Support U.S. Businesses Making Green Investments

Source: AJC



If there’s one thing Americans agree on in these divided times, it’s the urgent need to move toward cleaner energy. Polls as recently as November show a majority of Americans favoring comprehensive energy reform that limits pollution, develops domestic sources and stimulates renewable power.

We’re not likely to get comprehensive reform in the year ahead, but I still see strong paths toward a cleaner, more sustainable economy.

That’s because smart entrepreneurs are taking the lead. They see the “green” in green and don’t want to miss out on the next big industrial revolution transforming the global economy.

Corporate clean tech innovations were, in fact, the buzz at the recent international climate treaty talks in Cancun, Mexico. At a side meeting for business leaders, Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris announced that his company is reaping $50 billion in annual revenues from the sale of its clean tech products. Solar shingles, coatings for energy-saving “cool” roofs, and sugarcane-based plastic, which emits far fewer greenhouse gases than petroleum-based plastic, are just some of Dow’s budding green technologies.

Green infrastructure giant Siemens’ portfolio likewise topped $37 billion in 2010. Nearly half of its 8,000-plus inventions last year involved technologies that improve energy efficiency and sustainability: innovations such as coatings for power plant turbine blades, ultra-efficient lighting systems, and electric car charging technologies.

Perhaps most impressive was Coca-Cola’s announcement that it has removed the potent global warming pollutant HFC from 200,000 of its refrigeration units, and that it hopes to make its entire supply chain of 10 million refrigeration units completely HFC-free by 2015.

Even better, Coca-Cola, Greenpeace and other stakeholders convinced a consortium of 400 global consumer goods manufacturers to join their effort, and the group has now pledged a “gigaton-scale commitment” to phase out HFC refrigerants by 2015. Getting their peers on board means that scaling up this new technology will happen more quickly and cheaply. A win-win for everyone.

Beyond corporate initiatives, emerging economies also give me hope for green progress in 2011. These rising tigers — some with the fastest-growing greenhouse gas emissions in the world — are taking concrete steps to reduce their contribution to global climate change.

India began levying a carbon tax on coal producers in July, just one month before the U.S. Senate abandoned its efforts to pass a comprehensive climate bill. India will use those revenues to finance clean energy development.

Brazil passed a national law requiring 32 emissions-reducing activities and adopted a voluntary goal of reducing its emissions by more than one-third by 2020.

And China is globally dominating the wind and solar power industries. Though it still relies heavily on coal, China has pledged to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 40 to 45 percent by 2020.

While these actions foster hope, they also leave me wondering why the United States is still stuck on fossil fuels and continues to cede the green industrial revolution — and the jobs that come with it — to other nations. China already boasts more than a million renewable energy jobs, five times the U.S. total.

Without strong national policies to incentivize clean technologies, voluntary business initiatives can only go so far. As Dow’s Liveris put it, “We have the technologies for a global clean economy, but they will not deploy in significant numbers without greater public policy certainty and incentives.”

The United States instead continues to seek short-term fixes from dirtier and dirtier sources of energy.

Take the proposed 1,900-mile, $12 billion Keystone oil pipeline designed to bring up to 1.5 million barrels a day of crude from Canada’s oil sands to U.S. refineries as far south as the Gulf Coast.

While the prospect of buying oil from Canadians, rather than unstable regimes, may sound appealing, there’s a catch. Extracting crude from sticky oil sands emits far more greenhouse gases per barrel than conventional oil, and it is causing widespread environmental and health problems across vast stretches of Alberta, as outlined in a new report by the Royal Canadian Society.

Why seek out dirtier sources of oil when we could be innovating electric cars and clean fuels for jets and improving vehicle efficiency standards — all of which will help us regain our competitive footing in the global economy and put Americans back to work?

And here’s the real kicker: Many of these clean technologies already exist. We just need the right policies and priorities to scale them up.

Last month’s vote in Congress to extend renewable energy tax credits — which will create 20,000 new jobs next year in the wind industry alone — is a good example of what I mean. And there are other smart policies we can adopt in the coming months, whether to expand energy efficiency or strengthen truck mileage standards, which will move the U.S. toward a cleaner energy future.

Now that would really fuel my optimism.

EPA Sues Coal-Burning Plant Over Air Pollution

Source: Post-Gazette

Past and present owners of one of the nation's dirtiest power plants in Homer City, Indiana County, have been sued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for operating for decades without required federal permits or adequate pollution controls.

The lawsuit claims the plant failed to meet federal pollution standards as far back as the early 1990s and its owners should be required to pay fines of up to $37,500 per day per violation.
The EPA lawsuit, which was joined by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the New York attorney general, said emissions from the 1,884-megawatt power plant operated by EME Homer City Generating LP harm public health and the environment, contribute to premature mortality and asthma attacks and generate acid rain among other "adverse effects in downwind communities and natural areas."

It also says annual emissions of about 100,000 tons of sulfur dioxide pollution alone from the Homer City plant makes it "one of the largest air pollution sources in the nation."
The civil lawsuit was filed on EPA's behalf by the U.S. Justice Department Thursday in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh. It names EME along with eight limited liability corporate owners and prior owners, including Pennsylvania Electric Co. and New York State Electric & Gas Corp.
"The Clean Air Act was intended by Congress to protect the public from air pollution, including pollution from large sources of emissions like coal-fired power plants," Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, said in a news release. "We are taking this step to protect the quality of the air people breathe not only in Homer City, but also in the communities that are located downwind of this power plant."

The power plant has three units, two of which do not have pollution control equipment known as "scrubbers" to remove sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from emissions. State of the art pollution controls could reduce those emissions by 95 percent, which would represent a 1 percent decline in sulfur dioxide pollution nationwide, said EPA spokeswoman Bonnie Smith of Region III in Philadelphia.

The lawsuit states that former owners and operators modified the plant in the 1990s, before EME Homer City took over operations in 1999, without installing "best available technology," as federal Clean Air Act regulations require. Those modifications were made without requesting or receiving proper permits, it states, and EME continued operating the plant without ever seeking or obtaining proper permits for the modifications or upgrades.

Because of those "unlawful modifications," the lawsuit states, significant amounts of sulfur dioxide and fine particle pollution continue to be emitted by the 42-year-old power plant.
New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman said in a news release Thursday that the emissions from the Homer City power plant are transported by prevailing winds and endangering the health of Empire State residents.

"The owners of this power plant have repeatedly thumbed their noses at clean air laws, while dumping more than double the sulfur dioxide pollution into our air and lungs as all of the power plants operating in New York combined," Mr Schneiderman said. "This lawsuit reflects my commitment, holding the owners of the Homer City power plant accountable for breaking the law, and polluting the air that New Yorkers breathe."

Charley Parnell, spokesman for Edison Mission Energy, or EME, based on Santa Anna, Calif., said the company has yet to review the suit and does not comment on current litigation.

Cobb EMC Chief Indicted on Racketeering And Theft

From: AJC


The head of Marietta-based Cobb EMC was released from jail Thursday night after a Cobb County grand jury indicted him on 31 counts of racketeering and theft.

Dwight Brown's indictment Thursday capped a two year criminal investigation of the nonprofit electric cooperative that provides power to about 200,000 customers.

Brown turned himself in and was booked into the Cobb County Jail about 6:15 p.m. Thursday, and was released on his own recognizance about 9 p.m. His attorney, Craig Gillen, promises a fierce fight.

The indictment accuses Brown of stealing millions from the customer-owned cooperative and its customers, which include the Cobb County school system and government, and of making false statements to customers in order to conceal the thefts.

It also opens a new chapter in a legal saga that began in 2007, after an investigative report by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution raised questions about the relationship between Cobb EMC and a for-profit company set up and owned by co-op insiders, including Brown.

For more than a decade, the for-profit Cobb Energy ran the non-profit electric company under a 40-year contract, charging a mark-up that eventually hit 11 percent for work the co-op had previously done for itself.

Brown “is innocent of these charges and we intend to fight each and every charge in court,” Gillen said Thursday.

Racketeering carries a punishment of up to 20 years in prison and a fine. The other charges could result in as many as 10 years in prison.

The initial AJC report led to a customer lawsuit against the co-op and Cobb Energy that was settled in December 2008. Pat Head, the district attorney for Cobb, began the criminal investigation shortly after.

The indictment focuses on the relationship between the two companies, specifically business transactions in which the co-ops assets were allegedly used to subsidize Cobb Energy, and for which the co-op and its member-owners received no compensation.

Brown was CEO of both companies and a major Cobb Energy stockholder.

The indictment lists more than $50 million since 1997 that it said was either taken out of the co-op or was not paid to the co-op by Cobb Energy.

Some of the theft charges involve Brown’s receipt of $3 million in loans -- later forgiven -- from the two companies and his receipt of Cobb Energy stock dividends. Brown and his wife earned about $265,000 in annual dividends from their shares.

The indictment lists a number of occasions in which Brown -- or reports signed by Brown -- allegedly misrepresented the health of Cobb Energy or failed to disclose the extent to which the co-op and its members subsidized it.

“No other individual had as much information about Cobb EMC and Cobb Energy and no other individual had as much power and influence within those entities,” the indictment said.

Brown's attorney, Craig Gillen, promised a fierce fight.

Gillen denied his client received any illicit money from the Cobb Energy’s relationship with Cobb EMC.

“This is a racketeering indictment which charges theft of millions and millions of dollars,” he said. “The simple truth is that not a single dollar went to Mr. Brown that was not lawful and was not authorized by the respective boards of directors” of Cobb EMC and Cobb Energy.

He said the decision to engage in transactions in the indictment were “based on the wise advice of some of the finest attorneys and business consultants in America. Those decisions were good decisions at the time and, in retrospect, are even better decisions.”

Head said he couldn’t discuss the case, but left open the possibility of further indictments against others. Search warrants issued in 2009 included homes of some of the co-op’s board members.

“This is a very complicated case that’s going to be well-represented on both sides and for that reason I think the less we talk about it in the press the best off both sides will be,” he said.

His office took two years investigating because of the complexity, he said: “It’s the most complicated case, I think, that has ever been handled by the District Attorney’s office.”

He said it will be challenging to prevent evidence to a jury. “But it’s like any other case. You try to boil it down to the most simplistic terms you have so it’s easily digestible.”

Attorney Pitts Carr, who represented customers in their lawsuit against the co-op, said the indictment “confirms, in our opinion, that the Cobb Energy arrangement was, as alleged in our complaint, a methodology to siphon off assets that properly belong to the EMC’s members,” he said. “We certainly hope this energizes the leadership to bring in new management.”

Cobb EMC was created in the 1930s to bring power to what was then a rural part of Georgia. It is one of 42 co-ops in Georgia, and one of several serving now densely populated suburbs in metro Atlanta.

Electric co-ops are owned by members and profits are assigned to those members based on how much electricity they buy. Most co-ops return at least some of that capital back to members regularly. By 2007, Cobb EMC had not returned that money for more than 30 years. The company has said it used the money to build out its system, and that it rewarded customers in other ways, such as rebates based on power cost savings.

Although they are monopolies for all but the biggest customers, Georgia’s electric co-ops aren’t regulated by the state as investor-owned utilities are. They’re considered self-regulating because customers own them and elect boards of directors.

Brown and the co-op’s board formed Cobb Energy in the late 1990s to both branch into other businesses and protect the co-op from a takeover, according to depositions in the civil case.

The co-op transferred its meters and employees to the new company, and initially owned 100 percent of the company’s stock. Its ownership eroded over time, while Brown, co-op employees and other co-op insiders purchased stock of their own.

Most of the theft allegations in Thursday’s indictment focused on one of Cobb Energy’s first side ventures, which was to sell natural gas service for SCANA Energy.

According to the indictment, Cobb Energy used Cobb EMC’s customer list to do that, but the co-op got none of the revenue.

Later, when Cobb Energy got out of the contract, Brown “directed that Cobb EMC pay Cobb Energy approximately $3.4 million in connection with the termination of the SCANA contract, even though Cobb EMC had never received any revenue from that contract.”

2010 Deadliest Year In Coal Industry Since 1992

From: AJC

The US coal industry had its deadliest year in nearly two decades in 2010, with much of the death toll stemming from a single explosion. According to federal Mine Safety and Health Administration records, 48 miners were killed while working in the nation's 1,500 mines this past year. That's the highest since 55 miners died in 1992. And it was much higher than the 18 killed in 2009, the industry's lowest tally since 1900. Most of the 2010 deaths occurred in West Virginia, where 29 perished in an April 5 explosion at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine.

In 2011, lets make a pledge to decrease our reliance on coal and focus instead on a safer, cleaner source of energy.

The Story Of Coal (Video)

The following video by SunRun is very eye opening: