Are electricity rates in Maryland too low to promote conservation among consumers?  That's what a local economist suggests.  In an interview published in Maryland Commons, an online journal of news and commentary, Professor Tim Brennan at University of Maryland, Baltimore County argues that letting electricity rates rise is the best way to get consumers to conserve.

Brennan also says he favors putting a price on climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions, either through some kind of tax or cap-and-trade scheme.

"One of those may be better than the other for environmental or political reasons, but either goes a long way toward preventing all of us from regarding the atmosphere as a free dump for the exhaust from our burning," he said.

Brennan also questions the recent efforts by legislators and Gov. Martin O'Malley to re-regulate power generation, suggesting that the current political pressures to hold down prices while also trying to reduce consumption may be discouraging power plant construction.

What do you think?  How many are cutting back because it's the right thing to do, and how many to save money?  Have you done anything to conserve energy in your life?  Increase insulation in your home, turn down the thermostat or drive less?  Were you conserving more when prices were higher recently?

To read more of Carrie Madren's Q&A with Brennan, go here.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:11 AM in Energy | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

Incentives to live greener and more sustainably seem to be popping up like spring flowers all around.  In his column today in The Baltimore Sun, my colleague Jay Hancock, runs through an impressive list of grants, tax credits and other ways to shrink your carbon footprint by acquiring energy efficient appliances or installing solar, wind or geothermal facilities at your house.

And if you don't have the upfront cash right now for those options, you can save some dough and still do your part by purchasing wind-generated power from outfits like Clean Currents or Washington Gas Energy Services.  As Jay points out, both are cheaper than BGE right now --  enough to save $10 or more on your monthly power bill through the summer.

Finally, here's one Jay didn't mention: "green" homeowners' insurance.  Firemen's Fund insurance is offering coverage that will pay to rebuild or repair a home using more energy-efficient, environmentally friendly materials and designs if it is damaged or destroyed.  And for homeowners whose abodes are already green, the company's offering a five percent discount on premiums.

Keep 'em coming!  It's "Earth month," after all.  Anyone know of other green deals out there?

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                       

In what could be a major shift in federal policy, the Environmental Protection Agency declared today it would be taking a much closer look at the harm done to streams by mountaintop mining for coal.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced that her agency had sent letters voicing "considerable concern" about the environmental impacts of two mining projects in West Virginia and Kentucky.  And she declared that EPA would be reviewing other mining permits as well. 

(The photo above is of a different mine in West Virginia that I visited last fall, and blogged about. It's included here to illustrate the magnitude of such mines) 

"EPA will use the best science and follow the letter of the law in ensuring we are protecting the environment," she said in the press release. 

Environmentalists and many scientists have argued that mountaintop mining buries stream valleys and harms fish miles downstream.   Coal companies have contended that it's the only economical way to extract the coal, and that flattening mountaintops in rugged Appalachia provides opportunities for development.  Until this action, the industry has enjoyed fairly consistent support from federal regulators. 

In the letters, EPA officials urged the Army Corps of Engineers not to issue permits for the mines until further steps could be considered to minimize damage to streams from surface coal extraction.  And in the letter regarding the West Virginia project, the EPA said it was concerned enough about its impact that it would consider exercising its legal authority to block the permit unless further steps are taken to protect the environment.  To read the letters and get background on EPA's concerns about such mining, go here.

The action comes, as the Associated Press reports, a month after a federal appeals court said the Army Corps could issue permits for mountaintop mines without requiring more extensive environmental reviews.  It was the latest legal setback for critics; EPA's stepping in may affect that.

Mountaintop removal isn't used in mining coal from Maryland, but advocates point out that at least some of the electricity used in this region comes from burning coal extracted that way.  You can read more about this in Coal Tattoo a blog by Ken Ward, who covers the environment for the Charleston, W.Va., Gazette.

Continue reading "EPA takes aim at mountaintop mining" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 4:18 PM in Energy | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

The growing prospect that there may be federal action on climate change apparently has spawned a wave of lobbyists in Washington.  The Center for Public Integrity reports that in the past year, as climate legislation finally came to a vote on Capitol Hill, more than 770 companies and interest groups hired an estimated 2,340 lobbyists to influence federal policy.

That's a lot of buttonholing - as the center noted, that comes to more than four lobbyists for every member of Congress.  Environmental advocacy groups have ramped up their Washington presence, but so have all the industries that see themselve being affected.  The center's put together an analysis of the lobbying corps, profiled some of the more prominent ones and provides a listing. Check it out here.

Advocates of curbing greenhouse gases have argued that the push will generate "green" jobs and actually boost rather than kill the economy, as skeptics contend.  Looks like the job growth is already happening, though maybe not the kind of jobs environmentalists had in mind, and certainly not the kind of green they were thinking of.

(Photo by Brendan Hoffman, Getty Images)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                       

The debate over wind farms on western Maryland's mountain ridges continues Thursday.

The state Public Service Commission is taking public comments that day in Frostburg on an application by U.S. Wind Force to erect up to 29 turbines on Dans Mountain in Allegany County. Collectively, they would generate nearly 70 megawatts of power.

The hearing, which begins at 4 p.m., will be at Frostburg State University, in 218 Dunkle Hall, 101 Braddock Road.

(The photo above, by the way, is of turbines on a ridge in West Virginia.)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 5:46 AM in Energy | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

The debate about offshore oil exploration has landed nearly in Maryland's backyard.  The Department of Interior today took the first step towards allowing drilling in the Atlantic Ocean off the Virginia coast - just a little more than 50 miles from Maryland's shore. 

The agency announced it would seek expressions of interest in the 4,500-acre tract, with an eye to leasing it in 2011 if it passes an environmental impact review.  Federal geologists estimate the area may contain as much as 130 million barrels of oil and 1.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.  For more on the proposal, go here.

The offshore opening was created a few months ago in the midst of the nation's energy price fever, when President Bush and Congress collaborated to lift a longstanding ban on new drilling off the nation's coasts.

But the announcement drew immediate criticism from environmentalists, who questioned the location and the timing.

"This would be 50 miles off the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay,'' pointed out Michael Gravitz of Environment America.  A catastrophic oil spill might wash into the bay, fouling wetlands and wildlife in the already struggling estuary.  He also warned that ocean currents could carry any contaminants northward to Ocean City and the Delaware beaches.  At risk, he said, would be the bay's beleagured crabs, Assateague Island's picturesque wild ponies and the mid-Atlantic's popular vacation resorts. 

The risk makes little sense, Gravitz added, when you consider that all the oil and gas the federal government estimates might be found there over the 30-year life of the lease would only be enough to supply the nation's needs for a week or two at most.

He and others also pointed out that this move to boost offshore drilling by the Bush administration could easily be reversed by the incoming Democratic team.  When gas prices were at their peak in late summer, Obama backed limited offshore drilling, but not as much as the McCain-Palin ticket advocated.

"It does seem they're in a bit of a rush to move this forward,'' said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond. 

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 5:07 PM in Energy | Permalink | Comments (3)
                       

How often do you wonder, when you turn on the lights, where your electricity comes from?  Recently, I got a closeup look at the consequences of our addiction to coal for much of our power in this part of the country.  I joined a group of reporters on a trip to my home state of West Virginia to learn about the bitter feud there over mountaintop mining, and came away with much to ponder.

The field trip, organized as part of the Society of Environmental Journalists annual conference, took us first to Kayford Mountain, about 35 miles and a world away from where I grew up, in South Charleston, W.Va.  My father was born in Kayford, a small mining community on Cabin Creek at the foot of the mountain, where we were told as many as 4,000 people once lived  

All that remains now, though, is an abandoned brick building and a lonely white church by the road.  The community was bought out by a mining company, which has proceeded to take the top off the mountain to extract its thin seams of coal. 

In such mountaintop removals, after the coal is removed the excess rock and dirt is pushed down the slope, filling hollows or small valleys cut by seasonal streams. 

Some residents of the area, aided by environmental groups, have protested the massive terraforming taking place, and its impact on the environment and their health.  To date, the federal and state government have largely sided with the industry that the impact is negligible or acceptable - though court cases are pending.  In one case, a judge found that more than 700 miles of streams in West Virginia had been buried under the debris produced by mountaintop removal.

Our bus wound its way up the mountain to a ridgetop, where we were met by Larry Gibson and Julia "Judi" Bonds, two activists opposed to mountaintop mining.  Gibson refused to sell the last chunk of his ancestral family home to the company, so now has a panoramic view of the mining going on around him - a vast barren landscape denuded of trees, with giant earthmovers as small as ants in the distance.  The picture above, taken by me, captures just a small portion of the disturbance.  Bonds is with Coal River Mountain Watch, a group opposed to mountaintop mining.

"We went to war to find weapons of mass destruction," said Gibson, pictured at left.  "All we had to do was come here."   Millions of pounds of explosives have been used to blast the tops off hundreds of mountains in the state, he contends.

Gibson has a message for those listening to the presidential candidates debate energy, particularly for those touting "clean coal" as a less-polluting option.

"There is no such thing as clean coal," he insists.  I know; I've been living in it all my life."

Gibson, Bonds and other protestors complain that the blasting and excavation have turned their well-water black with coal particles and have caused other, less-visible contamination.  Along with the pollution has come a massive change in the natural world that they grew up with, one of foraging the surrounding forested mountain slopes for ginseng and hunting and fishing for food.

"They're destroying a mountain and a culture," said Bonds,

The mining industry, naturally, says there's another side to the story.  Our group left Kayford Mountain to visit nearby Four-Mile Mine, where the mining company's executives and the head of the state mining association told us they were restoring that mountain to its original contour after extracting the coal, and planting hundreds of thousands of trees to replace the ones uprooted.

"We are practicing environmentalists,'' said Andrew Jordon, president of Pritchard Mining.  "We're using the resource and then putting it (the mountain) back."

Continue reading "A journey home to the heart of our coal quandary" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 5:00 AM in Energy | Permalink | Comments (3)
                       

A Pennsylvania-based coal company has proposed tunneling beneath the Casselman River, a popular trout stream in western Maryland.  According to this report on forbes.com by David Dishneau of the Associated Press, the mine owner and state regulators say there's no reason to think it can't be done without harming the stream or its fish.

The head of the Maryland Bureau of Mines told the AP that it could take up to a year to review the mining plan filed by Maryland Energy Resources LLC, a subsidiary of Joseph Peles Coal Co. of Indiana, Pa.

The AP story quoted a Sierra Club representative, Sam White, who was skeptical that the mine would have no impact. But John Carey, the chief state mining regulator, recalled that Mettiki Coal Corp. had been allowed to tunnel beneath the North Branch of the Potomac River several years ago in Garrett County.  Carey said there had not been any problems in that case.

The mine would be some 400 feet beneath the Casselman's South Branch, near Grantsville.  The company foresees extracting an estimated 360,000 tons of coal annually for 20 years from the seam.   It would be the state's largest deep mine, the AP says, though tiny by comparison to large coal operations in neighboring states. 

The state is expeded to post a public notice about the mining application on Oct. 7.  The state plans a public meeting on the project.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:40 PM in Energy | Permalink | Comments (0)