Of the 1.9 million species found thus far, only about 1.2 million have been listed in the fledgling online Encyclopedia of Life, a massive international effort to chronicle every species that involves biologists, including Wilson.
If the 8.8 million estimate is correct, "those are brutal numbers," said Encyclopedia of Life executive director Erick Mata. "We could spend the next 400 or 500 years trying to document the species that actually inhabit our planet."
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20110824/D9PA5FI80.html
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Seattle's 'green jobs' program a bust
Last year, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn announced the city had won a coveted $20 million federal grant to invest in weatherization. The unglamorous work of insulating crawl spaces and attics had emerged as a silver bullet in a bleak economy – able to create jobs and shrink carbon footprint – and the announcement came with great fanfare.
McGinn had joined Vice President Joe Biden in the White House to make it. It came on the eve of Earth Day. It had heady goals: creating 2,000 living-wage jobs in Seattle and retrofitting 2,000 homes in poorer neighborhoods.
But more than a year later, Seattle's numbers are lackluster. As of last week, only three homes had been retrofitted and just 14 new jobs have emerged from the program. Many of the jobs are administrative, and not the entry-level pathways once dreamed of for low-income workers. Some people wonder if the original goals are now achievable.
"The jobs haven't surfaced yet," said Michael Woo, director of Got Green, a Seattle community organizing group focused on the environment and social justice.
"It's been a very slow and tedious process. It's almost painful, the number of meetings people have gone to. Those are the people who got jobs. There's been no real investment for the broader public."
'Who's got the money'
The buildings that have gotten financing so far include the Washington Athletic Club and a handful of hospitals, a trend that concerns community advocates who worry the program isn't helping lower-income homeowners.
"Who's benefitting from this program right now – it doesn't square with what the aspiration was," said Howard Greenwich, the policy director of Puget Sound Sage, an economic-justice group. He urged the city to revisit its social-equity goals.
"I think what it boils down to is who's got the money."
Organizers and policy experts blame the economy, bureaucracy and bad timing for the program's mediocre results. Called Community Power Works, the program funds low-interest loans and incentives for buildings to do energy-efficient upgrades. They include hospitals, municipal buildings, big commercial structures and homes.
Half the funds are reserved for financing and engaging homeowners in Central and Southeast Seattle, a historically underserved area. Most of the jobs are expected to come from this sector.
But the timing of the award has led to hurdles in enticing homeowners to bite on retrofits. The city had applied for the grant at a time of eco-giddiness, when former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels was out-greening all other politicians except for Al Gore. Retrofits glowed with promise to boost the economy, reduce consumer bills and lower greenhouse gas emissions.
"A triple win," is how Biden characterized it.
By the time Seattle won the award, homeowners were battered by unemployment and foreclosures. The long-term benefits of energy upgrades lacked the tangible punch of a new countertop. And the high number of unemployed construction workers edged out new weatherization installers for the paltry number of jobs.
"Really, we couldn't have rolled out this program at a worse time," said Greenwich, who had helped write the city's grant proposal.
"The outcomes are very disappointing. I think the city has worked really hard, but no one anticipated just how bad this recession was going to be, and the effect it was going to have on this program."
City feels 'cautiously optimistic'
As of last week, 337 homeowners had applied for the program. Fourteen had gotten a loan, or were in the process of getting one.
"Yes, we're not seeing as many completed retrofits as we wanted to," said Joshua Curtis, the city's manager for Community Power Works. "While everyone would like to see more upgrades, I think we're feeling cautiously optimistic."
He said the residential portion of program didn't launch until April. He said there was a normal summertime lull in work and that he expected things to pick up in the fall. He was confident that the city's marketing campaign and loan partner held promise.
Curtis said there were factors outside the city's control, such as the economy. And he attributed frustration among job-seekers to a "mismatch" in the timing of two federal grants.
Before the city got the $20 million, some local agencies, including Got Green, had received funds in a government push to train workers in weatherization. But the anticipation of landing career-path jobs evaporated as months went by with no work.
"People are frustrated and rightly so," Curtis said. "There's been sort of a lag time when people graduated from those programs."
They include Long Duong, 32, who got a certificate in sealing air leaks and insulating walls after he was laid off from a job handling bags at the airport. But he soon found that other men had more qualifications than him, and he took part-time gigs - installing light bulbs and canvassing doors – while waiting for work.
A year later, he's still looking.
"I haven't given up yet," said Duong, of South Seattle. "Weatherization is another opportunity for me."
Curtis said the money that financed the Washington Athletic Club and hospitals doesn't draw from funds reserved for single-family homeowners. He said the program's standards will ensure that people targeted by the program – low-income workers – will get good jobs. And he said the WAC project will create some new work in September.
"We're not where we want to be, but we have a path forward," he said.
City needs to 'step up its game'
But will the city hit its goals? Curtis was hopeful Seattle would make it by 2013, when the funding ends. Greenwich, of Puget Sound Sage, said the city needs to retrofit 100 to 200 homes a month to create 2,000 jobs. Woo, of Got Green, thinks the city needs to throw more money on incentives.
Greenwich said the energy retrofit market has turned out to be extremely complicated, with required hammering out of job standards, hiring practices, wages and how best to measure energy benefits.
"The city is really going to have to step up its game to get the 2,000 retrofits," Greenwich said.
"But if this would have been easy, it would have been done already."
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/127844048.html?m=y&smobile=y&c=y
McGinn had joined Vice President Joe Biden in the White House to make it. It came on the eve of Earth Day. It had heady goals: creating 2,000 living-wage jobs in Seattle and retrofitting 2,000 homes in poorer neighborhoods.
But more than a year later, Seattle's numbers are lackluster. As of last week, only three homes had been retrofitted and just 14 new jobs have emerged from the program. Many of the jobs are administrative, and not the entry-level pathways once dreamed of for low-income workers. Some people wonder if the original goals are now achievable.
"The jobs haven't surfaced yet," said Michael Woo, director of Got Green, a Seattle community organizing group focused on the environment and social justice.
"It's been a very slow and tedious process. It's almost painful, the number of meetings people have gone to. Those are the people who got jobs. There's been no real investment for the broader public."
'Who's got the money'
The buildings that have gotten financing so far include the Washington Athletic Club and a handful of hospitals, a trend that concerns community advocates who worry the program isn't helping lower-income homeowners.
"Who's benefitting from this program right now – it doesn't square with what the aspiration was," said Howard Greenwich, the policy director of Puget Sound Sage, an economic-justice group. He urged the city to revisit its social-equity goals.
"I think what it boils down to is who's got the money."
Organizers and policy experts blame the economy, bureaucracy and bad timing for the program's mediocre results. Called Community Power Works, the program funds low-interest loans and incentives for buildings to do energy-efficient upgrades. They include hospitals, municipal buildings, big commercial structures and homes.
Half the funds are reserved for financing and engaging homeowners in Central and Southeast Seattle, a historically underserved area. Most of the jobs are expected to come from this sector.
But the timing of the award has led to hurdles in enticing homeowners to bite on retrofits. The city had applied for the grant at a time of eco-giddiness, when former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels was out-greening all other politicians except for Al Gore. Retrofits glowed with promise to boost the economy, reduce consumer bills and lower greenhouse gas emissions.
"A triple win," is how Biden characterized it.
By the time Seattle won the award, homeowners were battered by unemployment and foreclosures. The long-term benefits of energy upgrades lacked the tangible punch of a new countertop. And the high number of unemployed construction workers edged out new weatherization installers for the paltry number of jobs.
"Really, we couldn't have rolled out this program at a worse time," said Greenwich, who had helped write the city's grant proposal.
"The outcomes are very disappointing. I think the city has worked really hard, but no one anticipated just how bad this recession was going to be, and the effect it was going to have on this program."
City feels 'cautiously optimistic'
As of last week, 337 homeowners had applied for the program. Fourteen had gotten a loan, or were in the process of getting one.
"Yes, we're not seeing as many completed retrofits as we wanted to," said Joshua Curtis, the city's manager for Community Power Works. "While everyone would like to see more upgrades, I think we're feeling cautiously optimistic."
He said the residential portion of program didn't launch until April. He said there was a normal summertime lull in work and that he expected things to pick up in the fall. He was confident that the city's marketing campaign and loan partner held promise.
Curtis said there were factors outside the city's control, such as the economy. And he attributed frustration among job-seekers to a "mismatch" in the timing of two federal grants.
Before the city got the $20 million, some local agencies, including Got Green, had received funds in a government push to train workers in weatherization. But the anticipation of landing career-path jobs evaporated as months went by with no work.
"People are frustrated and rightly so," Curtis said. "There's been sort of a lag time when people graduated from those programs."
They include Long Duong, 32, who got a certificate in sealing air leaks and insulating walls after he was laid off from a job handling bags at the airport. But he soon found that other men had more qualifications than him, and he took part-time gigs - installing light bulbs and canvassing doors – while waiting for work.
A year later, he's still looking.
"I haven't given up yet," said Duong, of South Seattle. "Weatherization is another opportunity for me."
Curtis said the money that financed the Washington Athletic Club and hospitals doesn't draw from funds reserved for single-family homeowners. He said the program's standards will ensure that people targeted by the program – low-income workers – will get good jobs. And he said the WAC project will create some new work in September.
"We're not where we want to be, but we have a path forward," he said.
City needs to 'step up its game'
But will the city hit its goals? Curtis was hopeful Seattle would make it by 2013, when the funding ends. Greenwich, of Puget Sound Sage, said the city needs to retrofit 100 to 200 homes a month to create 2,000 jobs. Woo, of Got Green, thinks the city needs to throw more money on incentives.
Greenwich said the energy retrofit market has turned out to be extremely complicated, with required hammering out of job standards, hiring practices, wages and how best to measure energy benefits.
"The city is really going to have to step up its game to get the 2,000 retrofits," Greenwich said.
"But if this would have been easy, it would have been done already."
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/127844048.html?m=y&smobile=y&c=y
Evergreen Solar files for bankruptcy, plans asset sale
Expect this to be the future for some of the subsidies of Delaware tax money that the Markell administration has awarded to certain "green" businesses. We'll soon find out who can compete in the real world.
Evergreen Solar Inc., the Massachusetts clean-energy company that received millions in state subsidies from the Patrick administration for an ill-fated Bay State factory, has filed for bankruptcy, listing $485.6 million in debt.
Evergreen, which closed its taxpayer-supported Devens factory in March and cut 800 jobs, has been trying to rework its debt for months. The cash-strapped company announced today has sought a reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware and reached a deal with certain note holders to restructure its debt and auction off assets.
The Massachusetts Republican Party called the Patrick administration’s $58 million financial aid package, which supported Evergreen’s $450 million factory, a “waste” of money.
“The bankruptcy of Evergreen Solar is another sad event for the Massachusetts company and highlights the folly of the Patrick-Murray Administration which has put government subsidies into their pet projects instead of offering broad based relief to all Bay State employers,” said Jennifer Nassour, head of the state GOP.
Greg Bialecki, Patrick’s economic development czar, defended the administration’s support for the once-promising Evergreen. The state is still trying to recoup about $4 million in cash from the Marlboro-based company.
“Not every company is going to be successful ... but we still believe the approach of providing business incentives to create and maintain manufacturing jobs in Massachusetts is an important strategy,” he said.
Evergreen — hurt by lower-cost competition in China and plummeting prices for solar panels — also said it will cut more jobs — 65 layoffs in the United States and Europe, mostly through the shutdown of its Midland, Mich., manufacturing facility. That would leave Evergreen with about 68 workers according to a head count listed in the bankruptcy filing.
To cut costs, Evergreen shifted some of its production to Wuhan, China, last year. That joint venture will remain operating subject to financing talks with Chinese investors.
In January, after Evergreen announced it would close the Devens factory, Patrick told the Herald he was disappointed in the job losses but did not regret making the investment.
“I think we did what we could have and should have,” he told the Herald.
In March, during a state Senate hearing that explored the value of tax incentives for Bay State businesses, Evergreen CEO Michael El-Hillow said the company had “earned” 85 percent of the taxpayer benefits it received because of the jobs it originally created.
Evergreen warned investors back in April that it was burning through cash because of slow sales, falling solar-panel prices and weak proceeds from the sale of Devens factory assets.
“Chapter 11 will provide Evergreen Solar with the ability to maximize returns for our stakeholders through the proposed sale process,” El-Hillow said in a statement. “Importantly, we expect to continue our technology development without interruption during Chapter 11 and the sale process.”
But Evergreen shareholders are expected to receive “no distributions” from the asset sales after creditors are repaid.
Shares of Evergreen, which are in danger of delisting from the Nasdaq Stock Market, plunged 57 percent today to 18 cents. The company launched in 1994 and went public in 2000.
The list of top creditors in today’s bankruptcy filing lists a $1.5 million debt to MassDevelopment, the quasi-public state economic development agency.
http://www.bostonherald.com/business/technology/general/view.bg?articleid=1358998&format=text
Evergreen Solar Inc., the Massachusetts clean-energy company that received millions in state subsidies from the Patrick administration for an ill-fated Bay State factory, has filed for bankruptcy, listing $485.6 million in debt.
Evergreen, which closed its taxpayer-supported Devens factory in March and cut 800 jobs, has been trying to rework its debt for months. The cash-strapped company announced today has sought a reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware and reached a deal with certain note holders to restructure its debt and auction off assets.
The Massachusetts Republican Party called the Patrick administration’s $58 million financial aid package, which supported Evergreen’s $450 million factory, a “waste” of money.
“The bankruptcy of Evergreen Solar is another sad event for the Massachusetts company and highlights the folly of the Patrick-Murray Administration which has put government subsidies into their pet projects instead of offering broad based relief to all Bay State employers,” said Jennifer Nassour, head of the state GOP.
Greg Bialecki, Patrick’s economic development czar, defended the administration’s support for the once-promising Evergreen. The state is still trying to recoup about $4 million in cash from the Marlboro-based company.
“Not every company is going to be successful ... but we still believe the approach of providing business incentives to create and maintain manufacturing jobs in Massachusetts is an important strategy,” he said.
Evergreen — hurt by lower-cost competition in China and plummeting prices for solar panels — also said it will cut more jobs — 65 layoffs in the United States and Europe, mostly through the shutdown of its Midland, Mich., manufacturing facility. That would leave Evergreen with about 68 workers according to a head count listed in the bankruptcy filing.
To cut costs, Evergreen shifted some of its production to Wuhan, China, last year. That joint venture will remain operating subject to financing talks with Chinese investors.
In January, after Evergreen announced it would close the Devens factory, Patrick told the Herald he was disappointed in the job losses but did not regret making the investment.
“I think we did what we could have and should have,” he told the Herald.
In March, during a state Senate hearing that explored the value of tax incentives for Bay State businesses, Evergreen CEO Michael El-Hillow said the company had “earned” 85 percent of the taxpayer benefits it received because of the jobs it originally created.
Evergreen warned investors back in April that it was burning through cash because of slow sales, falling solar-panel prices and weak proceeds from the sale of Devens factory assets.
“Chapter 11 will provide Evergreen Solar with the ability to maximize returns for our stakeholders through the proposed sale process,” El-Hillow said in a statement. “Importantly, we expect to continue our technology development without interruption during Chapter 11 and the sale process.”
But Evergreen shareholders are expected to receive “no distributions” from the asset sales after creditors are repaid.
Shares of Evergreen, which are in danger of delisting from the Nasdaq Stock Market, plunged 57 percent today to 18 cents. The company launched in 1994 and went public in 2000.
The list of top creditors in today’s bankruptcy filing lists a $1.5 million debt to MassDevelopment, the quasi-public state economic development agency.
http://www.bostonherald.com/business/technology/general/view.bg?articleid=1358998&format=text
Monday, August 15, 2011
This will cause electricity prices to soar
In an article in Friday’s paper, I described how some companies that operate dirty coal-fired power plants are playing chicken as they face a decision on whether to retire them or install expensive scrubbers and filters. They are waiting to see what their neighbors will do as new environmental rules take effect: as with two restaurants in a town that can support only one, if your neighbor goes out of business, more business comes to you, and prices may well rise.
In fact, in the largest grid jurisdiction in North America, the one operated by PJM Interconnection, money comes to plant owners in several different ways. The biggest is selling energy, or kilowatt-hours, and that price varies by time of day. Plants in areas where there is a lot of congestion on the grid and new supplies cannot easily be shipped in will enjoy something close to a monopoly and take in very high revenues on peak summer days.
American Electric Power, a multistate utility based in Columbus, Ohio, has been arguing that if it and its competitors close some big low-cost plants, customers will face abrupt rate increases of 10 to 35 percent. The nature of the PJM market magnifies the importance of losing a cheap generator; all producers get the same payment, equal to the highest-cost generation running, and if a low-cost generator is retired, then the most expensive generator needed to replace it will set a higher price for everyone.
But the consulting firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance identifies a second mechanism by which prices will increase. In PJM and in parallel organizations covering New York, New England, the upper Midwest and California, electric generating stations are selling several services at once, each with its own price.
The simpler thing they sell is electricity, which is priced in units of megawatt-hours. A megawatt-hour, or 1,000 kilowatt-hours, is the amount of energy that a suburban house uses in a month or so. But they also sell capacity: each utility that serves customers has to go into the wholesale market and buy not only energy but the actual availability of generation.
There are few parallels outside the electricity world; it is as if a restaurant charged upfront for a reservation for a table, independent of the price of the food. The way the electric system works, the equivalent in a restaurant would mean paying for a table of adequate size, whether or not everybody showed up.
The capacity market is not only a way to compensate generators; it can also be used to set a value on the services of “demand response” companies. Those are companies that line up electricity customers who agree, in exchange for a payment, to turn off their equipment on peak days.
Companies that serve retail electricity customers must buy as much capacity as the retail customers used in their last peak load day, plus a margin. And this summer, many of the companies had new peak loads.
Eventually electricity customers pay for both the energy and the capacity. The mechanism is intended to compensate generators that sit idle much of the year but are really important on hot days. The price also serves as a signal to companies thinking about building new plants; if it rises high enough, they know it is time to build.
Capacity payments have mostly been low in the last few years because the recession has cut demand for electricity and supply has been high relative to demand in the auctions or individual deals between utilities that serve customers and companies that own generation.
In a research note released late Friday, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said that capacity payments in 2014 and 2015 would reach a level equal to $7 per megawatt-hour of electricity sold — in other words, about $7 on the monthly bill of that suburban house, or seven-tenths of a cent per kilowatt-hour. The national average retail price of a kilowatt-hour is about 10 cents, although in some parts of the Northeast it can be triple that amount.
Higher capacity payments are one of the mechanisms through which surviving electric plants will get the revenue needed for add-on antipollution devices.
Charles Blanchard, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance and author of the research note, said in an e-mail that capacity payments may reach 25 percent of total revenues as supply is reduced.
For the Independent System Operators, or I.S.O.’s, like PJM, the capacity problem will become more important as fewer generators are coal- or gas-fired power plants, which can be switched on at will to meet peak load, and more are wind or solar, which must be compensated for times it is not sunny or windy.
“This trend is going to continue, as intermittent resources like wind and solar force I.S.O.’s to pay to keep gas-peaking plants online even though they’re not used enough to be profitable based on electricity sales,’’ Mr. Blanchard said in an e-mail.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/for-coal-plants-a-game-of-chicken/?ref=business
In fact, in the largest grid jurisdiction in North America, the one operated by PJM Interconnection, money comes to plant owners in several different ways. The biggest is selling energy, or kilowatt-hours, and that price varies by time of day. Plants in areas where there is a lot of congestion on the grid and new supplies cannot easily be shipped in will enjoy something close to a monopoly and take in very high revenues on peak summer days.
American Electric Power, a multistate utility based in Columbus, Ohio, has been arguing that if it and its competitors close some big low-cost plants, customers will face abrupt rate increases of 10 to 35 percent. The nature of the PJM market magnifies the importance of losing a cheap generator; all producers get the same payment, equal to the highest-cost generation running, and if a low-cost generator is retired, then the most expensive generator needed to replace it will set a higher price for everyone.
But the consulting firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance identifies a second mechanism by which prices will increase. In PJM and in parallel organizations covering New York, New England, the upper Midwest and California, electric generating stations are selling several services at once, each with its own price.
The simpler thing they sell is electricity, which is priced in units of megawatt-hours. A megawatt-hour, or 1,000 kilowatt-hours, is the amount of energy that a suburban house uses in a month or so. But they also sell capacity: each utility that serves customers has to go into the wholesale market and buy not only energy but the actual availability of generation.
There are few parallels outside the electricity world; it is as if a restaurant charged upfront for a reservation for a table, independent of the price of the food. The way the electric system works, the equivalent in a restaurant would mean paying for a table of adequate size, whether or not everybody showed up.
The capacity market is not only a way to compensate generators; it can also be used to set a value on the services of “demand response” companies. Those are companies that line up electricity customers who agree, in exchange for a payment, to turn off their equipment on peak days.
Companies that serve retail electricity customers must buy as much capacity as the retail customers used in their last peak load day, plus a margin. And this summer, many of the companies had new peak loads.
Eventually electricity customers pay for both the energy and the capacity. The mechanism is intended to compensate generators that sit idle much of the year but are really important on hot days. The price also serves as a signal to companies thinking about building new plants; if it rises high enough, they know it is time to build.
Capacity payments have mostly been low in the last few years because the recession has cut demand for electricity and supply has been high relative to demand in the auctions or individual deals between utilities that serve customers and companies that own generation.
In a research note released late Friday, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said that capacity payments in 2014 and 2015 would reach a level equal to $7 per megawatt-hour of electricity sold — in other words, about $7 on the monthly bill of that suburban house, or seven-tenths of a cent per kilowatt-hour. The national average retail price of a kilowatt-hour is about 10 cents, although in some parts of the Northeast it can be triple that amount.
Higher capacity payments are one of the mechanisms through which surviving electric plants will get the revenue needed for add-on antipollution devices.
Charles Blanchard, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance and author of the research note, said in an e-mail that capacity payments may reach 25 percent of total revenues as supply is reduced.
For the Independent System Operators, or I.S.O.’s, like PJM, the capacity problem will become more important as fewer generators are coal- or gas-fired power plants, which can be switched on at will to meet peak load, and more are wind or solar, which must be compensated for times it is not sunny or windy.
“This trend is going to continue, as intermittent resources like wind and solar force I.S.O.’s to pay to keep gas-peaking plants online even though they’re not used enough to be profitable based on electricity sales,’’ Mr. Blanchard said in an e-mail.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/for-coal-plants-a-game-of-chicken/?ref=business
New regs are flying off Washington's printing presses like money
Karen Beagle had already complied with all the local Troy, Ohio, environmental regulations her small electronics business faced when along came the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with orders to scrap her existing septic system and replace it with an expensive and unnecessary sewer hookup.
Brad Muller's Charlotte, N.C., pipe and foundry companies are ensnared by the federal rule book, too, forced to spend millions of dollars each year complying with environmental regulations.
These are just two of America's millions of small and independent businesses that daily suffer new and unexpected burdens handed them by an increasingly aggressive federal bureaucracy flexing its regulatory muscle far beyond the original intent of Congress.
In the current economic climate, small businesses can no longer create the jobs and economic growth that once kept the nation's economy above water.
And hopes for a recovery of those opportunities are rapidly moving farther out of reach as President Obama ramps up the federal bureaucracy's rule-making machine.
The National Federation of Independent Business will not stand idly by while this government threatens innovators like Karen and Brad. We're fighting back with a new campaign -- Small Businesses for Sensible Regulations -- that will alert the nation to this growing danger and demand corrective action by Obama. We'll point out barriers and muster support to restrain officials who sidestep the laws as written.
Since 2005, pending federal regulations classified as "major" or "economically significant" (costing our economy more than $100 million) have soared 60 percent.
And of the more than 4,200 new regulations federal bureaucrats under Obama currently have ready to roll out, 845 have been identified as policy changes that will negatively impact small businesses.
It costs the average small business more than $10,500 per employee to comply with federal regulations alone. Last year, that represented a $1.75 trillion drag on our economy, contributing to slower growth and greater unemployment.
Washington regulators, unlike small businesses, have little concern whether private-sector enterprises have the financial resources or trained staffs necessary to deal with their growing mountain of restrictions and requirements. Just complying with federal environmental regulations costs small businesses 364 percent more than it does their larger counterparts.
Does EPA worry about the nation's 9.2 percent unemployment rate or the spiraling debt? Obviously not. It's pushing to nearly double the strength of permissible dust standards for family farms and other workplaces.
And the agency proposes to dramatically tighten the ozone threshold -- which was lowered just three years ago -- that could throw 90 percent of the nation, including pristine Yellowstone National Park, out of federal compliance and jeopardize 7.3 million jobs.
Nor does anyone at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration apparently care how Main Street or its employees are suffering. OSHA's Injury and Illness Prevention Program forces small businesses to grapple with an extensive paperwork process to identify all potential safety and health threats, however small.
And these are just two federal agencies. There are lots of others.
Karen Beagle, Brad Muller and millions of small-business owners like them can be key job creators for the United States. But forcing them to wade through the Code of Federal Regulations, currently 150,000 pages long and growing daily, guarantees that their entrepreneurial skills, innovative energy and hard-earned dollars will not be used to put America back on track and back to work.
America needs to see and hear the growing danger of a federal government dead set on printing new regulations as fast as it is printing money to hide the national debt.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2011/08/new-regs-are-flying-washingtons-printing-presses-money
Brad Muller's Charlotte, N.C., pipe and foundry companies are ensnared by the federal rule book, too, forced to spend millions of dollars each year complying with environmental regulations.
These are just two of America's millions of small and independent businesses that daily suffer new and unexpected burdens handed them by an increasingly aggressive federal bureaucracy flexing its regulatory muscle far beyond the original intent of Congress.
In the current economic climate, small businesses can no longer create the jobs and economic growth that once kept the nation's economy above water.
And hopes for a recovery of those opportunities are rapidly moving farther out of reach as President Obama ramps up the federal bureaucracy's rule-making machine.
The National Federation of Independent Business will not stand idly by while this government threatens innovators like Karen and Brad. We're fighting back with a new campaign -- Small Businesses for Sensible Regulations -- that will alert the nation to this growing danger and demand corrective action by Obama. We'll point out barriers and muster support to restrain officials who sidestep the laws as written.
Since 2005, pending federal regulations classified as "major" or "economically significant" (costing our economy more than $100 million) have soared 60 percent.
And of the more than 4,200 new regulations federal bureaucrats under Obama currently have ready to roll out, 845 have been identified as policy changes that will negatively impact small businesses.
It costs the average small business more than $10,500 per employee to comply with federal regulations alone. Last year, that represented a $1.75 trillion drag on our economy, contributing to slower growth and greater unemployment.
Washington regulators, unlike small businesses, have little concern whether private-sector enterprises have the financial resources or trained staffs necessary to deal with their growing mountain of restrictions and requirements. Just complying with federal environmental regulations costs small businesses 364 percent more than it does their larger counterparts.
Does EPA worry about the nation's 9.2 percent unemployment rate or the spiraling debt? Obviously not. It's pushing to nearly double the strength of permissible dust standards for family farms and other workplaces.
And the agency proposes to dramatically tighten the ozone threshold -- which was lowered just three years ago -- that could throw 90 percent of the nation, including pristine Yellowstone National Park, out of federal compliance and jeopardize 7.3 million jobs.
Nor does anyone at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration apparently care how Main Street or its employees are suffering. OSHA's Injury and Illness Prevention Program forces small businesses to grapple with an extensive paperwork process to identify all potential safety and health threats, however small.
And these are just two federal agencies. There are lots of others.
Karen Beagle, Brad Muller and millions of small-business owners like them can be key job creators for the United States. But forcing them to wade through the Code of Federal Regulations, currently 150,000 pages long and growing daily, guarantees that their entrepreneurial skills, innovative energy and hard-earned dollars will not be used to put America back on track and back to work.
America needs to see and hear the growing danger of a federal government dead set on printing new regulations as fast as it is printing money to hide the national debt.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2011/08/new-regs-are-flying-washingtons-printing-presses-money
Liberals standing athwart history, yelling 'Stop!'
For years, conservatives were said to be "standing athwart history, yelling 'Stop!' " But a federal judge's ruling Friday points to the new reality that those who are now seeking to stop history -- or at least the development of new energy technologies -- are liberals, led by President Obama. Judge Nancy Freudenthal ruled against Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and regulations implemented by two agencies within his department. The regulations -- designed to slow down energy development -- came from the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management. Attorneys for the government argued that the Western Energy Alliance, an energy industry advocacy group that filed the suit, failed to show the regulations caused hardship such as added costs or unnecessary delays.
Freudenthal disagreed, saying "Western Energy has demonstrated through its members recognizable injury. Those injuries are supported by the administrative record." As a result, regulations issued in 2005 under President George W. Bush that were supplanted by the Obama rules are back in force. The Bush regulations were designed to speed up federal reviews of applications to explore and develop hundreds of millions of acres of federally owned lands in Western states believed to hold vast untapped quantities of oil and natural gas. Developing such resources could reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil and reduce costs for American consumers.
But global-warming-obsessed liberals don't want Americans to have access to cheaper oil and natural gas, and they are determined to use federal laws and regulations wherever possible to force us to use "clean" energy sources such as wind, solar and biomass. Unfortunately, it will take as long as three decades, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, for the alternative energy forms to be able to replace oil and natural gas. And the liberals' plans for getting there from here -- epitomized by the regulations skewered Friday in federal court -- will, according to Obama, "necessarily cause energy prices to skyrocket."
Meanwhile, the U.S. energy industry continues its remarkable record of finding and producing domestic oil and natural gas resources in more efficient and environmentally safe ways. Natural gas, which was growing more expensive due to declining supplies only a few years ago, has experienced an extraordinary revival in this country, thanks to hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") to get at supplies trapped in shale thousands of feet below the surface. Water and tiny amounts of chemicals are injected into shale formations, allowing the oil and natural gas to be extracted.
Horizontal drilling of multiple wells from one site minimizes the physical impact on the surface environment, and, because fracking is done thousands of feet below the water table, without risk to drinking water. Not one confirmed example of groundwater contamination linked to fracking has been found, according to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson. So why is Obama's Department of Energy moving forward with new regulations to "ensure the protection of public health and the environment?" Because Obama and the liberals are yelling "Stop!"
http://washingtonexaminer.com:80/opinion/2011/08/liberals-standing-athwart-history-yelling-stop
Freudenthal disagreed, saying "Western Energy has demonstrated through its members recognizable injury. Those injuries are supported by the administrative record." As a result, regulations issued in 2005 under President George W. Bush that were supplanted by the Obama rules are back in force. The Bush regulations were designed to speed up federal reviews of applications to explore and develop hundreds of millions of acres of federally owned lands in Western states believed to hold vast untapped quantities of oil and natural gas. Developing such resources could reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil and reduce costs for American consumers.
But global-warming-obsessed liberals don't want Americans to have access to cheaper oil and natural gas, and they are determined to use federal laws and regulations wherever possible to force us to use "clean" energy sources such as wind, solar and biomass. Unfortunately, it will take as long as three decades, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, for the alternative energy forms to be able to replace oil and natural gas. And the liberals' plans for getting there from here -- epitomized by the regulations skewered Friday in federal court -- will, according to Obama, "necessarily cause energy prices to skyrocket."
Meanwhile, the U.S. energy industry continues its remarkable record of finding and producing domestic oil and natural gas resources in more efficient and environmentally safe ways. Natural gas, which was growing more expensive due to declining supplies only a few years ago, has experienced an extraordinary revival in this country, thanks to hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") to get at supplies trapped in shale thousands of feet below the surface. Water and tiny amounts of chemicals are injected into shale formations, allowing the oil and natural gas to be extracted.
Horizontal drilling of multiple wells from one site minimizes the physical impact on the surface environment, and, because fracking is done thousands of feet below the water table, without risk to drinking water. Not one confirmed example of groundwater contamination linked to fracking has been found, according to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson. So why is Obama's Department of Energy moving forward with new regulations to "ensure the protection of public health and the environment?" Because Obama and the liberals are yelling "Stop!"
http://washingtonexaminer.com:80/opinion/2011/08/liberals-standing-athwart-history-yelling-stop
Thursday, August 11, 2011
As the World Melts
What you don't know could cost you thousands of dollars a year.
An increasing number of scientists and policy professionals have declared public policies to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are based on uncertain science.
Yet, national and global policies are being promoted to reduce emissions and the result could be trillions in misspent funds.
The most likely outcomes of the debate can be found in this article...
To read the entire article, click HERE
An increasing number of scientists and policy professionals have declared public policies to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are based on uncertain science.
Yet, national and global policies are being promoted to reduce emissions and the result could be trillions in misspent funds.
The most likely outcomes of the debate can be found in this article...
To read the entire article, click HERE
EPA’s Bay Czar: ‘We Will Win This One’
BALTIMORE (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency’s Chesapeake Bay restoration strategy can stand up to court challenges by farm and development groups, the agency’s senior bay adviser said Tuesday.
“If you want to challenge the bay restoration effort, that’s fine. Because we’ve got the science, we’ve got the modeling, we’ve got the legal backing. We will win this one,” EPA adviser Jeff Corbin said. “The tricky part is going to be where is the money going to come from.”
Corbin appeared at a panel discussion Tuesday at a national ecosystem restoration conference in Baltimore.
The federal agency developed the strategy in response to a presidential order after decades of state-led efforts failed to restore the waterway. In addition to the court challenges, Virginia’s governor has questioned the cost of the effort. Virginia has estimated it could have to pay as much as $8 billion through 2025.
The strategy calls for sharp cuts in pollutants such as nitrogen and phosphorous — which come from sources such as power plants, sewage and fertilizer running off lawns and farms — as well as sediment running off roads, farms, construction sites and developments. The pollutants spur oxygen-robbing algae blooms once they reach the bay.
While predicting eventual victory in the courts, Corbin said the new strategy has brought the issue to a crossroads, and more money will be needed to ensure success.
“If we’re not going to get it done, the difference is now we’re going to have to admit we’re not going to get it done,” Corbin said, adding later: “I don’t think anybody is willing to do that.”
The EPA adviser appeared at the panel discussion along with Robert Summers, secretary of the Maryland Department of the Environment; Will Baker, president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation; and Ann Pesiri Swanson, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, which advises state legislators in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania on bay issues.
Summers agreed more money was needed, saying a doubling of the state’s “flush fee” — which pays for septic tank upgrades that keep algae bloom-spurring nitrogen from the bay — is needed. But he couldn’t say if the fee increase would be sought.
Baker, whose foundation sued the EPA and forced a court settlement over the slow pace of restoration efforts, said opponents wrongfully argue the effort will wreak economic havoc.
Referring to the “pollution diet” proposed by the EPA, Baker said the states in the bay watershed have been “gluttonous,” but the opposite is not starvation.
“It’s just eating wisely,” he said.
http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2011/08/02/epas-bay-czar-we-will-win-this-one/
“If you want to challenge the bay restoration effort, that’s fine. Because we’ve got the science, we’ve got the modeling, we’ve got the legal backing. We will win this one,” EPA adviser Jeff Corbin said. “The tricky part is going to be where is the money going to come from.”
Corbin appeared at a panel discussion Tuesday at a national ecosystem restoration conference in Baltimore.
The federal agency developed the strategy in response to a presidential order after decades of state-led efforts failed to restore the waterway. In addition to the court challenges, Virginia’s governor has questioned the cost of the effort. Virginia has estimated it could have to pay as much as $8 billion through 2025.
The strategy calls for sharp cuts in pollutants such as nitrogen and phosphorous — which come from sources such as power plants, sewage and fertilizer running off lawns and farms — as well as sediment running off roads, farms, construction sites and developments. The pollutants spur oxygen-robbing algae blooms once they reach the bay.
While predicting eventual victory in the courts, Corbin said the new strategy has brought the issue to a crossroads, and more money will be needed to ensure success.
“If we’re not going to get it done, the difference is now we’re going to have to admit we’re not going to get it done,” Corbin said, adding later: “I don’t think anybody is willing to do that.”
The EPA adviser appeared at the panel discussion along with Robert Summers, secretary of the Maryland Department of the Environment; Will Baker, president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation; and Ann Pesiri Swanson, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, which advises state legislators in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania on bay issues.
Summers agreed more money was needed, saying a doubling of the state’s “flush fee” — which pays for septic tank upgrades that keep algae bloom-spurring nitrogen from the bay — is needed. But he couldn’t say if the fee increase would be sought.
Baker, whose foundation sued the EPA and forced a court settlement over the slow pace of restoration efforts, said opponents wrongfully argue the effort will wreak economic havoc.
Referring to the “pollution diet” proposed by the EPA, Baker said the states in the bay watershed have been “gluttonous,” but the opposite is not starvation.
“It’s just eating wisely,” he said.
http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2011/08/02/epas-bay-czar-we-will-win-this-one/
O'Malley septic plan is crucial for the Chesapeake Bay
This author reveals the real agenda if you read between the lines. The controllers don't want us to have the option of living on larger lots in the country.
Imagine if one of our major automakers proposed a model line of gas-wasting, air-fouling vehicles that used 60-year-old technology. Unthinkable, of course. Yet it's little different than what homebuilders and developers propose when they plan most new rural subdivisions.
Their outdated model lineup combines sprawl development — a hugely wasteful use of land — with septic tanks, the highest-polluting form of waste treatment, largely unimproved for more than half a century.
Proposals to change this — most lately, Gov. Martin O'Malley's attempt to ban most development on septic tanks — are met with predictable cries from builders and land speculators. Housing will become unaffordable, the economy will crash, development will scream to a halt, they say. Their cries remind us of the auto industry's doomsaying as it fought seat belts, airbags, higher mileage standards and pollution controls.
We're unused to thinking of development as a technology, but it is. Sprawl, the building on large lots outside areas planned for more compact growth, is bound to septic tanks. You don't have one without the other. Septic tanks won't work on small lots because they need space to filter sewage. Public sewer doesn't serve spread-out development because it's too expensive to run lines.
A septic tank — a concrete tank buried somewhere in the yard, into which your toilets flush — is probably what you have if you aren't hooked up to public sewage. Created to replace outhouses and cesspools, septic tanks remove bacteria from wastewater by settling out solids and percolating the water through underground drainage fields.
Unlike a modern sewage treatment plant, septic tanks were never designed to remove nitrogen, the Chesapeake Bay's biggest pollutant. Indeed, they facilitate the water-soluble nutrient's passage into groundwater and thence into streams, rivers and the Chesapeake.
How much nitrogen a septic tank emits compared with a sewage treatment plant depends on its location; but it can be from four to 10 times as much, according to water quality regulators. A newer, more expensive type of septic tank can cut nitrogen in half but still cannot match what a treatment plant can remove. Only Maryland requires these new tanks, and then only within 1,000 feet of tidal waters.
Septic tanks are the source of about 6 percent of the nitrogen that pollutes the estuary. This may not sound like a lot until you look at the huge pollution reductions every state in the bay watershed must make.
But Governor O'Malley's plan goes beyond controlling nitrogen.
The governor recognized that nearly a third of the quarter-million or so new households projected for Maryland by 2020 is likely to be on septic tanks. His proposal — no development of five or more homes that isn't hooked to a sewage treatment plant — would push this growth toward planned areas. It would do more to rein in sprawl than decades of talking about "Smart Growth."
The adverse impacts of sprawl go far beyond water quality. They include loss of farms, forests and wetlands; more air pollution from longer commutes; and higher taxes from added costs of school buses, utilities, fire, police and roads.
None of this has overcome development interests, which are sometimes augmented by farmers wishing to maximize their options to cash out. Perhaps Mr. O'Malley's drawing a clear link between bad land use and bad waste management can succeed where reciting sprawl's litany of problems has failed. Farmers and other landowners, who want to carve out a handful of lots for their children or for income, would still be allowed a few under the governor's proposal.
There would be adjustments and short-term pain for developers, whose industry makes up about a fifth of Maryland's economy; but think of the adjustments sprawl development and water pollution force on the fifth of Maryland's economy that comes from farming and fishing.
Pennsylvania and Virginia have more rural poor than Maryland, whose poor are largely urban, so septic restrictions might be somewhat different there.
What the three major bay states share is a substantial shortfall in the plans they have submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reduce pollution from septic tanks.
One irony that should not derail the Maryland proposal, but must be dealt with, is that septic tanks do not let the polluting phosphorus in human waste enter the bay, because it binds to soil in the ground. To the extent that development switches to sewer from septic, sewage treatment plants will have to remove more phosphorus, or reducing one bay pollutant could increase another.
Maryland's legislature will study the governor's proposal this summer. We hope it doesn't get watered down, because it provides a rare opportunity to improve two of the bay's most glaring problems at once: excessive nitrogen and sprawl development.
Tom Horton covered the Chesapeake Bay for 33 years for The Baltimore Sun and is the author of six books about the Chesapeake. He is currently a freelance writer. This article is distributed by Bay Journal News Service.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-septic-20110808,0,7241182.story
Imagine if one of our major automakers proposed a model line of gas-wasting, air-fouling vehicles that used 60-year-old technology. Unthinkable, of course. Yet it's little different than what homebuilders and developers propose when they plan most new rural subdivisions.
Their outdated model lineup combines sprawl development — a hugely wasteful use of land — with septic tanks, the highest-polluting form of waste treatment, largely unimproved for more than half a century.
Proposals to change this — most lately, Gov. Martin O'Malley's attempt to ban most development on septic tanks — are met with predictable cries from builders and land speculators. Housing will become unaffordable, the economy will crash, development will scream to a halt, they say. Their cries remind us of the auto industry's doomsaying as it fought seat belts, airbags, higher mileage standards and pollution controls.
We're unused to thinking of development as a technology, but it is. Sprawl, the building on large lots outside areas planned for more compact growth, is bound to septic tanks. You don't have one without the other. Septic tanks won't work on small lots because they need space to filter sewage. Public sewer doesn't serve spread-out development because it's too expensive to run lines.
A septic tank — a concrete tank buried somewhere in the yard, into which your toilets flush — is probably what you have if you aren't hooked up to public sewage. Created to replace outhouses and cesspools, septic tanks remove bacteria from wastewater by settling out solids and percolating the water through underground drainage fields.
Unlike a modern sewage treatment plant, septic tanks were never designed to remove nitrogen, the Chesapeake Bay's biggest pollutant. Indeed, they facilitate the water-soluble nutrient's passage into groundwater and thence into streams, rivers and the Chesapeake.
How much nitrogen a septic tank emits compared with a sewage treatment plant depends on its location; but it can be from four to 10 times as much, according to water quality regulators. A newer, more expensive type of septic tank can cut nitrogen in half but still cannot match what a treatment plant can remove. Only Maryland requires these new tanks, and then only within 1,000 feet of tidal waters.
Septic tanks are the source of about 6 percent of the nitrogen that pollutes the estuary. This may not sound like a lot until you look at the huge pollution reductions every state in the bay watershed must make.
But Governor O'Malley's plan goes beyond controlling nitrogen.
The governor recognized that nearly a third of the quarter-million or so new households projected for Maryland by 2020 is likely to be on septic tanks. His proposal — no development of five or more homes that isn't hooked to a sewage treatment plant — would push this growth toward planned areas. It would do more to rein in sprawl than decades of talking about "Smart Growth."
The adverse impacts of sprawl go far beyond water quality. They include loss of farms, forests and wetlands; more air pollution from longer commutes; and higher taxes from added costs of school buses, utilities, fire, police and roads.
None of this has overcome development interests, which are sometimes augmented by farmers wishing to maximize their options to cash out. Perhaps Mr. O'Malley's drawing a clear link between bad land use and bad waste management can succeed where reciting sprawl's litany of problems has failed. Farmers and other landowners, who want to carve out a handful of lots for their children or for income, would still be allowed a few under the governor's proposal.
There would be adjustments and short-term pain for developers, whose industry makes up about a fifth of Maryland's economy; but think of the adjustments sprawl development and water pollution force on the fifth of Maryland's economy that comes from farming and fishing.
Pennsylvania and Virginia have more rural poor than Maryland, whose poor are largely urban, so septic restrictions might be somewhat different there.
What the three major bay states share is a substantial shortfall in the plans they have submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reduce pollution from septic tanks.
One irony that should not derail the Maryland proposal, but must be dealt with, is that septic tanks do not let the polluting phosphorus in human waste enter the bay, because it binds to soil in the ground. To the extent that development switches to sewer from septic, sewage treatment plants will have to remove more phosphorus, or reducing one bay pollutant could increase another.
Maryland's legislature will study the governor's proposal this summer. We hope it doesn't get watered down, because it provides a rare opportunity to improve two of the bay's most glaring problems at once: excessive nitrogen and sprawl development.
Tom Horton covered the Chesapeake Bay for 33 years for The Baltimore Sun and is the author of six books about the Chesapeake. He is currently a freelance writer. This article is distributed by Bay Journal News Service.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-septic-20110808,0,7241182.story
No Chance of Default, US Can Print Money: Greenspan
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan on Sunday ruled out the chance of a US default following S&P's decision to downgrade America's credit rating.
"The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default" said Greenspan on NBC's Meet the Press
"What I think the S&P thing did was to hit a nerve that there's something basically bad going on, and it's hit the self-esteem of the United States, the psyche" said Greenspan
Austan Goolsbee, the chairman of the White House's council of economic advisors, hit out at S&P on the same show, insisting the credit ratings agency had got its math wrong.
"Well, the basic case is they made a $2 trillion math error and forgot to check their work," he said. "So rating agencies that didn't make a $2 trillion math error reaffirmed the AAA status. You saw Warren Buffet say that, if they had a AAAA, he would put U.S. Treasurys in AAAA status."
Following the decision to downgrade America's credit rating, the head of sovereign ratings at S&P, David Beers, said the Obama administrations analysis of the move was a complete "misrepresentation."
Beers will join CNBC's special program on the debt crisis at 8 pm Sunday.
Greenspan said the current sense of crisis that has unnerved investors is about the euro zone, not the US.
'The United States was actually doing relatively well, sluggish but going forward until Italy ran into trouble," he said. "That destabilized the European system, and the crisis re-emerged. Europe is very critical to the United States in the sense not only do we have a fourth of our exports there, but more importantly, significant proportion of the foreign affiliate profits, in fact half of U.S. corporations, are in Europe."
"When Italy showed signs of significant weakness in selling its bonds—the yield is now over 6 percent, which is an unsustainable level—it created a massive problem within Europe because Italy is a very large country, cannot be easily bailed out and, indeed, cannot be bailed out," Greenspan added.
http://m.cnbc.com/us_news/44051683/2
"The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default" said Greenspan on NBC's Meet the Press
"What I think the S&P thing did was to hit a nerve that there's something basically bad going on, and it's hit the self-esteem of the United States, the psyche" said Greenspan
Austan Goolsbee, the chairman of the White House's council of economic advisors, hit out at S&P on the same show, insisting the credit ratings agency had got its math wrong.
"Well, the basic case is they made a $2 trillion math error and forgot to check their work," he said. "So rating agencies that didn't make a $2 trillion math error reaffirmed the AAA status. You saw Warren Buffet say that, if they had a AAAA, he would put U.S. Treasurys in AAAA status."
Following the decision to downgrade America's credit rating, the head of sovereign ratings at S&P, David Beers, said the Obama administrations analysis of the move was a complete "misrepresentation."
Beers will join CNBC's special program on the debt crisis at 8 pm Sunday.
Greenspan said the current sense of crisis that has unnerved investors is about the euro zone, not the US.
'The United States was actually doing relatively well, sluggish but going forward until Italy ran into trouble," he said. "That destabilized the European system, and the crisis re-emerged. Europe is very critical to the United States in the sense not only do we have a fourth of our exports there, but more importantly, significant proportion of the foreign affiliate profits, in fact half of U.S. corporations, are in Europe."
"When Italy showed signs of significant weakness in selling its bonds—the yield is now over 6 percent, which is an unsustainable level—it created a massive problem within Europe because Italy is a very large country, cannot be easily bailed out and, indeed, cannot be bailed out," Greenspan added.
http://m.cnbc.com/us_news/44051683/2
Monday, August 1, 2011
Energy-saving plan angers BGE customers as AC goes out
Baltimore Gas and Electric stood by its PeakRewards program Saturday, even as participating customers' tempers continued to flare after thousands of air conditioning units were turned off for hours as part of the energy-saving program during the intense heat of the day before.
The extreme heat triggered the first "emergency event" in the four-year history of the program, and the effects were different from what customers had come to expect — many wondered why they couldn't override the shutdown. Without air conditioning for up to 10 hours, many customers' homes reached 90 degrees and higher. In the past, air conditioning has only been turned off for a few hours at a time.
Customers had trouble getting through to BGE's customer service line and were confused when online records said that the air conditioning had been turned back on, even though it had not.
About 1,700 of the 350,000 people enrolled in the program have dropped out or reduced their enrollment level, said BGE executive Mark D. Case, who is in charge of PeakRewards. The situation on Friday was unique, he said, because PJM Interconnection, the regional electricity grid operator, called for the long period of "cycling" — turning off select appliances for periods of time.
The communication problems were caused by overburdened call centers and an overloaded cellular network, Case said. The company's radio signals used to remotely control cooling units were jammed from the high volume of requests earlier in the day to turn units back on, he said, and the company is working to improve call center availability and radio signal transmission.
Power needs to be restored gradually, said BGE spokesman Rob Gould, which also caused some customers to experience a delay in having their cooling reactivated.
Case said the company may begin allowing emergency overrides for all users. When PJM declares an emergency, only people with health-related concerns can request an override. In non-emergency situations, any enrollee can request that their cooling units be turned back on if it gets too hot in their home.
BGE is also trying to avoid using the system for the next week, despite the heat, he said.
Customers complained en masse Friday — on social networking sites, over the phone and by email — about the company's energy-saving program. Many people thought that the program was misrepresented in promotional materials.
"I felt they really took advantage of customers who signed up for this plan. Nobody ever had any idea — me for one — that they could really shut down our cooling for an entire day," said Lisa Larcher, a 47-year-old mother who lives in Gambrills with her husband, two daughters and two cats. "It could have been dangerous."
Some customers, searching for any information about the extended outage, checked their PeakRewards accounts online Friday night and found records indicating that their cooling systems had already been returned to service, even as they saw from the thermostat on the wall that air was not circulating.
Jeff Andrade of Odenton said his cycling on Friday was "double the outage of any previous cycle." Although the end time he saw online was 6:46 p.m., his air conditioning did not start up until 8 p.m.
BGE spokeswoman Linda J. Foy said the company is investigating records discrepancies, but she denied that there were problems with PeakRewards.
The program is meant to save energy and money by allowing BGE to turn off certain heating and air conditioning units for brief periods when demand is the highest. Most participants are in Baltimore County — roughly a third — followed by Anne Arundel, according to the company's website.
In return, customers get cash credits on their bills: $50, $75 or $100 each year depending upon the percentage of time they agree to give up control. The amounts are doubled during the first year of participation. The grid operator, PJM, pays BGE for reducing electricity use during peak times,Case said, and 100 percent of that money is passed onto customers through credits.
Larcher's air conditioning was off for nearly six hours Friday, and the temperature in her upstairs level had topped 90 degrees, when she said she'd had enough, calling BGE to drop out of the program that evening.
"It was scary," she said, "not being able to control your environment." By Saturday, she vowed to never go back.
Westminster resident Christopher Miccio, whose air was off for nearly nine hours Friday, said that a customer service phone operator at BGE represented to him prior to enrolling in the program that normally cooling is only turned off for several hours, about 4, in the midafternoon. After Friday, however, he went to look at the company's written materials online and found a "very different," less specific, characterization of the PeakRewards program.
Case said that it is possible that phone customer service representatives may had said that the cycling is normally only a few hours, but that the written materials are not as limiting.
BGE officials Case and Foy said that all of their promotional materials written so as not to be too precise in its presentation of how the program operates because the company cannot predict how weather is going to affect electricity demands. Instead, the PeakRewards materials rely on "generalizations," Foy said, describing "typical" cycling events.
"We have represented the program fairly," Case said. "For example, we describe in detail 'What does cycling mean? What does 50 percent mean? What does 100 percent mean?' We explain the difference between and emergency event and a non-emergency event."
The Maryland Public Service Commission received a handful of complaints about the length of BGE's air conditioner cycling on Friday, said spokeswoman Regina L. Davis, but regulatory panel did not believe the utility had done anything wrong. The commission will address the complaints it received, she said, and will continue to monitor how the program is working.
"It's a voluntary program," she said. "Everything is spelled out in the agreement."
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-07-23/news/bs-md-bge-peak-rewards-20110723_1_bge-customers-energy-saving-program-energy-saving-plan
The extreme heat triggered the first "emergency event" in the four-year history of the program, and the effects were different from what customers had come to expect — many wondered why they couldn't override the shutdown. Without air conditioning for up to 10 hours, many customers' homes reached 90 degrees and higher. In the past, air conditioning has only been turned off for a few hours at a time.
Customers had trouble getting through to BGE's customer service line and were confused when online records said that the air conditioning had been turned back on, even though it had not.
About 1,700 of the 350,000 people enrolled in the program have dropped out or reduced their enrollment level, said BGE executive Mark D. Case, who is in charge of PeakRewards. The situation on Friday was unique, he said, because PJM Interconnection, the regional electricity grid operator, called for the long period of "cycling" — turning off select appliances for periods of time.
The communication problems were caused by overburdened call centers and an overloaded cellular network, Case said. The company's radio signals used to remotely control cooling units were jammed from the high volume of requests earlier in the day to turn units back on, he said, and the company is working to improve call center availability and radio signal transmission.
Power needs to be restored gradually, said BGE spokesman Rob Gould, which also caused some customers to experience a delay in having their cooling reactivated.
Case said the company may begin allowing emergency overrides for all users. When PJM declares an emergency, only people with health-related concerns can request an override. In non-emergency situations, any enrollee can request that their cooling units be turned back on if it gets too hot in their home.
BGE is also trying to avoid using the system for the next week, despite the heat, he said.
Customers complained en masse Friday — on social networking sites, over the phone and by email — about the company's energy-saving program. Many people thought that the program was misrepresented in promotional materials.
"I felt they really took advantage of customers who signed up for this plan. Nobody ever had any idea — me for one — that they could really shut down our cooling for an entire day," said Lisa Larcher, a 47-year-old mother who lives in Gambrills with her husband, two daughters and two cats. "It could have been dangerous."
Some customers, searching for any information about the extended outage, checked their PeakRewards accounts online Friday night and found records indicating that their cooling systems had already been returned to service, even as they saw from the thermostat on the wall that air was not circulating.
Jeff Andrade of Odenton said his cycling on Friday was "double the outage of any previous cycle." Although the end time he saw online was 6:46 p.m., his air conditioning did not start up until 8 p.m.
BGE spokeswoman Linda J. Foy said the company is investigating records discrepancies, but she denied that there were problems with PeakRewards.
The program is meant to save energy and money by allowing BGE to turn off certain heating and air conditioning units for brief periods when demand is the highest. Most participants are in Baltimore County — roughly a third — followed by Anne Arundel, according to the company's website.
In return, customers get cash credits on their bills: $50, $75 or $100 each year depending upon the percentage of time they agree to give up control. The amounts are doubled during the first year of participation. The grid operator, PJM, pays BGE for reducing electricity use during peak times,Case said, and 100 percent of that money is passed onto customers through credits.
Larcher's air conditioning was off for nearly six hours Friday, and the temperature in her upstairs level had topped 90 degrees, when she said she'd had enough, calling BGE to drop out of the program that evening.
"It was scary," she said, "not being able to control your environment." By Saturday, she vowed to never go back.
Westminster resident Christopher Miccio, whose air was off for nearly nine hours Friday, said that a customer service phone operator at BGE represented to him prior to enrolling in the program that normally cooling is only turned off for several hours, about 4, in the midafternoon. After Friday, however, he went to look at the company's written materials online and found a "very different," less specific, characterization of the PeakRewards program.
Case said that it is possible that phone customer service representatives may had said that the cycling is normally only a few hours, but that the written materials are not as limiting.
BGE officials Case and Foy said that all of their promotional materials written so as not to be too precise in its presentation of how the program operates because the company cannot predict how weather is going to affect electricity demands. Instead, the PeakRewards materials rely on "generalizations," Foy said, describing "typical" cycling events.
"We have represented the program fairly," Case said. "For example, we describe in detail 'What does cycling mean? What does 50 percent mean? What does 100 percent mean?' We explain the difference between and emergency event and a non-emergency event."
The Maryland Public Service Commission received a handful of complaints about the length of BGE's air conditioner cycling on Friday, said spokeswoman Regina L. Davis, but regulatory panel did not believe the utility had done anything wrong. The commission will address the complaints it received, she said, and will continue to monitor how the program is working.
"It's a voluntary program," she said. "Everything is spelled out in the agreement."
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-07-23/news/bs-md-bge-peak-rewards-20110723_1_bge-customers-energy-saving-program-energy-saving-plan
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