Re: January 13 2023, Texas Tribune article, “EPA Moves away from Permian Basin air pollution crackdown”.
Texas leaders are determined to stop progress on measures to reduce air pollution by oil and gas operations in the Permian Basin no matter what it does to Texans’ health. Oil and gas companies have wielded their power for many years and continue to do that. the Biden administration is trying to lower oil prices after oil shortages around the world after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Oil companies have pressurized Texas leaders enough for the EPA to back down from air pollution crackdown.
We need policies that can reduce our dependence on oil and gas and encourage clean energy research and development. Ask your members of Congress to enact laws to transition away from pollution causing energy sources to clean energy that would lower ozone levels and improve air quality. I suffer from pollution regularly.
We want leaders who would work for their constituents’ health and well- being.
The year 2022 was a remarkable year for the climate.
The U.S. emissions went up by 1.3%
It was the 6th warmest year according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It should have been cooler being a Le Nina year.
According to Dr. Hansen, 2022 was 0.04 degree Celsius warmer than 2021 likely because more energy is coming in than going out.
The 10-warmest years on record have occurred since year 2010.
The US had 18 one billion plus dollar climate disasters.
We had news to celebrate 2022. Inflation Reduction Act was the largest ever climate bill that was passed by the U.S. Congress. Volunteers of Citizens Climate Lobby have work to do by reaching out to the state and city governments and ensure that allocated federal dollars are invested in clean energy sources to bring the emissions down.
Re: October 15, 22 Article, “City sees record 25 Ozone Action Days”
People suffering from pollen allergies as I do, have an instant physiological effect when ground level ozone increases along with pollens from ragweed, grass, mold, trees and other pollutants. Sneezing, headaches, post nasal drainage and general sense of tiredness are the symptoms that I suffer from even after staying indoors.
It is alarming to have 25 “Ozone Action Days” in just 2022 which tops the combined total for past 8 years. Clearly, Austinites have to pay attention to the Ozone Action Days by taking measures like reduction in use of gasoline powered vehicles, equipment and manufacturing for the short term.
For the long term, we need to transition away from fossil fuels and polluting emissions and invest in clean energy sources. There are incentives in bills passed this year including the Inflation Reduction, Infrastructure and the CHIPs Acts. Continuing on the path will improve our health and quality of life.
We are surrounded by plastic. According to The International Union for Conservation of Nature, 300 million tons of plastic are produced every year for use in a wide variety of applications. At least 12 million tons of plastic end up in our ocean every year, and make up 80% of all marine debris found from surface waters to deep-sea sediments. Marine species ingest or are entangled by plastic debris, which causes severe injuries and deaths.
Plastic pollution threatens food safety and quality, affects human health, coastal tourism and contributes to climate change.
There are many options we have if we act and ask our leaders to enact laws to ban thin plastics. During my childhood, we rarely used plastic. Practice questioning every plastic item you use like bags, cups, straws, and Styrofoam containers to reduce plastic waste. Learn more about plastics at: IUCN.org and endplasticwaste.org
A decade ago, Larry Howe was drawn to solar energy and became an early adopter. He put solar panels on the roof of his Plano home in 2012 and, a few years later, added solar panels above his backyard patio to provide shade and power.
“We use the most air conditioning in the summer when the sun is shining,” he said. “So I thought: ‘Why not take advantage of generating some of that electricity right when I need it?’”
Similar ideas have won over millions of homeowners across the country.
The U.S. hit 1 million residential solar installations in 2016 and reached 2 million in 2019. By the end of June 2022, roughly 3.5 million residential solar installations were in place nationwide, according to a report by the Solar Energy Industries Association and research firm Wood Mackenzie.
More growth lies ahead. Last month, Congress approved a climate law that increases the tax credit on rooftop solar to 30% and remains in place for a decade. Texas’ residential solar capacity will grow five-fold by 2027, in part because of the tax break, the solar energy association said.
Many homeowners choose solar because of concerns about climate change and extreme weather. They want to reduce their carbon footprint and embrace clean energy.
Others want to cut their electric bills, and solar’s cost-benefit proposition has never been better. Electricity rates surged in the past year while the cost of solar panels has fallen sharply over the past decade. That combination shortens the payback period from investing in solar.
Texans have additional reasons to consider solar. After a 2021 winter storm shut down the grid for days and killed hundreds, some want to become more self-reliant and lighten the load on the grid.
When Howe first added solar panels, he knew just about every house that had them in his neighborhood.
“Now, every time I drive around Plano, I think: ‘I don’t remember that one,’” he said. “They’ve become almost commonplace, and that’s a great thing.”
Howe, who co-founded the volunteer group Plano Solar Advocates, has been tracking the number of rooftop installations statewide since 2014. He includes businesses such as big-box stores, but residential homes account for the vast majority.
Texas had over 160,000 rooftop solar projects in the fourth quarter of last year — more than double the number in 2019, according to data from Howe and the Texas Solar Energy Society.
Utility-scale solar, created by power providers in Texas’ deregulated market, accounts for the vast majority of solar generation here. Texas ranks low among states for the share of solar from residential, a metric that shows much room for growth.
“Small-scale solar” projects, as they’re often called, are coming on strong. They generated over 2.2 million megawatt hours of electricity in Texas last year, up from 1 million megawatt hours two years earlier, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The average value of solar panel shipments — a proxy for price used by the government — dropped nearly 83% from 2010 to 2021. That included an 11% decline last year despite supply chain constraints and higher material costs, the agency said.
Howe said he spent about $10,000 in out-of-pocket costs for his system, which totals 4.5 kilowatts. It generates about 60% of his electricity use annually and saves him roughly $100 a month on his electric bill.
In general, he said, homeowners can recoup their upfront solar investments in about 10 years. His payback period will be closer to 12 to 14 years because the cost was higher a decade ago and electricity rates were lower.
Howe helped create early solar co-ops that brought together local residents and leveraged their buying power for rooftop projects, and that approach continues. On Tuesday, the 2022 version of the Plano solar co-op was launched with the help of the nonprofit Solar United Neighbors.
“A lot of our work is to bring people together around their shared interests in learning about solar and the costs of installation,” said Hanna Mitchell, director of the group’s Texas program. “The co-ops are a large portion of that.”
By Wednesday, 30 people had signed on to learn more about solar panels and discounts from bulk buying. The goal is to attract 150 members by the end of November.
The co-op’s webpage is at solarunitedneighbors.org/plano, and information sessions are offered on Sept. 22 and Sept. 29.
Members will exchange information and evaluate vendors, eventually selecting a contractor to do installations for the group. In Plano, the average solar panel array is 8 kilowatts, capable of generating about 12,000 kilowatt hours of electricity a year, Mitchell said.
The average cost is about $20,000, including the co-op discount and before the federal tax credit. Co-op members typically get a discount of 10% to 20%, Mitchell said, and they’re under no obligation to buy panels or use the selected vendor.
“It’s a great way to inform yourself about solar, and the vendors have to be really transparent,” said Raul Lozano, a Plano homeowner since 2015. “And you’re probably going to get the best deal.”
Lozano was a member of last year’s Plano solar co-op, and he bought a 17-kilowatt system, much larger than average, for his 2,700-square-foot house. He said he paid about $32,000 before the tax credit and has been generating about 88% of his electricity in 2022.
“It’s over-performing,” Lozano said. “In some months, I wasn’t paying anything.”
That isn’t necessarily ideal because the value of excess generation is limited in Texas. The state does not require net metering, which pays homeowners the full cost of electricity when they pump excess power into the grid.
Most states, along with some large municipal utilities in Texas, have net metering policies that reward bigger generators.
While Lozano expects to recover his costs in about eight years, he said he can’t take full advantage of his system’s size.
“Whatever extra I produce is probably going to my neighbor’s home and the retailer is charging them,” Lozano said. “But I’m not getting paid.”
That leads to some unorthodox approaches to energy use. During the day, when demand is highest and Texas grid operators sometimes ask residents to cut back on power, both Lozano and Howe recharge their electric vehicles and run washers, dryers and dishwashers.
That’s because they may be generating more solar power than they’re using. And if they wait to charge the EVs at night, they must pay a higher retail rate.
At least 38 states have mandatory net metering rules, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. Net metering strengthens the financial case for adding panels, but Mitchell said Texas lawmakers don’t like the idea.
“There’s more support for letting the market take care of it,” she said.
Larry Howe has been an outstanding volunteer with Citizens’ Climate Lobby. We wanted to share this information article and thank him for his leadership. This photo is by Lola Gomez and a link to the full article is below.
Re: May 3 article, “Texas renewables generate record power in early 2022.”
Renewables generated more power so far this year in Texas than gas-powered turbines, or any other power source? What excellent news! It comes along about the same time it was reported that on May 4 for a short duration starting at 2:50 p.m., 99.87% of California’s entire power load was provided by renewables.
We still have a very long journey to replacing all U.S. fossil fuel power generation with renewables, but we have certainly put to rest the notion that we can’t achieve this goal quickly, which is essential if we are to halt earth’s warming. Just imagine what we can achieve once we actually make an effort – like, for example, by instituting a carbon fee and dividend policy. Carbon fee and dividend not only will accelerate the conversion to renewables, but will result in a net return of money to a significant majority of U.S. households.
Nations fight wars over resources and use them as cudgels to influence and control the policies of other nations. We have seen this dynamic at play with energy resources for decades, including now with Ukraine and Western Europe.
Why didn’t all nations stop buying Russian oil and gas, or even condemn Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine? Because they are addicted to Russian oil and gas. Like drug addicts, many nations would experience extreme withdrawal symptoms, both economic and political, if Russia stopped the flow. And even though the U.S. is effectively energy independent, disruptions in the global oil/gas market impact energy prices here, in turn impacting our jobs, economy, and politics.
Those are the geopolitical facts of life of oil and gas addiction. We have received many wake-up calls since at least the early Seventies: Ukraine is just the latest. Yet we remain as addicted as ever.
And our addiction impacts more than just geopolitics. Alarms are also ringing for Earth’s warming climate, as they have for over 30 years. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report just gave its most dire warnings yet. We are urgently in need of waking up, as it is now clear there will be seriously harmful social, economic, and environmental consequences to continuing our fossil fuels addiction.
Fossil fuels have been the main catalyst for advances in human welfare over the past few centuries, and we will need to continue burning them to some degree for many decades to come. But there is no doubt that the time has come to wean ourselves from them – and quickly.
The transition away from fossil fuels will entail disruptions to business as usual. All transitions do – like the Industrial Revolution, the switch from horses to cars, or the digital revolution. All change generates resistance, but most people would agree these disruptions were worth it, that humanity ultimately ended up healthier and more prosperous.
Likewise, our transition away from fossil fuels is generating resistance, but the benefits of conquering our fossil fuel addiction will be enormous, far outweighing any disadvantages. Within a few decades, we can generate huge numbers of new jobs, save trillions of dollars in energy costs and trillions in GDP, and another trillion in health care costs due to a reduction in things like strokes, heart attacks, asthma attacks, and other air quality-related maladies. We can reduce our vulnerability to energy-related geopolitical storms. Russia or OPEC will no longer hold democratic nations hostage by threatening to cut off their gas or oil. We can live in a nation where the cost of energy doesn’t go up and down at the whims of other nations who do not have our best interests at heart. We can halt the trends of deadlier storms, more intense heat waves, droughts and water scarcity, wildfires, floods, rising seas, reduced agricultural output, biodiversity loss, and the death of coral reefs, the incubators for so much ocean life.
To achieve all this, we have to dedicate ourselves to kicking our habit.
Step 1 of recovery from our addiction is to end denial and admit a problem exists. We are finally entering that stage with climate. Polling data indicates a large majority of U.S. citizens now agree the climate is warming, worry about it, and agree humans are the cause. Now for our next step to recovery: Forge plans of action to change our unhealthy behaviors and follow through on them. Put a price on greenhouse gas emissions, convert to clean energy sources, remake our transportation system, and redouble our energy efficiency efforts. It’s time we stop hitting the snooze button on our fossil fuel addiction.
Bob Hendricks is a Citizens’ Climate Lobby congressional liaison and Texas state coordinator and a longtime political and environmental activist in Austin. Mark Warren is a Citizens’ Climate Lobby Austin member, Business Climate Lobby member, a longtime environmentalist, and a native Austinite born here in 1950.
Re: Feb. 12 letter to the editor, “Liberals’ goal of implementing deal would drive up energy costs.”
The Texas Railroad Commission’s chair refers to Texas’ oil and gas as “cheap and reliable energy.” Leaving aside his claim of reliability, he can call Texas petroleum “cheap” only by ignoring the immense cost of its contributions to air pollution and climate degradation.
This is a classic market failure. Markets work properly only if prices reflect costs, and petroleum prices that omit its environmental costs amount to an enormous subsidy, giving fossil fuels an unfair advantage over clean energy sources such as wind, solar and nuclear.
To correct the market failure, the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act would correct the market failure by imposing a fee on fossil fuels. To avoid shocking the economy, the fee begins small and rises on a predictable schedule. To prevent hardship for low-income families, the fee’s proceeds are returned to American families, giving the plan its nickname, “Carbon Cashback.”
Re: Feb. 12 letter to the editor, ‘Liberals’ goal of implementing deal would drive up energy costs’
The chairman of the Railroad Commission exemplifies why we are not able to address the climate crisis. He needs to listen to what Texans want:
Climate change is not a liberal or conservative issue; it is a major crisis for humanity.
Republicans and Democrats who look at scientific facts without a bias realize that harmful emissions from coal, oil and gas are warming the planet.
A majority of Texans want sustainable energy path that would not harm our state or the U.S. and that would reduce intensity of extreme weather events.
Texas has shown leadership in renewable energy production and can continue to maintain that without sacrificing health and well-being of people if investments in clean energy were accelerated
We need to stabilize the climate, which is not possible with current policies.
Re: Feb. 12 letter to the editor, “Liberals’ goal of implementing deal would drive up energy costs.”
Wayne Christian, the chair of the Railroad Commission, promises “access to cheap and reliable energy.” Unfortunately, “cheap” has turned out to be quite expensive.
Examples of what “cheap” has brought us include the 2011 Bastrop fire, Hurricane Harvey in Houston and the February 2021 winter storm. If we don’t change course, “cheap” will continue to get more expensive.
To avoid this escalation of costs, we need to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels, that simple. That’s what Biden’s Green New Deal is about.
Voices of Austin @CCLATX 