The Home Star bill—or, Cash for Caulkers—could create more than $9 billion in energy savings. (image: csmonitor.com)

Making your home more energy efficient could soon be more affordable than ever. On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed the Home Star Energy Retrofit Act—more informally known as Cash for Caulkers—to help homeowners make upgrades to lower their utility bills, said the Associated Press. The program, slated to cost $5.7 billion over two years, would also create jobs in the construction industry and reduce carbon emissions, its supporters say.

The Home Star bill proposes two different rebate programs that consumers could choose from. The first, named the “Silver Star” program, would offer rebates of up to 50 percent on a variety of home improvement projects and purchases of energy-efficient appliances. From weatherstripping and insulation to window replacements and efficient furnaces, homeowners could get a combination of rebates up to a total of $3,000.

The second program, dubbed the “Gold Star” program, requires a more extensive retrofit but also yields greater rewards. Homeowners who undergo a home energy audit and make improvements that increase energy efficiency by 20 percent would get a $3,000 rebate, the same amount as the maximum rebate under the Silver Star program. But under the Gold Star program, homeowners can earn more upgrades when they increase efficiency beyond 20 percent. For every 5 percent increase in efficiency beyond the 20 percent mark earns another $1,000, up to a maximum total rebate of $8,000.

Consumers would get the rebates, or discounts, directly from vendors at the point of sale. Vendors would then apply to the government for Home Star funds. In this way, the program would be more streamlined than the weatherization program included in the stimulus package, which has been slowed down by bureaucratic hurdles, as Fox News points out.

The Home Star bill had bipartisan sponsorship—Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) and Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) sponsored the bill—and received the backing of an unlikely coalition of environmental and business groups. However, when it came to the vote House Republicans mostly opposed the bill, citing concern over the high price tag when the House has not figured out a way to pay for the bill. John Boehner of Ohio succinctly summarized the Republican opposition:

We are going to authorize $6.6 billion of money we don’t have so we can caulk homes?

Home Star’s supporters counter that the program, expected to be used by 3 million households, would save $9.2 billion in energy costs over the next 10 years. With more money in their pockets, consumers could increase spending on other goods and stimulate economic recovery.

Don’t rush out and begin making purchases for your home retrofit just yet—the bill now moves to the Senate, which is still tangled up with a financial regulation bill and possible climate and energy legislation. But Home Star’s supporters think the bill could be on the legislative fast track, and Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) has predicted that the bill will become law this summer, just in time for households to weatherize and prepare for the winter.

For Bill Gates, insulation is a distraction from real work to combat global warming. (image: businesspundit.com)

Deadlines for reducing the world’s carbon emissions are fast approaching, and though most climate scientists have not yet succumb to despair, many have begun issuing grave warnings that climate change is upon us. It is, of course, discouraging that world leaders, aware of these warnings and the catastrophic events they presage, have been unable to agree on a single course of action, even as the rest of the world eagerly looks on. But perhaps they simply lack the will and vision of Bill Gates.

According to Gates, who apparently has time not only to run a charity foundation but to consider the matter of global pollution, there is only one tenable solution. In an opinion piece published by The Huffington Post, he suggests that to stand a chance against climate change, we must reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent before 2050. That means reducing emissions from transportation and electrical production in participating countries to zero. It also means doing away with frivolous attempts to cut down on CO2 by better insulating or weatherizing our homes.

Adopting as his motto “Innovation, Not Insulation,” Gates argues that “you can never insulate your way to zero [emissions] no matter what advocates of resource efficiency say…In fact it is doubtful that any such efforts in the rich countries will even offset the increase coming from richer lifestyles in places like China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, etc.” Which is to say that such programs as “Cash for Caulkers” and the Young Mainers Weatherization Corps are a monumental waste of time and resources, not only because their effect on carbon emissions is unsubstantial, but because they distract the average citizen from the real issue: getting transportation and electrical emissions to zero.

In response to Gates’s manifesto, Matthew McDermott of TreeHugger published on Thursday a lengthy counterargument defending the importance of energy efficiency and home weatherization. While supporting Gates’s claim that technical innovation is indeed important, McDermott points out that smaller efforts to cut down on carbon emissions can be just as significant. Indeed, studies by groups like the Rocky Mountain Institute show that “we could reduce electricity demand by 34% through efficiency improvements in the United States. That alone could replace 64% of coal fired electricity.” No small feat, McDermott says.

What both Gates and McDermott fail to consider, however, is the fact that individual consumers stand to benefit greatly from making their homes more energy efficient. Reduced heating bills are a great financial incentive to weatherize homes, and as any economist will tell you, the average consumer, no matter how concerned about the environment, is more likely to change their behavior when they stand to make some money.

HeatingOil.com has reported extensively on the benefits of home weatherization. For more on the subject, look here.

Massachusetts Senate candidates Martha Coakley and Scott Brown. (image: 3.bp.blogspot.com)

Tuesday’s special election in Massachusetts could have serious implications for climate legislation, SolveClimate.com reports. As voters go to the polls to elect a replacement for late U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy, they will be helping determine the fate of climate bills under consideration in Congress. Democrats currently enjoy a 60-vote majority in the Senate, a crucial number that can stop a Republican filibuster.

The candidates represent both sides of the climate debate, with Republican candidate Scott Brown, a state senator, clearly stating that he opposes cap and trade. If elected, he would “eagerly” side with Republican leaders against the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. Democratic candidate Martha Coakley, on the other hand, is an attorney general with a strong record in environmental policy. It was her office’s lawsuit against the EPA that resulted in last year’s declaration by the EPA that greenhouse gases are a public health hazard. If elected, Coakley will throw her support behind the impending climate change legislation.

If Coakley loses, (she trails in the latest polls by nine points) however, the Democrats’ loss of their “supermajority” in the Senate could signal a major shift in strategy for getting climate legislation passed. Speaking to Bloomberg News on Friday, Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) mentioned that Democrats could turn to a process called reconciliation to help health care legislation pass the Senate. Reconciliation was created specifically for consideration of budgets, and limits debate on the given bill to 20 hours, thereby blocking any filibuster attempts. This same process could be applied to a climate bill, but most Democrats seem opposed to the idea.

The long road towards climate legislation began with the House-sponsored American Clean Energy and Security Act, sponsored by Sens. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and William Markey (D-MA). After that passed, Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) took up the climate mantle in the Senate, working to get the Boxer-Kerry bill passed with an increased emissions reduction target of 20 percent. Recently, in response to the lukewarm reception by most Republicans and even some Democrats to the bill, Kerry began work with Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on a compromise. The new bill brings the goal of emissions reductions back to the 17 percent put forth in the bill the House passed, and carries through its support of the cap-and-trade system.

In the most recent attempt to save climate legislation from the beleaguered Kerry-Boxer bill, Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) have introduced a new bill known as the CLEAR Act, or the Carbon Limits and Energy for American Renewal Act. The two main differences between CLEAR and previous proposals are 1) the auction of emissions permits, with 75 percent of the revenues raised going back to energy consumers each month and 2) a limit on the involvement of investment banks and other financial institutions, including speculators, which had been a major worry for some Democrats.

Polls for today’s race show that it is a close one, with the possibility of it going either way. The future of climate legislation, and how fast we get there, will depend largely on the outcome. Regardless of who wins, it will likely still be a long road until final, binding legislation is passed, with some thinking it unlikely that anything will move forward in an election year. The result of today’s election will at the very least tell us what direction we’re heading in: moving toward the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, or taking two steps back.

Drivers on the Massachusetts Turnpike will likely be affected by the new fuel standard, but will it cover home heating oil? (image: historygradguy via flickr.com)

The Environmental Leader reported on Monday that 11 states in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic plan to adopt a low carbon fuel standard. The standard will be modeled after California’s fuel standard that requires a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from California’s transportation fuels by 10 percent by 2020.

The states signed a memorandum of understanding, which follows up on letters of intent to develop such a standard that the eleven states signed almost exactly a year ago.

Under the terms of the agreement, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland agree to develop a low carbon fuel standard to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation fuels, and possibly heating fuels.

With the exception of Pennsylvania, the states are members of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a regional cap and trade market designed to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

However, the oil industry objects to the establishment of a low carbon fuel standard. The American Petroleum Institute issued statements saying that the standard would lead to “higher costs and greater bureaucracy without achieving any progress in cutting national greenhouse gas emissions.”

Any regional low carbon fuel standard adopted by the 11 states will definitely affect transportation fuels. However, it might not extend to heating fuels. So, depending on how the standard is developed, it may or may not affect heating oil consumers.

(image: seattlepi.com)

In the wake of the largely-seen-as-failed climate talks in Copenhagen this month, news outlets, analysts, and politicians alike are trying to wrap their heads around what happened in Denmark. Most agree that the talks were a failure, many blaming the process itself. After all, getting 193 countries, all with their own challenges and interests, to agree on anything is a tall order.

Bloomberg columnist Eric Pooley takes it a step further. He points out that all parties going in to this conference knew it wasn’t going to produce a strong agreement, and that fact hinged on one country alone: the United States. Without a firm commitment from the U.S. Senate concerning emissions reduction, few others were willing to lay their cards on the table, and talks suffered because of it. George Monbiot of the U.K. Guardian said as much, perhaps in a more blunt fashion, in his commentary entitled “If you want to know who’s to blame for Copenhagen, look to the U.S. Senate.”

According to Pooley, President Obama knew this going into the Copenhagen talks, having decided to direct his focus on health care instead of climate change. He also believes that Obama needs to mount a “full-scale public education campaign” to educate Americans just exactly what is at stake. He needs to convince his public that addressing climate change will help the economy, not doom it to fail. And after all the preparation that went into Copenhagen, all the hoopla, the posturing, and the protest, “we are where we were: waiting for Obama to lead the charge in the Senate.”

Over at the Wall Street Journal, Nigel Lawson, former U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer under Margaret Thatcher, calls for a Plan B in dealing with climate change. Lawson first acknowledges that Copenhagen “predictably – achieved precisely nothing.” He attributes the failure to the massive costs associated with decarbonizing the world’s economies. Coal and oil are largely used for one reason: they are cheap. And in the developing world, where hundreds of millions of people are still dealing with extreme poverty, switching from these dirty forms of energy while continuing to industrialize is just not feasible.

Lawson proposes what some might see as a radical approach to climate change, which is abandoning Kyoto, abandoning Copenhagen, and adapting “to whatever changes in temperature may in the future arise.” He argues this will allow us to derive the many benefits of a warmer world while at the same time reducing the costs. Addressing these problems directly as they arise, he says, will be far more cost-effective than our current ideas, and does not require a global agreement. Beyond the idea of adaptation, his plan includes “a relatively modest, increased government investment in technological research and development—in energy, in adaptation and in geoengineering.”

He then points out that it will likely never happen, due to the trauma and deprivation many would feel at having no climate conference to attend.

Opinions continue to abound in every direction over the climate talks. An editorial on FinancialTimes.com calls for a revival of international cooperation, arguing that the U.S. and China, not as ideologically far apart as they might think, can take the lead. The U.K. Guardian even had a positive spin on their political blog, saying that if countries come to Mexico (where the next large-scale international meeting on climate change is scheduled to take place) with a greater sense of realism and a new attitude, Copenhagen “may yet be seen as a useful fresh start.” And the staff over at Politico.com posted a bevy of takes and opinions from various politicians and commentators that range from calling Barack Obama the big winner, to calling the U.N. process limited.

The fallout from Copenhagen will likely keep coming for months, if not years. With all their talk of “action now” and making real progress in Denmark, we still walked away from the table with little to show. Perhaps Copenhagen’s greatest legacy will be in teaching the world how not to get things done. Which, at this point, would be a step in the right direction.

The seeds of the Jatropha curcas plant are used to make biofuel. (image: sustainabledesignupdate.com)

Building on the success of their ethanol program, which posted profits of 120 million over two quarters this year, Valero recently announced plans to add fuel made from the jatropha plant to their roster of biofuels. Indeed, biofuel is one of the only areas of Valero’s business that is growing, as crude prices and low demand have reduced total profits and forced the closure of the company’s largest refinery in Delaware. The New York Times’ Green Inc. blog reported on Friday that Valero has signed a five-year deal with an Australian refiner, Mission New Energy, to supply the oil giant with 60 million gallons of jatropha-derived biodiesel per year.

Jatropha is one of a number of plant sources for biofuel that is showing promise as a crop that can be cultivated without competing with land used for food production. A hardy plant resistant to pests and drought, jatropha grows well in marginal soil and produces oil-rich pods. Along with salicornia, which grows in saltwater, and algae grown in vertical farming units, jatropha is currently being touted as one of the most promising sources for plant-based biofuels. In particular, oil made from jatropha seems particularly well adapted for use in jet biofuel.

As we’ve reported previously, jet biofuel is expected to be approved for commercial use by the end of 2010, and the groundwork is already being laid for its distribution in sizeable quantities. BioJet Corp. out of Santa Barbara, CA, for example, has already delivered 4 million barrels of jatropha-oil jet biofuel to a major aviation broker and plans to distribute 30 million barrels annually. Also, the the International Air Transport Association (IATA), an association which represents 93 percent of all scheduled flights internationally, claims that the use of jet biofuel could bring about an 80 percent reduction in the carbon dioxide emissions caused by air travel.

If jatropha proves to be as viable as it is expected to be, Valero’s new investment will be a wise one, indeed. The feasibility of cultivating the plant on such a large scale, however, has yet to be determined. Some early reports from growers indicate that yields may not be as high as predicted. Nevertheless, the potential commercial value of biofuels both to producers, and to consumers—who could reap the benefits of lower prices for petroleum products in the short term and lower costs of energy from a renewable source in the long term—remains clear.