India squirms at “legally binding” limits of carbon emissions—shall we?

During the U.S.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’, visit to India last Sunday, where she heaped praises to that country’s efforts to curb carbon emissions, the local Environmental Minister Jairam Ramesh loudly thought otherwise. He said his country won’t agree to “legally binding” limits on greenhouse gases (GHG).

That remark couldn’t have come to an importune time as the minister escorted the ever graceful Clinton during the tour at ITC Green Center outside the Indian capital. She called the center “a monument to the future”, a testimony to India’s efforts towards cleaner energy sources.  Ramesh, however, pointed out that India is among the major countries which pledged recently to join the efforts to limit global warming by curbing carbon emissions.

But behind that facade of diplomatese lies a brewing conflict between the developed countries represented by the United States on one hand and the industrializing economies typified by India, over GHG emission limits.

Clinton’s smiles can easily disarm a gentleman like Ramesh, but she did not come to India to relish the splendour of Taj Majal. She was there to arm-twist India to accept her boss U.S. President Barack Obama’s cap-and trade plan as a means of weaning his country from fossil-based “dirty” energy sources like coal and oil.

Briefly, the cap-and-trade plan, which is becoming a contentious issue at par with Afghanistan at Capitol Hill, is a series of proposed legislation that makes power generation from fossil fuels more expensive by capping the amount of GHG emissions allowed from these sources. The polluting sources are only given certain emissions credits which they can trade if they have excess credits—hence the “trade” portion.

The current Obama proposal calls for an eventual 83% reduction from 2005 levels by 2050, and a do-able 14% reduction by 2020. And, yes, his bookies say that the government stands to gain $646 billion between 2012 and 2019 from the auction of carbon credits.

Obama cruised to the presidency partly riding on the promise to the American people of a cleaner future—and he is just doing that with the plan. For the American government, the plan is actually a tightrope policy of appeasing both the green movement and the coal industry which supplies roughly half of the power needs of the country. Outright banning of coal, or even a significant reduction of its use, would severely cripple the mightiest economy on earth.

American legislators know that such plan carries enormous costs, and protagonists from both sides of the divide are cranking out arguments and associated costs to support their contention. Nobody knows what the final costs would be, but one thing is sure: the American people would be facing increased electricity costs, despite the claims that money raised from the exercise could be plowed back into the economy.

To give you an idea on what electricity rates increases Americans could expect from the floated  cap and trade plan, utility operators estimate that price increases could range from a low of 40% to as high as 120% for coal-dependent states such as Oregon.

But what’s India—and the developing countries, including the Philippines—got to do with America’s internal energy policy?

Plenty.  U.S. policymakers and think tanks have already figured out, that with the increase in energy costs, the economy would come to a crawl, and the country’s competitiveness on the global arena would be acutely debased.

Which is why for the plan to be viable, the U.S. must enlist the cooperation of the fastest developing economies like India and China, by urging them to do likewise. Or using strong- arm tactics.

But India, which is growing at an average of 8% a year, cannot afford that its march to progress would be derailed by caps imposed from outside.

No, India is not running away from its commitment to cleaner future; “we are simply not in a position to take on legally binding emission targets,” Ramesh insists.

It may not be readily obvious, but people in the third world, who are consuming a fraction of energy per capita compared to their counterparts in developed economies, couldn’t simply have their angst for more power curtailed. The alternative is further slide into abject poverty.

If it were not for the associated cost, it would be pleasant to dream of fresh air every day throughout one’s life, brought about by clean sources of energy. Yes, Americans may grumble about increased electricity bills. They may have to learn to switch off their plasma TVs when not in use. Some may just bear and grin it, but somehow, other expenses will have to be pruned down. Such scenario could put more strain to people who have borne the brunt of the current recession which is considered the worst since the 1930s.

But for the millions of people in Asia and Africa, curtailing power use could mean complete darkness after dusk, or scaling down production at the micro-enterprises which could barely provide subsistence in the first place. That is, if they already have rudimentary electrical power in the first place.

Yes, mercury is still being emitted by coal plants, but will all of it finds its way to the human ecosystem?  Yes, pound for pound, a coal plant emits far more carbon dioxide than any of the alternative, albeit more costly, sources. The mightiest power on earth knows this, but it is powerless to scale down drastically its own coal usage. And for one reason: cost.

Yes, any sane person would love to dismantle all the fossil-fuel plants for the sake of a healthy future, but then, at this point in time, a major problem facing the country is still lingering poverty.

Would we buckle down and dream on, or be pragmatic like India?

Would I trade an unknown, possibly bright future, with a more horrible present?

And I thought about my country.

I just cringed. 

Compact fluorescent lamps: Green or clean?

When the Department of Energy (DOE) recently launched its Palit Ilaw program which essentially enjoins government offices and projects to replace incandescent lamps and other energy-hungry lighting fixtures with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), there was hardly any ripple of approval even from energy efficiency campaigners or consumer advocates.

This is not really surprising because advocating a support for such a move from our politicians would hardly land them in front of the klieglights of publicity. For consumer advocates it would hardly endear them to the masses who would be asked to replace their dirt-cheap incandescent lamps with expensive compact fluorescent lamps. The masses who are desperately trying to make both ends meet on a month-to-month, or even day-to-day basis wouldn’t have the time or the wherewithal to figure out the long-term economic benefits of the move.

 The environmental crusaders on the other hand are somewhat split. The global warming enthusiasts embrace it like a teddy bear, for they have already calculated the amount of carbon dioxide that would be displaced from emissions by fuel-based generators. The ultra-pure green advocates while not openly declaring opposition, snickered when in the course of promoting Al Gore’s opus An Inconvenient Truth, supporters were asked to buy compact fluorescent lamps to replace their incandescent lamps.

 They have a point.

 CFLs do contain the toxic element mercury, albeit in milligram amounts. The lamp works by exciting mercury atoms to generate UV light. The light in turn strikes at the phosphor coating which gives off the white light we enjoy. Without mercury, there is no light.

 Other green campaigners stretch the anti-stance by arguing that disposal of the used CFLs poses environmental hazards and even pointing out that the transport of these mercury-containing lamps emit greenhouse gases (GHG).

 The latter is probably stretching the argument too much. We have been using millions of standard linear or circular fluorescent lamps, and CFLs are no different. There will always be some accidents due to breakage and mercury will be spilled and may actually pose some hazards. But simple precautions like not handling the broken glasses containing phosphor and immediate ventilation of the contaminated area should eliminate most of the danger.

 There are other household items that contain more mercury such as the common glass thermometer, sphygmomanometer and pressure gauges that have escaped scrutiny from our dear green watchers

 Nothing is aseptically clean or immaculately green, whether it is baby products or energy sources. It is just a matter of degree how much dirt or inconvenience we accept or tolerate.

 Even the most accepted clean energy sources have their detractors.

 A nuclear renaissance has not taken hold mainly because of the dim memories of Three-Mile Island near-disaster and the catastrophic Chernobyl accident. But the former was avoidable while the latter used  Soviet-era safety standards and obsolete technology. Some environmental activists even prefer nuclear over fossil fuels power sources.

 Even the concern of nuclear waste disposal is probably overblown when the current “temporary” storage could pass the most stringent safety standards ever. So are the new-generation designs of reactors.

 About the only serious objection of nuclear power is nuclear proliferation in this age of Al Qaeda.

 Geothermal is also a favorite target practice of environmental activists. Sure the wells emit some hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide most of which are dissipated through or absorbed by the foliage and soil. Literally along the same breath, the same critics daily inhale from far more dangerous gas emissions from ill-tuned up car engines, motor cabs and diesel-gushing jeepneys.

 Well-meaning opposition to geothermal points to some disturbance to vegetation when roads are made and pads are prepared, forgetting the fact that coal mining strips down whole forests and mountains—not in China, or Indonesia but in the most advance country on earth, the United States.

 They also point to disturbance to forest dwellers. In the meantime, the rare bats within the Bacman geothermal reservation have not left the area and continue to doze off during the day while the power plants churn electrical power. The snakes and monkeys in Kidapawan have not yet attacked the engineers manning the geothermal plant as an act of environmental revenge.

 Even the cleanest of them all—wind power—have critics. Some complain about the extra decibels these turbines are generating completely forgetting that the levels are far lower than a normal traffic. And if some groups object to these structures because some rare migratory bird species from Siberia are disoriented by the low frequency humming—what shall we put up?

 SO would, or wouldn’t you shift to CFLs?

The alternative to the modern conveniences is a nomadic life or cave-dwelling. Just be sure to know enough taxonomy to avoid eating rare and protected root crops and using natural herbs listed as endangered by WWF.

SAS introduces green IT software a.k.a. carbon calculator

SAS, an IT vendor more known for its business intelligence (BI) software and services, has recently introduced in this country a software that supposedly measures a company's eco-friendliness and carbon footprint. Its capabilities, SAS claims, include tracking the level of CO2 emissions of companies and analyzing its impact on its business operations.

Thomas Spiller, SAS senior director for international programs, said the product can be customized to the customer specifications but admitted that since it has just been launched, SAS has yet to sign up a local customer.

Just who are these customers that SAS is targeting, and why should you buy, or not buy, the product?

With the escalating cost of energy and pressures from the environmental movement, big business has started to embrace eco-friendliness and energy efficiency. Going carbon neutral, as the movement is now known, is not just a fad, Spiller assures.

For many companies, moving towards that goal not only enhances their corporate social responsibility (CSR) image, but the bottom line as well from energy savings and increased business.

Usually, the first step towards this direction is to quantify your carbon footprint--that is, how much greenhouse gases (GHG) as typified by CO2, your company is actually producing.

Without saying in so many words, SAS is actually offering a carbon calculator.

A carbon calculator is a device, usually a software, that does what its name implies: calculate the total carbon emission or footprint for a given event, an energy project or a company.

Existing carbon calculators range from order-of-magnitude estimates to fairly sophisticated devices that detail every possible source of emission and the methods backed up by reputable data. There are free carbon calculators usually offered by non-governmental organizations concerned with global warming and government institutions such as the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and there are fairly sophisticated commercial calculators used by carbon market traders, renewable energy project developers applying for carbon credits through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and big business carrying out a corporate program towards carbon neutrality.

Calculating a carbon footprint is not easy. As what any budding software developer is advised, GIGO - garbage in, garbage out. Your results will only be as good as the worst assumption built into the software.

For example, the total carbon footprint of all the employees in a company may be estimated by the average per capita footprint but if the built-in assumption is that for a developed country like Japan or the U.S. where individual energy consumption is far higher, the errors can be very significant.

To be on the conservative side, choose a calculator which is most comprehensive in its coverage. Some calculators for example, fail to take into account such as commuting habit of its employees which can amount to a large number.

If in doubt, ask.

It is also important to choose a provider accredited with a top accepted standard to ensure getting a comprehensive calculator. Some of the stringent standards include the Gold Standard, the Greenhouse Gases Protocol, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) ISO14064, The Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) and The Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standards (CCBS).

You may be passionate about making your company green. Just make sure that you have the right tools in realizing your dream.