Skepticism

[M. Henri Day]

...

The US is leading the world in conservation, and innovation, barring mass euthanasia, we are booming population-wise, All over the world, and homes, domociles of all kinds are made of wood, primarily, I'm sure there are some drawbacks, but rather than spending all our time pointing our fingers , the US is looking for solutions....

this is just one example, What I want to hear from now on, is more bragging on one's country than putting down of other's.

Katy, below a New York Times article on one technique that could be extremely useful - at least in the short run (half a century). But it will take political will, exerted by people like yourself who care about the effects of our activities on the environment, to force those whose main interest are quarterly results, to make the necessary investments. One Swedish firm, Vattenfall (which by no means should be regarded as a paragon of environmental virtue) is, in fact, making such investments in its new coal-fired powerplants Germany, presumably because German environmental regulations make it profitable to do so. It would be a great step forward if regulations in the US were changed to make such investments profitable there, as well. I am convinced that this would lead not merely to less pollution in the US, but also in China, which watches very carefully what the US does....

Henri

May 22, 2005

Dirty Secret: Coal Plants Could Be Much Cleaner

By KENNETH J. STIER

ALMOST a decade ago, Tampa Electric opened an innovative power plant that turned coal, the most abundant but the dirtiest fossil fuel, into a relatively clean gas, which it burns to generate electricity. Not only did the plant emit significantly less pollution than a conventional coal-fired power plant, but it was also 10 percent more efficient.

Hazel R. O'Leary, the secretary of energy at the time, went to the plant, situated between Tampa and Orlando, and praised it for ushering in a "new era for clean energy from coal." Federal officials still refer to the plant's "integrated gasification combined cycle" process as a "core technology" for the future, especially because of its ability - eventually - to all but eliminate the greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

Since that plant opened, however, not a single similar plant has been built in the United States. Abundant supplies of natural gas - a bit cleaner and, until recently, a lot cheaper - stood in the way.

But even now, with gas prices following oil prices into the stratosphere and power companies turning back to coal, most new plants - about nine out of 10 on the drawing board - will not use integrated gasification combined-cycle technology.

The reason is fairly simple. A plant with the low-pollution, high-efficiency technology demonstrated at the Tampa Electric plant is about 20 percent more expensive to build than a conventional plant that burns pulverized coal. This complicates financing, especially in deregulated markets, while elsewhere utilities must persuade regulators to set aside their customary standard of requiring utilities to use their lowest-cost alternatives. (A federal grant of $143 million covered about a fourth of the construction cost of the Tampa Electric plant, which was originally a demonstration project.)

The technology's main long-term advantage - the ability to control greenhouse gas emissions - is not winning over many utilities because the country does not yet regulate those gases.

That could be a problem for future national policy, critics say, because the plants being planned today will have a lifetime of a half-century or more. "It's a very frightening specter that we are going to essentially lock down our carbon emissions for the next 50 years before we have another chance to think about it again," said Jason S. Grumet, the executive director of the National Commission on Energy Policy.

The commission, an independent, bipartisan advisory body, has recommended that the federal government spend an additional $4 billion over 10 years to speed the power industry's acceptance of the technology. In a recent report, the commission concluded that "the future of coal and the success of greenhouse gas mitigation policies may well hinge to a large extent on whether this technology can be successfully commercialized and deployed over the next 20 years."

Mr. Grumet was more succinct. Integrated gasification combined cycle technology, combined with the sequestration of carbon stripped out in the process, "is as close to a silver bullet as you're ever going to see, " he said.

Until Congress regulates carbon emissions - a move that many in the industry consider inevitable, but unlikely soon - gasification technology will catch on only as its costs gradually come down. Edward Lowe, general manager of gasification for GE Energy, a division of General Electric that works with Bechtel to build integrated gasification combined-cycle plants, said that would happen as more plants were built. The premium should disappear entirely after the first dozen or so are completed, he added.

Even now, Mr. Lowe said, the technology offers operational cost savings that offset some of the higher construction costs. And if Congress eventually does limit carbon emissions, as many utility executives say they expect it to do, the technology's operational advantages could make it a bargain.

James E. Rogers, the chief executive of Cinergy, a heavily coal-dependent Midwestern utility, is one of the technology's biggest industry supporters. "I'm making a bet on gasification," he said, because he assumes a carbon-constrained world is inevitable. "I don't see any other way forward," he said.

The operating savings of such plants start with more efficient combustion: they make use of at least 15 percent more of the energy released by burning coal than conventional plants do, so less fuel is needed. The plants also need about 40 percent less water than conventional coal plants, a significant consideration in arid Western states.

But for some people, including Mr. Rogers and other utility leaders who anticipate stricter pollution limits, the primary virtue of integrated gasification combined-cycle plants is their ability to chemically strip pollutants from gasified coal more efficiently and cost-effectively, before it is burned, rather than trying to filter it out of exhaust.

Proponents say that half of coal's pollutants - including sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, which contribute to acid rain and smog - can be chemically stripped out before combustion. So can about 95 percent of the mercury in coal, at about a tenth the cost of trying to scrub it from exhaust gases racing up a smokestack.

The biggest long-term draw for gasification technology is its ability to capture carbon before combustion. If greenhouse-gas limits are enacted, that job will be much harder and more expensive to do with conventional coal-fired plants. Mr. Lowe, the G.E. executive, estimated that capturing carbon would add about 25 percent to the cost of electricity from a combined-cycle plant burning gasified coal, but that it would add 70 percent to the price of power from conventional plants.

Gasification technology, although new to the power sector, has been widely used in the chemical industry for decades, and the general manager of the gasification plant run by Tampa Electric, Mark Hornick, said it was not difficult to train his employees to run the plant. Tampa Electric is the principal subsidiary of TECO Energy of Tampa.

Disposing of the carbon dioxide gas stripped out in the process, however, is another matter. Government laboratories have experimented with dissolving the gas in saline aquifers or pumping it into geologic formations under the sea. The petroleum industry has long injected carbon dioxide into oil fields to help push more crude to the surface.

Refining and commercializing these techniques is a significant part of a $35 billion package of clean energy incentives that the National Commission on Energy Policy is recommending. The Senate considered some of those ideas in a big energy policy bill last week, but it is doubtful whether Congress will approve the funds to enact them because they are tied to regulating carbon emissions for the first time, something that many industry leaders and sympathetic lawmakers oppose.

Still, the energy bill may have some incentives for industry to adopt gasification technology, and the Department of Energy will continue related efforts. These include FutureGen, a $950 million project to demonstrate gasification's full potential - not just for power plants but as a source of low-carbon liquid fuels for cars and trucks as well, and, further out, as a source of hydrogen fuel.

REGARDLESS of the politics of carbon caps, the Energy Department has made it clear that it intends to push the development of integrated gasification combined-cycle technology. Last month, for example, Mark Maddox, a deputy assistant secretary, said at an industry gathering that the technology "is needed in the mix - needed now."

Some industry leaders are skeptical, to say the least. "We would not want to put all of our eggs in one basket as far as a single technology is concerned," said William Fang, deputy counsel for the Edison Electric Institute, a trade association whose members, shareholder-owned utilities, account for three-quarters of the country's generating capacity.

Besides, he added, many of his members think that mandatory carbon controls, in place in much of the world since the Kyoto Protocol came into force in February, can be kept at bay in the United States - possibly indefinitely.

It's a risky strategy - for industry and for the climate. "Coal-fired plants are big targets," said Judi Greenwald of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, "and if we do get serious about climate change, they are going to be on the list of things to do quite early."

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Apoclima]

Proponents say that half of coal's pollutants - including sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, which contribute to acid rain and smog - can be chemically stripped out before combustion. So can about 95 percent of the mercury in coal, at about a tenth the cost of trying to scrub it from exhaust gases racing up a smokestack.

Good idea! I hope they can make it cost effective!

...many of his members think that mandatory carbon controls, in place in much of the world since the Kyoto Protocol came into force in February, can be kept at bay in the United States - possibly indefinitely.

Kept at bay with good reason!

How easy it is to speak of disaster and apocalypse. The words roll off the tongue with little effort and even less forethought. And that’s why talk is cheap. But evidence, now that’s something else. It, and it alone, is what all calls to action should be based upon; anything else is but political prose or positioned propaganda, providing an illusion of reality but never revealing its true nature.

Approximately 700 to 1100 years ago, for example, during the Medieval Warm Period, earth’s temperature was almost as warm as it is today (Lamb, 1984; Grove, 1988; Lamb, 1988). What is more, atmospheric CO2 levels back then were about 20% less than they are now (Etheridge et al., 1998). Similarly, during the Climatic Optimum that prevailed from 7,000 to 9,000 years ago, air temperatures were as much as 2°C warmer than at present (Houghton et al., 1990), and the CO2 content of the air was approximately 30% lower than it is today (Boden et al., 1994). Hence, there is no compelling reason to believe that rising CO2 levels are causing the world’s temperature to rise. Something else – or nothing else, i.e., natural unforced climatic variability – has caused even greater warming and cooling in the past; and if it’s done it before, it can do it again. In fact, climate history is even better than human history in repeating itself.

Ecologist’s "Declaration on Climate Change" Lacks Scientific Credibility

Apo

[KatyBr]

Henri? can't you find a less reliable source than the New York Times? CBS news perhaps, both caught in their perfidy, I'd prefer to hear from real sources, not known unabashed misdirectors.....

Katy

[M. Henri Day]

Katy, I try to scan different sources, from different countries and continents and which represent differing interests and divergent viewpoints, on the, probably naive, assumption that by so doing I might be able to identify, and to some degree, counteract inherent bias. For me, the New York Times represents a valuable source, although I often disagree with many of the points of view underlying much of what is published in the journal. But more concretely what did you find offensive in Mr Stier's article ? I found the fact that there exists an effective industrial-scale technology to scrub coal, the single fossil energy source likely to be available to us over the medium term, to be encouraging. Given the vast coal resources found in that country, I should have expected that also residents of the United States would find the news positive....

Henri

[KatyBr]

Henri, I find it uplifting to see that innovations are in the works for cleaning up our environment while still producing power. I was merely questioning your sources most of which seem to be those I find dubious. While the facts could be straight, one never knows for sure....

Katy

[M. Henri Day]

The article below, reproduced from today's Washington Post, when taken together with the one taken from the New York Times, supra, suffices to show that decisions affecting our environment are not based merely - or indeed, mainly - on the technology available, but rather on who is to pay....

Henri

washingtonpost.com
Wisconsin Power Plant Is Called A Setback for the Environment
Utility Denies That Technology It Plans to Use Is Outdated

By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 29, 2005; A03

RACINE, Wis. -- The tall towers of a coal-fired power plant on the shores of Lake Michigan represent a new front in a national struggle over energy technology and the environmental performance of expanding energy companies.

So far, in the view of environmental activists, water and air quality are being cheated.

The battle here concerns a proposal to double the capacity of the Oak Creek power plant, located south of Milwaukee. Opponents say the new twin 600-megawatt generators would use unacceptably old technology, spilling excessive pollution into the air and disturbing aquatic life by sucking billions of gallons of lake water each week into its cooling pipes.

The Oak Creek project could have implications for dozens of future coal-powered plants across the country, according to advocates and legal analysts. If energy companies find they can use older, less expensive designs without government objection, critics say they will be less likely to invest in more healthful and environmentally friendly technology.

"This will be the seventh-largest power plant in the country in an area that already violates federal air quality standards. They will be burning the dirtiest type of fuel and using the dirtiest type of combustion technology," said Bruce Nilles, senior Midwest representative of the Sierra Club. "EPA sat on their hands and did nothing."

"The stakes are huge," said Jennifer Giegerich, director of the Wisconsin office of the Public Interest Research Group. "Wisconsin is on the front end of a lot of major energy stations. What kind of new generation are we going to bring on-line? Is it going to be coal? It's a big issue in terms of who gets to decide."

A coalition of environmental and health groups and local businesses is demanding better from the plant owner, Wisconsin Electric Power Co. Yet their larger complaint is with state and federal authorities, particularly the Environmental Protection Agency, which they contend are weakening decades-old air and water standards.

In a series of lawsuits, opponents are challenging the decision making on Oak Creek. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan took the unusual step of opposing the project in the Wisconsin Supreme Court. She has called the proposal "an outdated, environmentally destructive plant design that Illinois has banned for more than 30 years."

Regulatory agencies and Wisconsin Electric insist they played by the rules. Charlene J. Denys, chief of the EPA's safe drinking water branch in Chicago, said opponents "aren't fundamentally happy with the regulatory requirements or have other interpretations."

"This plant is very important to ensure affordable energy that our customers need for the future," Oak Creek spokesman Thad Nation said. "This is the best available proven technology on the market today. This is not the coal plants that were being built 30 and 40 years ago. These are substantially better-performing."

Wisconsin Electric, better known as We Energies, operates the 51-year-old Oak Creek site and sought five years ago to add 1,800 megawatts in three generators. Two would use traditional pulverized coal, while the third would employ an integrated gasified coal process that burns more efficiently and allows the capture of dangerous substances before they enter the environment.

In 2003, the Wisconsin Public Service Commission supported the two pulverized-coal units, but objected to the gasification structure -- proposed for a site some distance from the existing plant -- as "not cost effective." According to Nation, the company believes "coal gasification is the future," yet considers the method unproven because no large plants have been built and tested.

Opponents of the two surviving units coalesced around several arguments. They worried about the effects the powerful generators, due on-line in 2009-10, would have on the environment. And they complained about the way the project won state and federal approval.

The Oak Creek additions would add to air pollution and disrupt the aquatic ecosystem in Lake Michigan, the critics argued. New employers already have turned away from southeastern Wisconsin because of air quality problems and the resulting regulatory restrictions, according to opponents who argued that the new units would make things worse.

In her friend-of-the-court brief, Madigan said the proposed project would deposit 1 1/2 pounds of mercury a year into the lake and as much as 120 pounds into the atmosphere at a time when Wisconsin and Illinois waters are subject to an advisory against eating too much predatory fish. A Harvard School of Public Health survey warned that three-fourths of the burden of air pollution would fall on Illinois and other states beyond Wisconsin.

Madigan and environmental groups accused Wisconsin authorities of paying too little attention to alternatives, including the possibility of substituting gasified coal units for the two units that won approval. She also criticized Wisconsin for allowing a system called "once-through cooling," which is banned in Illinois and Indiana.

The giant electricity generators at Oak Creek would be cooled by 2.2 billion gallons of cold water sucked each day through 20 intake pipes implanted 1½ miles from the shore in Lake Michigan. The warmed water would then be returned to the lake after passing through the heated plant.

Environmental scientists contend that incalculable numbers of fish and microorganisms would die, harming the ecology of the lake. The EPA declined last year to require closed cooling towers for large plants nationwide, citing the increased expense.

Nation, the We Energies spokesman, said replacing the Oak Creek system with closed cooling towers would require a larger plant at greater expense and would mean a loss of 40 million gallons of water a day through condensation. The cost, many environmental groups believe, would be worth the benefit.

Perhaps the most contentious aspect of the Oak Creek challenge is the set of rules that governs the plant's design.

Opponents argue that the facility should be considered new and should not benefit from the looser environmental standards permitted for upgrades of older power stations. The EPA and its Wisconsin counterpart disagreed.

"They are building a whole new plant and a new intake and discharge structure, and the volume will be much higher. For them to argue this is an existing facility just boggles the mind," said Chip Brewer, director of government relations for S.C. Johnson & Son Inc., the large Racine-based manufacturer of such products as Windex, Edge, OFF! and Ziploc bags.

Opponents point to language inserted last year into the preamble of the Clean Water Act. The wording appears to benefit We Energies, they said, by expanding the definition of what is considered an existing plant.

In an internal EPA e-mail last year, Peter Howe, a life scientist in the agency's Chicago office, said it was "unequivocal that prior to the language change that this was a New Facility." A supervisor later warned Howe that his memo on the project was "the pre-mature opinion of a zealous staff member."

EPA water division official Ephraim King in Washington said the measure was open for public comment. He said he has no reason to believe that We Energies influenced the wording.

"This rule is not basically tied to or predicated upon any single facility. It's based on a careful and balanced examination of all the comments that we've received," said King, director of the office of science and technology. He added that the regulation is "making important environmental progress."

Columbia University attorney Reed Super, who is leading a legal challenge to federal clean water practice, called Oak Creek "the poster child of the worst that can happen" under the Bush administration's approach to the Clean Water Act. Environmentalists want authorities to enforce the pledge in 1970s laws to use the best available technology to minimize environmental impact.

Such critics believe that when Wisconsin gave its approval, the EPA should have stepped in to require a more environmentally friendly solution.

In a setback to We Energies, a Dane County judge late last year revoked the Public Service Commission's approval, ruling that the power company did not offer sufficient alternatives to its Oak Creek site. That is the case on appeal to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which is expected to rule by the end of June.

If the court rules in the company's favor, Nation said, We Energies hopes to break ground within two months. The Sierra Club's Nilles says not so fast.

"Even if the Supreme Court rules against us," Nilles said, "the fight is very, very far from over."

Staff writer Kari Lydersen in Chicago contributed to this report.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

[M. Henri Day]

In contrast to the article reproduced in the posting above, the one which follows provides some concrete information about what can - and is ! - being done to reduce climatic (and other) pollution through more efficient use of resources. Think what could be acheived if a technological powerhouse like the United States were to follow Japan's lead, dragging inefficient producers like China and India behind them !...

Henri

PS : Apo, my concern is not with the survival of the planet, which seems destined to stick it out another five thousand million years before being engulfed by an expanding sun ; it can certainly withstand new cycles of warming and cooling. My worries, instead, concern what's going to happen to a lot of fellow H sap sap if we continue to modify the climate, allow topsoil to be blown away or covered with asphalt, and poison our air and our water without restraint. Rampant speciesism though this may be, somehow my first thoughts turn to members of our, not-so-little group....

June 4, 2005

Japan Squeezes to Get the Most of Costly Fuel

By JAMES BROOKE

TOKYO, June 3 - Surging oil prices and growing concerns about meeting targets to cut greenhouse gases produced by burning fossil fuels have revived efforts around the world to improve energy efficiency. But perhaps nowhere is the interest greater than here in Japan.

Even though Japan is already among the most frugal countries in the world, the government recently introduced a national campaign, urging the Japanese to replace their older appliances and buy hybrid vehicles, all part of a patriotic effort to save energy and fight global warming. And big companies are jumping on the bandwagon, counting on the moves to increase sales of their latest models.

On the Matsushita appliance showroom floor these days, the numbers scream not the low, low yen prices, but the low, low kilowatt-hours.

A vacuum-insulated refrigerator, which comes with a buzzer if the door stays open more than 30 seconds, boasts that it will use 160 kilowatt-hours a year, one-eighth of that needed by standard models a decade ago. An air-conditioner with a robotic dust filter cleaner proclaims it uses 884 kilowatt-hours, less than half of what decade-old ones consumed.

"It's like squeezing a dry towel" for the last few drips, said Katsumi Tomita, an environmental planner for the Matsushita Electric Industrial Company, maker of the Panasonic brand and known for its attention to energy efficiency. "The honest feeling of Japanese people is, 'How can we do more?' "

A number of other affluent countries with few domestic energy resources of their own are responding in similar ways.

In Germany, where heating accounts for the largest share of home energy use, a new energy saving law has as its standard the "seven-liter house," designed to use just seven liters of oil to heat one square meter for a year, about one-third the amount consumed by a house built in 1973, before the first oil price shock. Three-liter houses - even one-liter designs - are now being built.

In Singapore, where year-round air-conditioning often accounts for 60 percent of a building's power bill, new codes are encouraging the use of things like heat-blocking window films and hookups to neighborhood cooling systems, where water is chilled overnight.

In Hong Kong, many more buildings now have "intelligent" elevator systems in which computers minimize unnecessary stops. Parking restrictions encourage bus and rail transit, and authorities are also pushing hybrid cars equipped with engines that shut down when idling.

Other countries, including the United States, the world's largest energy consumer by far, have lagged behind, but even American consumers are starting to turn their backs on big sport utility vehicles and looking at more fuel-efficient cars in response to higher gasoline prices.

But Japan is where energy consciousness probably reaches the highest levels. The country has the world's second-largest economy, but it produces virtually no oil or gas, importing 96 percent of its energy needs.

This dependence on imports has prodded the nation into tremendous achievements in improved efficiency. France and Germany, where government crusades against global warming have become increasingly loud, expend almost 50 percent more energy to produce the equivalent of $1 in economic activity. Britain's energy use, on the same measure, is nearly double; the United States nearly triple; and China almost eight times as much.

From 1973 to today, Japan's industrial sector nearly tripled its output, but kept its energy consumption roughly flat. To produce the same industrial output as Japan, China consumes 11.5 times the energy.

At JFE Holdings, Japan's second-largest steel company, plastic pellets made from recycled bottles now account for 10 percent of fuel in the main blast furnaces, reducing reliance on imported coal. Japanese paper mills are investing heavily in boilers that can be fueled by waste paper, wood and plastic. Within two years, half of the electricity used in the nation's paper mills is to come from burning waste.

Many easy steps were taken after the oil shocks of the 1970's. Now Japan is embarking on a new phase. Billions of dollars are being invested to reach a 2012 target of reducing Japan's emission of global warming gases to 6 percent below the 1990 level. These gases are released by burning oil, coal, and, to a lesser extent, natural gas - sources for about 81 percent of Japan's energy.

As host nation for the Kyoto Protocol on cutting greenhouse gases, Japan takes its commitment seriously. But it faces a big challenge. Figures released last month show Japan was 8.3 percent over the 1990 level for the fiscal year ended March 2004.

"We are now at the stage where we only save energy by investing in equipment," Mr. Tomita said of Matsushita's effort. "If we can collect money in three years, we invest."

With the Japanese prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, introducing its national campaign two months ago to meet the Kyoto targets, business is booming for energy service companies and consultants who advise companies on cutting energy bills.

But Japan's flattening of industrial energy consumption has not been matched in the transportation and residential sectors, where energy consumption has more than doubled since 1973, roughly pacing Japan's economic growth over the period.

Japan may be a mass transit nation, but now there is also a car for almost every Japanese household. Since 1970, the number of buses in Japan increased 23 percent, the number of trucks doubled, and the number of passenger cars increased more than sixfold, to 56 million.

With personal use accounting for the bulk of April's $6.4 billion bill for imported oil, Tokyo is trying to encourage greater efficiency by pushing fuel taxes even higher, lifting the pump price for gasoline to $4.70 a gallon, the highest in a decade.

During the 1990's, Japan's average fuel consumption per mile fell 13 percent. But since then, with more Japanese driving bigger cars, fuel efficiency growth has stalled.

Japan finds hope in the history of its refrigerators, which have doubled in size since 1981 as their energy use per liter has plunged 80 percent.

In hopes of working the same engineering magic on cars, Japan has extended its minicar tax breaks to hybrid cars - fuel-efficient vehicles that rely on a combination of a gasoline engine and an electric motor. Hybrid sales, while still relatively low in Japan, are growing fast. And in this environment, Toyota and Honda have become the world leaders in hybrid technology.

"We're entering the age of hybrid automobiles," Hiroyuki Watanabe, Toyota's senior managing director for environmental affairs, recently told journalists at the 2005 World Exposition Aichi, in Nagoya. "I want every car to have a hybrid engine."

The next energy-savings battleground is the home front.

After $1.3 billion in subsidies, about 160,000 homes have solar power systems. Solar power remains two to three times as expensive as the electricity supplied to households. But homeowners say that with time, the "free" electricity pays for the high installation costs. And the government is willing to devote taxes to the effort, preferring to spur rural employment through solar power installations to help reduce payments for foreign oil, coal and gas.

Although residential subsidies may be phased out, a Japanese government plan calls for increasing solar power generation 15-fold during this decade.

Japanese companies, notably Sharp, Kyocera, Mitsubishi and Sanyo, produce about half the world's photovoltaic solar panels, a roughly $10-billion-a-year market. With large commercial projects like a 4,740-panel generator going online at a filtration plant in Nara last month, Japan produces more than the combined total of the next biggest, Germany and the United States.

Prime Minister Koizumi is a political conservative who believes that saving oil starts at home. Visitors to his official residence here walk past a boxy hydrogen fuel-cell generator, a prototype installed by Matsushita in April to power the residence and educate the nation's leadership.

"Fuel cells are the key to the door of a new era in which we utilize hydrogen as an energy source," Mr. Koizumi told Parliament in 2002. "We intend to put them into practical use within three years, either as power sources for automobiles or households."

His government has set goals for cutting power consumption even further for the four main household appliances: televisions, 17 percent; personal computers, 30 percent; air- conditioners, 36 percent; and refrigerators, 72 percent. Engineers have been attacking the problem of the power used by appliances on standby, a drainage that can account for 5 percent to 10 percent of a household's energy consumption.

Still, while energy efficiency is seen as a patriotic act, many consumers in Japan are reluctant to part with working appliances, made with the Japanese ingenuity and attention to detail that ensure they will last for decades.

"The problem we are facing is over how much we induce consumers to trade in their appliances for more energy-efficient ones," Hajimi Sasaki, chairman of the NEC Corporation, a major appliance maker, said in April at a news conference billed as "Proposals Aimed at Overcoming Global Warming."

"I drive a hybrid car, and last fall I put heat-cutting film on some of our windows," he said. "And I intend to buy a new refrigerator."

Petra Kappl contributing reporting for this article from Frankfurt,

Wayne Arnold from Singapore and

Alyssa Lau from Hong Kong.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Apoclima]

Well, Henri! There's no fighting our genetics! There is no reason to blame people or try to change things, because, being a "happy" accident of nature, I think that we can look forward to more accidents. Why are you so concerned with the survival of Homo sapiens sapiens?

I think you might have a genetic flaw that does not allow you to adapt to our new world. Adapt or die, isn't it?

That's the way of nature!

Come on, man! Where is your nihilism? Playing with matches or wrestling with the inevitable?

Apo

[M. Henri Day]

...

I think you might have a genetic flaw that does not allow you to adapt to our new world. Adapt or die, isn't it?
...

You're of course quite right, Apo ; as a matter of fact my peculiar COSM (Crying Over Spilt Milk) mutation lies only a few kilobases from the gene that regulates sexual activity in Drosophila melanogaster....

Henri

[Apoclima]

Well, Henri, thanks for taking the joke as a joke!

I, of course, as a Lover of God's Creation, want a good justification for every felled tree and every dammed river, yet we as Human Beings are wont to shun the beauty of God's creation over our immediate needs (or desires).

Do you chastise the yeast in a bottle of grape juice that they are overpopulating the bottle and will destroy themselves in their own excrement?

No!

Do you try to talk lemmings out of their march to the sea?

No!

Why, then, dear Henri, would one bother about over-population or pollution of the environment?

On the one hand we are like fruit-flies with genetically determined behavior, and then on the other we are supposed to make "moral" judgements about what is right or wrong about our interaction with the planet.

Where do these moral judgements come from?

Does the random universe that (allegedly) produced us have a care, a template, a guide to go by?

No!

Morality, in a materialist sense, is just a random set of things that have worked, might work, or are genetically programmed into us! There is no objective morality in this view. Expediency and, therefore, survival are all that matter, and the poor yeast in the bottle are doomed by their own nature!

And if you see past this, Henri, where does this vision come from? Natural selection!

Apo

[M. Henri Day]

... and the poor yeast in the bottle are doomed by their own nature!
...

And we by ours to discussing questions of morality which make sense only in our limited frame of reference....

Henri

[M. Henri Day]

...

The US is leading the world in conservation, and innovation, ...

Katy, there are certainly a great number of people in the US working very hard indeed to promote conservation and, more specifically, deal with the problem that (pace Apo !) global warming represents. But the skepticism that many of us, both you citizens and residents in the US and we foreigners, feel concerning the environmental policies of the present US administration is unlikely to be diminished by the relevations to be found in the article, published in today's Guardian, that I reproduce below....

Henri

Revealed: how oil giant influenced Bush

White House sought advice from Exxon on Kyoto stance

John Vidal, environment editor
Wednesday June 8, 2005

Guardian

President's George Bush's decision not to sign the United States up to the Kyoto global warming treaty was partly a result of pressure from ExxonMobil, the world's most powerful oil company, and other industries, according to US State Department papers seen by the Guardian.
The documents, which emerged as Tony Blair visited the White House for discussions on climate change before next month's G8 meeting, reinforce widely-held suspicions of how close the company is to the administration and its role in helping to formulate US policy.

In briefing papers given before meetings to the US under-secretary of state, Paula Dobriansky, between 2001 and 2004, the administration is found thanking Exxon executives for the company's "active involvement" in helping to determine climate change policy, and also seeking its advice on what climate change policies the company might find acceptable.

Other papers suggest that Ms Dobriansky should sound out Exxon executives and other anti-Kyoto business groups on potential alternatives to Kyoto.

Until now Exxon has publicly maintained that it had no involvement in the US government's rejection of Kyoto. But the documents, obtained by Greenpeace under US freedom of information legislation, suggest this is not the case.

"Potus [president of the United States] rejected Kyoto in part based on input from you [the Global Climate Coalition]," says one briefing note before Ms Dobriansky's meeting with the GCC, the main anti-Kyoto US industry group, which was dominated by Exxon.

The papers further state that the White House considered Exxon "among the companies most actively and prominently opposed to binding approaches [like Kyoto] to cut greenhouse gas emissions".

But in evidence to the UK House of Lords science and technology committee in 2003, Exxon's head of public affairs, Nick Thomas, said: "I think we can say categorically we have not campaigned with the United States government or any other government to take any sort of position over Kyoto."

Exxon, officially the US's most valuable company valued at $379bn (£206bn) earlier this year, is seen in the papers to share the White House's unwavering scepticism of international efforts to address climate change.

The documents, which reflect unanimity between the company and the US administration on the need for more global warming science and the unacceptable costs of Kyoto, state that Exxon believes that joining Kyoto "would be unjustifiably drastic and premature".

This line has been taken consistently by President Bush, and was expected to be continued in yesterday's talks with Tony Blair who has said that climate change is "the most pressing issue facing mankind".

"President Bush tells Mr Blair he's concerned about climate change, but these documents reveal the alarming truth, that policy in this White House is being written by the world's most powerful oil company. This administration's climate policy is a menace to humanity," said Stephen Tindale, Greenpeace's executive director in London last night.

"The prime minister needs to tell Mr Bush he's calling in some favours. Only by securing mandatory cuts in US emissions can Blair live up to his rhetoric," said Mr Tindale.

In other meetings documented in the papers, Ms Dobriansky meets Don Pearlman, an international anti-Kyoto lobbyist who has been a paid adviser to the Saudi and Kuwaiti governments, both of which have followed the US line against Kyoto.

The purpose of the meeting with Mr Pearlman, who also represents the secretive anti-Kyoto Climate Council, which the administration says "works against most US government efforts to address climate change", is said to be to "solicit [his] views as part of our dialogue with friends and allies".

ExxonMobil, which was yesterday contacted by the Guardian in the US but did not return calls, is spending millions of pounds on an advertising campaign aimed at influencing politicians, opinion formers and business leaders in the UK and other pro-Kyoto countries in the weeks before the G8 meeting at Gleneagles.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

[William]

Henri, do you not realize that The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Guardian are all branches of the same tree? For a more balanced view I recommend that you read competing opinions, at least once in a while, try The Weekly Standard for example.

William

[M. Henri Day]

Good advice, William, which I shall try to follow, although alas, my reach as regards media theatens to exceed my grasp ! But do you possess any credible information to the effect that the concrete allegations regarding oil industry, and in particular, ExxonMobil influence over the climate policy promoted by the present US administration are false ? Has the Weekly Standard, for example, published any articles saying that it ain't so ?...

Henri

[William]

Henri, it seems to me that whenever you post articles, they are almost always from one of the three mentioned in my post, the NYT, the WP, or the Guardian. My suggestion was a generic one, not specifically targeting the Kyoto protocols nor any influence that Exxon/Mobile might or might not have on President Bush. That President Bush sought advice from this corporation is not surprising. I must admit that I did not read all of the articles you posted, but I would guess they mention nothing about President Bush's possible consultation with environmental scientists regarding the accords. It is probably a safe guess that Bush was predisposed not to sign the accords before consulting with Exxon/Mobile or others. And remember that in 1999 the United States Senate voted 95 to 0 (with 5 Senators either abstaining or not in attendance) to support a bipartisan resolution stating that the Senate would not ratify the Accords and President Clinton did not send it to the Senate. One of the sponsors of this resolution was Democrat Robert Byrd, one of Bush's most vehement critics.

The Weekly Standard is a subscription magazine. If you want to search its archives I believe you have to subscribe but you can get some current articles without a subscription.

For balance regarding the global warming debate I recommend this, this, and this.

The first article is by an environmental scientist who has been falsely accused of having ties to energy companies.

The second is an article about "prioritizing among competing values".

The last article is about why Russia also refuses to sign the Accords.

I have not forgotten my promise to ask my brother-in-law, the economist, for his opinion about the economic impact the accords might have on developed countries.

William