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Global Warming Bill Means Thousands of New Jobs

Major global warming legislation would add more than 800,000 new jobs in America by 2025, according to a new study released today by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The bi-partisan bill, the Climate Stewardship Act, sponsored by John McCain (R-AZ) and Joe Lieberman (D-CT) in the Senate, and Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD) and John Olver (D-MA) in the House, would trigger new development and investment in clean energy technologies, bringing much-needed employment to states and diverse job sectors across the country. The Climate Stewardship Act, otherwise known as McCain-Lieberman, would set a nationwide standard for global warming pollution while creating a market-based system encouraging maximum technological innovation and profitable opportunities for companies to cut emissions. The study, Jobs and the Climate Stewardship Act: How Curbing Global Warming Can Increase Employment, evaluated the employment effects of the bill, released today at the Senate Radio-TV Gallery. Among the findings of the study: * National increases of 510,000 new jobs by 2015; 602,000 new jobs by 2020; and 801,000 new jobs by 2025. * Largest job gains would occur in construction, wholesale and retail trade, and medical services and other service industries due to increased energy-efficiency and lower energy costs. * Energy and […]

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Wind Power Is Becoming a Better Bargain

by Matthew L. Wald, February 13, 2005 With every turn of the giant blades of the 136 windmills here on the edge of a mesa, the stiff desert breeze is replacing expensive natural gas or other fuel that would have been burned in a power plant somewhere else. Wind energy makes up a small fraction of electric generation in this country, but the rising price of natural gas has made wind look like a bargain; in some cases, it is cheaper to build a wind turbine and let existing natural gas generators stand idle. Giant, modern wind farms like the New Mexico Wind Energy Center here may become more common if prices continue to rise. The center, 150 miles east of Albuquerque, opened in the summer of 2003 and is one of the largest in the country. The power is bought by the state’s largest utility, Public Service of New Mexico, and provides about 4 percent of that company’s electricity over the course of a year. In March, when demand is low and winds are usually strong, the project generates 10 percent of the electricity the company supplies. The state has established a goal of using 10 percent renewable energy […]

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CA. Moves to Protect Ratepayers from Future Greenhouse Gas Regulations

A decision by the California PUC directs the state’s largest electric utilities to include CO2 costs between $8-25 per ton when evaluating the economics of future energy resource additions. In a December 2004 decision [published formally on January 20, 2005] the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) adopted a range of values to explicitly account for the financial risk associated with greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Investor-owned utilities [PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric] are ordered to use a value between $8 to $25 per ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the evaluation of future fossil generation bids. The adder is applicable to longer-term power acquisitions with contractual terms lasting more than five years. Through about the year 2011, up to 2,200 MW of capacity additions have been forecasted by the three utilities that would apply the CO2 adder. The GHG value will be added to the prices bid in future request for offers (RFOs), and will be used to develop a more accurate price comparison between and among fossil, renewable and demand-side bids. The PUC order states, “Regardless of which bid is ultimately selected, the adder will not be paid to that generator or charged to ratepayers; […]

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