Thursday, December 29, 2011
In the Chicago Tribune’s lead editorial on Dec. 28th, ELPC Executive Director Howard Learner discusses why the EPA’s recently announced federal Mercury and Air Toxics Standard is good for public health, the environment and the economy. Illinois enacted strong state standards in 2006 and has proven that it’s possible to control pollution from coal plants. The new federal rules will level the playing field among coal plants in all states. Read the editorial.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
ELPC appeared in today’s Chicago Tribune lead editorial, which asks Illinois Governor Pat Quinn to veto a bill that would allow “solid fuel pellets” — basically, ground-up garbage — to be burned at coal-fired power plants and other facilities. Current Illinois law prohibits the burning of most municipal solid waste, but the proposed law would re-define these pellets as fuel instead of waste.
As ELPC told the Tribune, approving this bill would be taking a gamble on the health of the people of Illinois. It could also thwart the stringent standards on waste incinerators and put Illinois on a path toward burning other municipal waste. We think this issue deserves more study before Illinois legalizes this potentially harmful incineration.
Read the editorial.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
On June 20th, the U.S. Supreme Court decided against the rights of six states, New York City and three private land trusts to sue under federal common law to prevent global warming. The Justices stated that the Clean Air Act ’speaks directly’ to emissions of carbon dioxide from coal plants.
Some are trying to spin this decision as a defeat for environmentalists, but the reality is that the Court’s opinion reaffirms the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority use the Clean Air Act to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. The decision should speed up EPA’s implementation of greenhouse gas standards by making legal challenges to the effort more difficult.
Read more about this recent decision in American Electric Power, et al. v. Connecticut et al. in ELPC Executive Director Howard Learner’s recent Huffington Post blog entry.
Also read about the case in Forbes Online or Grist.org.
Monday, June 27, 2011
In this Rockford Register Star Letter to the Editor, ELPC Deputy Director and High-Speed Rail Program Director Kevin Brubaker calls out a columnist for his misleading column.
Bill Berg’s guest column (“High-speed rail, more casinos not the right answers for Illinois,” June 13) conveniently ignores the obvious facts in support of enhanced passenger rail in the Midwest.
Berg might consider St. Louis and Detroit to be nowhere, yet 22.3 million people visit St. Louis each year, and 15.9 million more go to Detroit.
Today travelers can choose from about 10 round-trip flights daily between Chicago and each city, or they can brave hours of bumper-to-bumper traffic to get there.
Mr. Berg may not be going, but the reasons to visit include organizations like Edward Jones, Emerson Electric, Scottrade and Washington University (St. Louis) and Ford, General Motors, Chrysler and the University of Michigan (Detroit).
St. Louis is also home to a dozen of Industry Week’s top 500 companies and Detroit boasts 14 other Fortune 500 companies.
Clearly, people do have reasons to go there, even if Berg’s limited view of business economics prevents him from seeing the benefits to making travel convenient and productive.
Trains are the only mode of transportation where speeds are consistently increasing, a key reason why Amtrak ridership has increased for 19 consecutive months.
— Kevin Brubaker, deputy director, Environmental Law and Policy Center, Chicago
Thursday, June 23, 2011
In this Detroit News Letter to the Editor, ELPC Deputy Director and High-Speed Rail Program Director Kevin Brubaker calls out a columnist for his misleading column.
Frank Beckmann’s May 13 column, “Politicians pick pork over facts on Michigan rail plans,” conveniently ignores the obvious facts in support of enhanced passenger rail for Michigan.
Trains are the only mode of transportation where speeds are consistently increasing, a key reason why rail ridership in Michigan has reliably posted double-digit ridership increases on the most popular routes.
Amtrak’s Wolverine service connects Michigan with Chicago, quickly and affordably. The very real improvements in service, speed and time savings that Beckmann so casually dismisses are a bargain for taxpayers, particularly when one considers the $150 million projected cost of the planned seven-mile M-231 near Grand Haven, which travelers will use paying more than $4 a gallon for their fuel.
Gov. Rick Snyder, a true conservative, correctly sees the value in transportation infrastructure because the easier it is to get to Michigan, the faster the state can return to prosperity.
Fortunately for Michigan taxpayers, Gov. Snyder put the interests of his state above blind ideology.
Kevin Brubaker
Deputy Director
Environmental Law & Policy Center
Friday, May 13, 2011
Environmental advocacy organizations and major electric utilities don’t often see eye to eye. But both ELPC and Exelon can agree that the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to reduce pollution from our dirtiest power plants will benefit the economy and the environment. Exelon CEO John Rowe and ELPC Executive Director Howard Learner co-authored an opinion piece in the Chicago Tribune explaining how clean air safeguards such as the Air Toxics rule will protect public health, improve the environment and create new jobs and investment. Both groups agree that efforts in congress to derail clean air standards should be vigorously resisted. ELPC is working to defeat bills that would weaken the Clean Air Act or delay EPA’s efforts to protecting public health.
Read the column in the Chicago Tribune
Sunday, April 4, 2010
This article by ELPC Executive Director Howard Learner appeared in the “Green Issue” of the New York Times’ Chicago Life Magazine.
Many of us are excited by the new plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) coming into the market later this year. They’re cool, high-tech and use less gasoline from countries that don’t like us very much and threaten America’s national security. They’re a big winner for reducing pollution in the Northern Illinois market. What’s not to like about cars with environmentally-friendly names like the Nissan Leaf, or charged-up names like the Chevy Volt?
The devil is in the details, however, when it comes to whether driving and charging the PHEVs will lead to less, instead of more, pollution compared with “conventional” hybrid gas-electric vehicles (HEVs) that are available to consumers today. As my real estate friends say, it’s about “location, location, location.” It’s also about what time you’re charging the PHEV. Whether the mix of electricity generating sources used for charging are high-CO2 or low-CO2 depends a lot on the location and the time of day. In short, if the charging source is electricity generated by old highly-polluting coal plants, on balance, that may hurt the environment more than it helps in some cases.
That’s the conclusion of a 2009 study by the National Research Council of the National Academies and a 2007 study issued by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. When coal plants supply more than 50% of the power mix, the equation is not favorable for PHEVs compared to HEVs when it comes to the CO2 pollution (global warming) and SO2 (acid rain-causing) pollution; for other pollutants the data varies. HEVs work better for the environment in these places.
PHEVs are an important emerging technology — where the cleaner energy power sources are used to charge their batteries. Let’s compare and contrast among markets. In Indiana, about 95% of the electricity is supplied by coal plants. It’s not a good place to look for PHEVs as a pollution solution. However, in Northern Illinois, most of the power supplied at the margin at night is from low/no-CO2 wind power and nuclear power plants. Much better.
Peak power prices are very high on hot summer afternoons when the most highly polluting plants tend to be running on the margin to meet soaring electricity demand from cranked-up air conditioners and fans. However, at night, the Northern Illinois power market has so much surplus nuclear and wind power available that prices are very low. Indeed, during some night-time hours, as supply exceeds demand, the prices are so low that the can’t-easily-be-shut-down (so-called “must run”) nuclear plants and wind turbines are “running negative” They make money selling power during the day, but are essentially giving it away at night.
Here are three policies and actions help make the PHEV pollution equation work favorably:
1. Location Matters – Let’s Pick Our Places for PHEVs vs. Conventional HEVs: Let’s push for PHEVs and favorable policies in those places where wind power, solar power, hydro power and nuclear power supply more than half of the power mix. Northern Illinois (nuclear and wind power) is a good market. South Dakota, too (hydro and wind power). Coal-heavy Indiana and Southern Illinois are not. Sorry. In many places, HEVs work better for the environment.
2. Time Matters – Discount Off-Peak Electric Rates for PHEV Charging: In most Midwestern states, electricity rates are flat, while power market prices are not. On a hot summer day, consumers may be paying less then the market price per kw of electricity, but on that same summer night, the utility may be charging much more than the power, transmission and delivery actually cost. Therefore, utilities have an incentive to encourage PHEV owners to charge their cars during off-peak night times, rather than during high-price peak power day times. Time of use rates are economically justified, but complicated for many social, practical and equity reasons to implement on an across the board basis. However, there are steps that we can take in a sensible direction.
Offering discounted off-peak rates that incentivize PHEV owners to charge their cars in their garages at night, instead of during the day, is a win-win-win-win when the location is right as discussed above. The wind power, nuclear power and hydro power generating companies gain new, more profitable sales. The utilities gain profitable electricity sales, rather than losing money by selling peak-priced power at lower flat rates on hot summer days. Consumers who charge their PHEVs at night save money (about $150 – $175 per year in Northern Illinois) through the discounted off-peak rates. All of us gain environmental quality benefits from PHEV charging when the energy mix equation results in less pollution instead of more.
Let’s bring environmental groups, consumer groups, auto companies, utilities, nuclear plant owners and wind power owners and developers together to petition the state public utility commissions to authorize pilot programs of discounted off-peak rates for PHEV charging. New meters will be required, but those costs can be amortized through the rate savings over time.
3. Time Matters – Solar Power Works Well for PHEV Charging: Solar energy is most available on hot, sunny afternoon when power market prices are highest and the power is needed most. So, if PHEV charging stations are powered by solar, the pollution equation works well. How can we encourage that to happen? First, by using planning, zoning and electric utility regulatory laws and policies to encourage location of charging stations in places where there is good solar access. Second, authorizing favorable “net metering” rates for charging stations to sell solar-generated power back into the grid when it is not fully used for charging cars.
The Northern Illinois Plug-In Hybrid Opportunity: President Obama stated his national goal of 1 million PHEVs on the road by 2015. Let’s look at the opportunities in his Northern Illinois home area of, which is one of the best places in the country for PHEVs to accelerate:
- Large market of car buyers and users in third largest metro area in the U.S.
- Large amount of auto manufacturing and suppliers, including two existing plants that could potentially be retooled – the Ford plant on the southeast side of Chicago, and the Chrysler plant in Belvedere.
- Surplus, zero marginal cost, no-greenhouse gas wind power on-line and under development. Some of this excess wind power supply is now being sold out-of-state.
- Surplus, low marginal cost, no-direct greenhouse gas nuclear power generation.
- Precedent for setting pilot program time-of-use rates, which would offer low off-peak electricity rates for charging PHEV batteries at night.
In short, the markets, policies and players are aligned in Northern Illinois for this PHEV strategy to succeed. This is a win-win-win-win for more transportation efficiency and better national security, less global warming pollution, more utility and energy generation company revenues, and more job creation.
Getting more PHEVs on the road is a key step forward in terms of reducing our dependence on foreign oil and, in some parts of the country, they also can sharply reduce both CO2 pollution. However, in places whose electricity comes primarily from coal, we need to develop PHEVs simultaneously with legislation to clean up the electricity system. Then everyone can take full advantage of PHEVs’ technological improvements.
The pollution equation shifts dramatically depending on the power mix in the charging location and the time of day. From an environmental standpoint, location and time matter, a lot. We should focus on supporting PHEV rollouts in Northern Illinois and other places and at those times where there is excess low/no-CO2 wind, hydro and nuclear power available at the margin. Let’s drive the market to achieve common benefits for the car-buying public, clean energy generators and utilities, clean car manufacturers and auto workers, and national security.
Monday, February 8, 2010
By Howard A. Leaner
Investing in modern, fast, comfortable and convenient higher-speed rail service is a smart move. Better rail service will improve mobility, reduce pollution, create new jobs and spur economic growth.
The new federal investment is about more than “just speed” to succeed. “Modern, comfortable and convenient” count as much as “fast” for transforming our transportation system for the 21st century.
First, modern trains can excite people and attract riders, as will train stations that are well-lit, clean and enjoyable central places. Wi-Fi or Wi-Max available all the way along the rail corridors can allow travel time to be productive work time for businesspeople, study time for students and reading time for others compared to air travel frustrations and new limits on cell phone and texting while driving.
Second, the top speed is less important than the average speed and overall trip time. For example, the 150 mph Acela high-speed rail service in the Northeast Corridor moves at that top speed for only few miles; its average speed between New York City and Washington D.C. is around 80 mph.
The best way to go fast is by not going slow. Synchronizing high-speed rail and freight rail improvement programs, such as the CREATE program in the Chicago area, can create double plays benefiting both passenger and freight service by alleviating congestion points and clearing out bottlenecks. Using skip stops as more high-speed train runs are added will avoid turning them into milk runs.
What really matters to passengers is how long the overall rail trip takes when compared to long car trips and door-to-door air travel for businesspeople, students and families traveling to see each other. This is a classic “compared to what” situation. It’s not just about bragging rights for top speed.
Third, let’s have comfortable trains. Nice seats, easily accessible plugs for laptops, good cell phone and computer access, and decent food.
Fourth, this is about convenience. Understandably, few people take the train from Chicago to Cleveland arriving at 1:45 am, or the return trains departing Cleveland at your choice of 2:59 am or 3:45 am. That’s why I can’t easily take the train with my three teenage sons over the weekend to visit the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. The key is increasing the frequency of train service with enough reasonably scheduled trip opportunities to work well for people.
When Amtrak improved service between Chicago and St. Louis a few years ago, ridership doubled. Better high-speed rail service is expected to triple ridership in the coming years.
All of this adds to the environmental benefits of displacing pollution from air and car travel, and the economic vitality from pulling jobs, people and business into our downtowns.
High-speed rail investment meets the public’s mobility needs and boosts the economy. For years, federal transportation funds almost exclusively supported auto and air travel. Today, Americans spend $1 billion a day on foreign oil and an average of 4 weeks each year stuck in gridlock. High-speed rail is 3X more efficient than cars and 6X more efficient than planes on a per passenger mile basis. Better performance, more national security, less pollution for the future.
Everyone is feeling the strain of the economic downturn, but investing wisely in a 21st century rail transportation system is important to keep our economy moving. According to an economic study conducted for nine state Departments of Transportation, the new Midwest high-speed rail network can create 57,000 permanent new jobs across the region, produce more than a $1 billion in additional household income, and spur almost $5 billion in private new development near Midwest rail stations.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” and the interstate highway system wasn’t built in a year. The recent federal funding announcement is the first step towards a modern high-speed rail system that will create jobs and boost our economy, better enable people to go from city-to-city, and protect our environment.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howard-learner/modern-high-speed-rail-is_b_452964.html
Monday, February 8, 2010
South Dakota should put more wind power into the sails of the state’s economy and job creation. South Dakota has the nation’s fourth-best wind power potential but only the 20th highest amount of wind power operating – 313 megawatts. By contrast, Iowa ranks 10th in wind power potential, but is second-highest in operating wind power capacity – 3,670 megawatts.
That tenfold difference in wind power development amounts to about $7 billion of economic investment, thousands of jobs, and cleaner air. What accounts for this huge difference? Smart public policies and prioritization by leading public officials.
First, early on, Iowa enacted a state renewable energy standard, which required utilities to purchase designated amounts of wind power. Iowa has since ratcheted up its renewable energy policies in various ways. By contrast, South Dakota finally enacted a more voluntary renewable energy standard mechanism in 2007. It’s beginning to have an impact, but South Dakota is playing catch-up and needs to ratchet it up.
Second, proposed federal renewable energy legislation would enable South Dakota to benefit from an expanded national market to sell its robust wind power resources. Indeed, South Dakota is around the top of the winners’ list if any of the federal renewable energy standard amendments being championed by Sens. Dorgan (North Dakota), Klobuchar (Minnesota) and Udall (Colorado) are signed into law.
Iowa Gov. Culver has written to his state’s congressional delegation urging their support, and Sens. Harkin and Grassley are indicating they’re on board. Here, however, Gov. Rounds and Sen. Thune have not yet expressed strong support for this key federal renewable energy legislation. It’s time to step up – for the good of South Dakota’s economy and job creation, as well as for everyone’s better health and the environment.
Third, Iowa’s governors have targeted the wind power sector as a leading industrial growth opportunity. The state’s Department of Economic Development has aggressively recruited and used its economic tools to bring several new manufacturing plants to Iowa in addition to the 40-plus wind farms. For example, Trinity Structural Towers is manufacturing wind power towers and creating new green jobs at a former Maytag appliance plant in Newton, Iowa.
Rounds has prioritized the ill-fated Big Stone II coal plant and the proposed Hyperion oil refinery for which the economic viability is a big question mark.
The new South Dakota Wind Energy Association can help to shift these priorities for the future. The Public Utilities Commission should help advance more strategic wind power development approaches – both for large wind projects and for smaller community-sized and on-farm systems.
Wind power is the fastest growing energy resource in the world. Many states and countries are competing hard to gain leadership in the growing clean energy technology market. Smart policies and targeted priorities can make a difference for South Dakota’s ability to capture the clean energy jobs of the future in the growing clean tech economy.
It’s time for South Dakota’s next governor and the full congressional delegation to prioritize and actively seize policy opportunities to spur progress.
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Thursday, December 10, 2009
Des Moines Register - December 10, 2008
Guest Column by Howard A. Learner
Solving our global-warming problems is the moral, economic, policy, political and technological challenge of our times. Fortunately, there are smart, clean renewable-energy and energy-efficiency developments and clean-car innovation strategies that are good for the economy, create new green jobs and improve the environment.
The naysayers keep arguing that reducing global-warming pollution is too expensive and too difficult. We’ve heard this refrain before: Seat belts supposedly would dramatically increase the costs of cars, make no safety difference and wouldn’t be used by drivers and riders. Catalytic converters wouldn’t really reduce pollution and would make cars unaffordable. Reducing sulfur dioxide that causes acid rain would cause electric rates to skyrocket and not help the environment very much.
Well, look what happened:
- Seat belts are an incidental car-cost component, have saved many lives, reduced the severity of accidents and lowered insurance costs.
- Catalytic converters have greatly reduced harmful health impacts from dirty air, and lowered health-care costs.
- The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, which set up the cap-and-trade program to reduce sulfur-dioxide pollution from coal plants, triggered a wave of technological advances – as well as simple engineering tweaks and fixes – that have reduced acid rain. Instead of costing the industry’s estimated $2,000 to $3,000 per ton, sulfur-dioxide pollution credits are now trading at just $136 per ton. This pollution-reduction strategy has resulted in demonstrable environmental improvements for our rivers, lakes and forests, and reduced public-health harms.
So when you hear that economic disaster will somehow befall the United States if we step up and act to help solve our global-warming problems, consider the facts, history and American capacity for technological innovation – especially with the right mix of regulatory and financial-market incentives.
Solving global warming may be very painful for the more polluting industries and their workers. But it won’t always be difficult and costly. There will be economic winners, too, in the growing green economy.
Consider the example of lighting-efficiency improvements. Here’s what happens when Americans convert their old incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs).
CFLs use 75 percent less electricity than incandescent bulbs to produce the same amount of illumination, saving us money on electricity bills. They reduce carbon dioxide and other pollution from coal plants, improving our health and environment, and they last seven to 10 times longer.
Replacing incandescent bulbs with CFLs will reduce overall electricity demand by about 5 to 6 percent. Since coal plants cause about 40 percent of the region’s global-warming pollution, this one change alone – which saves people money – will reduce overall carbon-dioxide pollution from 2 percent to 2.5 percent.
That doesn’t even include the additional economic savings and pollution reductions achieved when businesses, city halls, hospitals, schools, parks and sports facilities install more efficient lighting. Commercial light technologies for offices today are much more energy efficient, with high-tech control systems and ballasts.
Coming to market next are super-efficient light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which will last longer and can produce light in any color. LEDs are now marketed as a high-end product, but prices will fall soon.
A quiet market revolution is taking place through sophisticated lighting technologies and more efficient appliances, computers, motors and controls. We’re at a tipping point, as higher energy prices and technological advances kick in.
Lighting technologies alone won’t be nearly enough to solve our global-warming problems. But they are a good start, and point the way toward additional opportunities and innovations for global-warming solutions that are good for the economy.
What’s next? Watch for surviving (we hope!) American automakers to pivot to market plug-in electric hybrids and other clean cars sooner than previously advertised, for breakthroughs in solar energy and for advancements in new, more efficient battery technologies.
It won’t be easy, but we can get going faster and further on global-warming solutions than the naysayers are arguing.
