Better Data, Better Lives. That was the theme of the second World Statistics Day celebrated two years ago on October 20th, 2015. The holiday was designed for celebration every five years, but in light of recent attacks on climate science, it is critical to showcase the value of clean energy data now, more than ever. […]

The post Why better energy data equals better lives – now more than ever appeared first on Energy Exchange.

Better Data, Better Lives. That was the theme of the second World Statistics Day celebrated two years ago on October 20th, 2015. The holiday was designed for celebration every five years, but in light of recent attacks on climate science, it is critical to showcase the value of clean energy data now, more than ever. […]

Better Data, Better Lives. That was the theme of the second World Statistics Day celebrated two years ago on October 20th, 2015. The holiday was designed for celebration every five years, but in light of recent attacks on climate science, it is critical to showcase the value of clean energy data now, more than ever. […]

Better Data, Better Lives. That was the theme of the second World Statistics Day celebrated two years ago on October 20th, 2015. The holiday was designed for celebration every five years, but in light of recent attacks on climate science, it is critical to showcase the value of clean energy data now, more than ever. […]

The post Why better energy data equals better lives – now more than ever appeared first on Energy Exchange.

By Andy Bilich

Better Data, Better Lives.

That was the theme of the second World Statistics Day celebrated two years ago on October 20th, 2015. The holiday was designed for celebration every five years, but in light of recent attacks on climate science, it is critical to showcase the value of clean energy data now, more than ever.

So, why is clean energy data important? Why do we need it? As a data analyst, I expect to answer or debate questions about the significance, trends, and use of data. But I don’t usually expect questioning why data should exist in the first place.

Upon reflection, however, I’d say the simplest response is this: We need clean energy data to progress economically, socially, and technologically.

From a family trying to save money on their electricity bill to the global community collaborating on a cleaner, more renewable future, energy data can unlock an unending list of benefits by facilitating the design of effective policies, empowering people and businesses with information, and spurring energy innovation. Here are a just a few of those benefits.

Why better energy data equals better lives – Now more than ever
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Effective policies

Good policy solves problems, and good policy is built on clear, transparent, and accessible data.

These days, energy data seem to be used more often defensively, to critically evaluate energy policy (or lack thereof). For example, data show clean energy doesn’t cause reliability problems for the electric grid (in fact, clean energy may actually boost the grid). So, when Energy Secretary Rick Perry ignores existing evidence and instead issues a bailout for uneconomic coal plants by claiming coal is necessary for reliability, data can help hold him accountable and inform American taxpayers about the multi-billion dollars such a move would cost them.

Similarly, data expose dangers, like the devastating impact a potential solar tariff would have on the future of the solar energy industry. Data show that a tariff would make large commercial solar projects less cost-competitive and decrease demand long-term, and such a move by the Trump administration would put up to 100,000 American solar jobs at risk. 

Good policy solves problems, and good policy is built on clear, transparent, and accessible data. 

But data can also be employed proactively, to design policy for a cleaner, more efficient, and customer-centric energy future. In New York, data are informing new policies that fairly compensate distributed energy resources, like solar, storage, and energy efficiency. Data are also being used by regulators across the country to reward utilities for designing new electricity rates that integrate and optimize those resources. Furthermore, data help prove that markets exist for clean energy solutions, like electric vehicles.

Empowering consumers

On a more micro-level, smart meters and customer access to their own usage data allows them to understand where, when, and how they use energy. For example, time-of-use electricity pricing shows customers when energy is cheapest and cleanest throughout the day.

A 2016 report from the Mission: Data Initiative shows how customers can realize 6-18 percent energy savings when they have easy access to their electricity data. But user data can also empower people and businesses to change their behavior or find tech solutions for other reasons, as well, like doing their part for a more sustainable future.

States like Illinois have been on the forefront of empowering customers and entrepreneurs with easy, secure, and meaningful access to energy data for years. In fact, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the Citizens Utility Board developed the Open Data Access Framework, which is a regulatory framework for protecting, sharing, and licensing anonymized energy data. The framework also aims to encourage the development of energy-saving products and services.

Driving innovation

The natural result of the needs data reveal are the solutions to address them. Data catalyze and drive innovation, technology, and solutions that help us be smarter about energy use.

Data catalyze and drive innovation, technology, and solutions that help us be smarter about energy use.

Some of these data-driven solutions are tangible, like smart thermostats and appliances that help users optimize electricity use. In the U.S., EDF is working with a tech startup called WattTime that tracks the real-time carbon intensity of electricity produced in different grids across the country. The goal is to better understand the positive environmental impacts of solutions that encourage people to use electricity at cleaner times of the day or reward customers for saving energy, like demand response (during times of peak energy use, pre-approved appliances like swimming pool pumps, defrosters and water heaters automatically turn off, and thermostats can temporarily adjust to pre-approved temperatures).

Other solutions enabled by clean energy data are more “behind the scenes.” An interesting and recent innovation, resulting from collaboration between EDF, National Grid, Sandbag, and World Wildlife Federation, is the UK’s Green Energy Forecast tool. It combines energy and weather data for software designers to build mobile apps that will eventually show consumers the real-world impact of their electricity use on a particular day.

And yet other data-driven solutions are a bit of both, like the Smart Building Operations Pilot that was recently developed by EDF, ComEd, and the Accelerate Group. The pilot connects 10 buildings in Chicago with real time energy-use and performance data to raise awareness and foster smarter energy management decisions by building operators.

It’s October 20th, 2017. Just 15 days ago, data showing the electricity and water needs in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria were deleted from the federal emergency management website. Officially, we are three years out from the next World Statistics Day. I am hopeful that by then our focus will be on utilizing data for good rather than fighting for its existence, so we can continue finding solutions to the most pressing needs of people and the planet.

By Tomas Carbonell

(This post was co-authored by EDF’s Ben Levitan)

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is once again misleading the American people in an effort to avoid doing his job.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt was interviewed on Fox News this week, and questioned his legal authority and responsibility to protect the public from the pollution that causes climate change.

During that interview, Pruitt asked:

[W]hat authority has Congress given the EPA to engage in rulemaking to reduce [carbon dioxide]?

Pruitt made similar remarks at the Heritage Foundation earlier this week – peddling the discredited notion that the “Clean Air Act was set up to address local and regional air pollutants, not the global phenomena of [climate pollution].”

We’ve written about this extensively at EDF. We’re happy to go over it one more time to help Administrator Pruitt, since he seems to be having trouble understanding it.

• That authority is in the Clean Air Act, which is a law that was passed by Congress.
• We know that authority is in the Clean Air Act because the Supreme Court told us so.
• The Supreme Court then said so again – and again after that.

So to sum up, we’ve been told by the High Court three times that the authority is indeed in the law that was passed by Congress.

Pruitt’s remarks come just over a week after he signed a proposed rule to abolish the Clean Power Plan — America’s only nationwide limit on climate pollution from fossil fuel power plants.

EPA is legally obligated to protect Americans from harmful climate pollution, but Pruitt’s destructive proposal would leave American communities exposed to greater climate risks, and cost thousands of American lives by increasing dangerous air pollution.

Pruitt’s words on Fox News, and even more so his actions, are appalling. The official who is charged with administering our nation’s clean air laws for the benefit of the American people – laws that the Supreme Court has now held on three separate occasions clearly apply to pollutants that are driving destructive climate change – should not be questioning his basic job description.

Communities and families across the country are already feeling the impacts of climate change through stronger hurricanes, increased flooding, more damaging wildfires, rising sea levels, worsened air quality, and more intense heat waves. Americans overwhelmingly want swift action to address this clear and urgent threat – not Pruitt’s distortions and delay.

Here’s more detail about Pruitt’s legal responsibilities:

Contrary to Pruitt’s claims, the Supreme Court has repeatedly and unequivocally affirmed that Congress gave EPA authority to regulate climate pollution:

• In Massachusetts v. EPA (549 U.S. 497, 2007), the Supreme Court found “without a doubt” that climate pollution falls within the broad definition of “air pollutants” covered by the Clean Air Act. The Court ordered EPA to make a science-based determination as to whether those pollutants endanger public health and welfare. EPA finalized its determination 2009. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit categorically rejected a barrage of legal challenges to the determination, including one brought by Scott Pruitt when he was attorney general of Oklahoma.
• In American Electric Power v. Connecticut (564 U.S. 410, 2011), the Supreme Court unanimously held that the Clean Air Act “speaks directly” to the problem of climate pollution from power plants – a point that even opponents of the Clean Power Plan conceded at oral argument in the case.
• In Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA (134 S. Ct. 2427, 2014), the Supreme Court held that the Clean Air Act obligated EPA to ensure that new and modified industrial facilities apply the best available control technology to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide.

Scott Pruitt’s latest statement questioning EPA’s authority not only contradicts the rulings of the Supreme Court, it departs from the views of former EPA Administrators who have served in administrations of both political parties.

As Christine Todd Whitman, EPA Administrator under George W. Bush, put it:

I think, as a matter of law, that carbon is a pollutant has been settled.

Pruitt’s comments to Fox News also contradict his own previous statements to Congress. During his confirmation hearing to become EPA Administrator, Pruitt told United States Senators that the Supreme Court rulings were the “law of the land” and needed to be “enforced and respected.”

In the Fox News interview, Pruitt also took aim at the Clean Power Plan, repeating his false claim that the Supreme Court held the plan to be unlawful.

In fact, the Supreme Court never issued an opinion on the merits of the Clean Power Plan. It never even heard the case.

The Supreme Court simply put the Clean Power Plan on hold until legal challenges played out in the courts. And since then, Pruitt’s EPA has gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent any court from ruling on the legal merits of the Clean Power Plan.

Just as Pruitt glosses over Supreme Court precedent he doesn’t like, he also seems to have invented a Supreme Court ruling that he desires.

Pruitt’s continued claims that the Clean Power Plan is unlawful are also at odds with the views of leading legal experts – including the Attorneys General of eighteen states, former Republican Administrators of EPA under Presidents Nixon, Reagan, and Bush, and leading drafters of the Clean Air Act. They have all stood up in federal court to defend the fundamental legality of this vital climate and health safeguard.

Pruitt also took a moment in his interview with Fox News to question the health benefits associated with the Clean Power Plan – which include as many as 3,600 avoided deaths each year and thousands of avoided heart attacks and asthma attacks.

As many experts have documented, Pruitt’s EPA has deployed deceptive gimmicks to hide the consequences to human health of repealing the Clean Power Plan. Those gimmicks include assuming, contrary to the conclusions of the American Heart Association, the World Health Organization, the National Research Council, and EPA’s own scientific advisors, that there are zero benefits to reducing air pollution beyond certain levels.

Pruitt made those claims even though EPA acknowledged in its proposed repeal that the Clean Power Plan would achieve pollution reductions that would protect the health of our children.

This isn’t the first time Scott Pruitt has distorted the law and science in order to dismantle key climate and public health protections. Along with the Clean Power Plan, Pruitt has attacked pollution standards for oil and natural gas facilities, climate pollution standards for cars, and standards for heavy-duty trucks.

Americans should be outraged at Scott Pruitt’s repeated misleading statements on settled questions of law and science.

(This post was co-authored by EDF’s Ben Levitan) The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is once again misleading the American people in an effort to avoid doing his job. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt was interviewed on Fox News this week, and questioned his legal authority and responsibility to protect the public from the […]

On today’s show Simone & Jacques sit down to talk with Brian Boyles, Christopher Robert and John Richie from The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. They talk about their new documentary series Water/Ways premiering next week and their other exciting projects that are coming up. Be sure to join them on Wednesday, October 18th from 8:30 – 9:30 pm at The New Orleans Advocate at 840 St. Charles Ave for the world premiere of 4 short films about communities facing ...

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The post Delta Dispatches: Conversation with Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities appeared first on Restore the Mississippi River Delta.

On today’s show Simone & Jacques sit down to talk with Brian Boyles, Christopher Robert and John Richie from The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. They talk about their new documentary series Water/Ways premiering next week and their other exciting projects that are coming up. Be sure to join them on Wednesday, October 18th from 8:30 – 9:30 pm at The New Orleans Advocate at 840 St. Charles Ave for the world premiere of 4 short films about communities facing ...

Read The Full Story

The post Delta Dispatches: Conversation with Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities appeared first on Restore the Mississippi River Delta.

On today’s show Simone & Jacques sit down to talk with Brian Boyles, Christopher Robert and John Richie from The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. They talk about their new documentary series Water/Ways premiering next week and their other exciting projects that are coming up. Be sure to join them on Wednesday, October 18th from 8:30 – 9:30 pm at The New Orleans Advocate at 840 St. Charles Ave for the world premiere of 4 short films about communities facing ...

Read The Full Story

The post Delta Dispatches: Conversation with Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities appeared first on Restore the Mississippi River Delta.

With the right tools, the right practices, and the right people, we can act in time to save the monarch from extinction.

Monarch butterflies alone have declined 95 percent in the last two decades, due to habitat loss and herbicide use. We need our governors to make wildlife protection a priority.

Monarch butterflies alone have declined 95 percent in the last two decades, due to habitat loss and herbicide use. We need our governors to make wildlife protection a priority.

Monarch butterflies alone have declined 95 percent in the last two decades, due to habitat loss and herbicide use. We need our governors to make wildlife protection a priority.

Monarch butterflies alone have declined 95 percent in the last two decades, due to habitat loss and herbicide use. We need our governors to make wildlife protection a priority.

Energy efficiency is a simple, quick and cost-effective method to reduce both costs and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. That’s why companies are scaling up their energy efficiency projects in an effort to achieve greater results. And it’s important that they do. Buildings play a considerable role in GHG emissions: Commercial buildings in particular make up […]

By Daniel Hill

Energy efficiency is a simple, quick and cost-effective method to reduce both costs and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. That’s why companies are scaling up their energy efficiency projects in an effort to achieve greater results. And it’s important that they do. Buildings play a considerable role in GHG emissions: Commercial buildings in particular make up roughly 20% of total U.S. energy. So it’s no surprise that optimizing building systems is on the rise.

Between 2006 and 2014, investments in commercial building energy efficiency more than doubled from seven billion to 16 billion, with projects ranging from heating and cooling, to refrigeration, energy management and more.

But commercial buildings owners and operators face barriers to implementing large energy efficiency measures. Even with the growth of incentive programs and innovative technologies, energy efficiency can be a lengthy and intensive process, especially when an entire portfolio of buildings is involved. Building owners and operates have to first understand the systems and then identify funding that best works for their organization.

Project Manager, EDF Climate Corps

Fortunately, financing options and tools help make this process easier. Energy efficiency and renewable energy financing has come a long way in recent years. While we don’t know the precise rate of growth in third-party financing, the Better Buildings Financial Allies (a network of market leaders) funded $3.2 billion in energy efficiency and renewable energy projects in 2016 alone. Building owners and operators are increasingly taking advantage of third-party capital to get projects done, with a variety of traditional and innovative financing structures available.

There have been some exciting developments recently, including the meteoric growth of Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) and new "efficiency as a service" and "pay for performance" models for financing projects. The entry of several major banks into the energy efficiency and renewable energy financing space and the rapid growth of green banks at both the state and local level has also opened opportunities for increased investment in energy efficiency.

Scaling energy efficiency is a complicated process. But with the right financing tools and options,…
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Yet even with the availability of these options, there are challenges. Building owners and operators often struggle to understand the nuances of the financing options available. This can make it difficult to overcome decision fatigue and select the best-suited choice for their needs. Vetting and selecting a financing option—each with its own set of associated pros and cons—carries very real transaction costs, which is why it’s important to make the right choice.

Luckily new tools have surfaced that do just that. The Department of Energy developed the Better Buildings Financing Navigator, which helps organizations find financing options that fit their unique needs. The Navigator serves as a way for building operators, owners, facility mangers, etc. to connect with market-leading financing companies, including banks and lenders, that have committed to funding energy efficiency projects. Users can easily compare the various options each Financial Ally offers and move forward with a specific financing solution for their energy efficiency projects.

The availability of financing structures can provide the resources and assistance necessary to encourage building owners to implement energy efficiency projects. For owners with large building portfolios, the opportunity to scale projects is enormous, resulting in the potential for huge energy and costs savings.

EDF’s Supply Chain Solutions Center is hosting a webinar on scaling energy efficiency and how it can benefit your company. An expert from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Buildings will lead the conversation.

Stay on top of the latest facts, information and resources aimed at the intersection of business and the environment. Sign up for the EDF+Business blog. [contact-form-7]

 

Energy efficiency is a simple, quick and cost-effective method to reduce both costs and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. That’s why companies are scaling up their energy efficiency projects in an effort to achieve greater results. And it’s important that they do. Buildings play a considerable role in GHG emissions: Commercial buildings in particular make up […]

Energy efficiency is a simple, quick and cost-effective method to reduce both costs and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. That’s why companies are scaling up their energy efficiency projects in an effort to achieve greater results. And it’s important that they do. Buildings play a considerable role in GHG emissions: Commercial buildings in particular make up […]

By EDF Blogs

By Ritesh Gautam and Steven Hamburg

Artist’s rendition of TROPOMI onboard Sentinel-5P satellite. Source: European Space Agency.

Last Friday, the European Space Agency Sentinel-5p satellite went into orbit above the earth. Onboard is an imaging spectrometer instrument called TROPOMI, led by SRON (Dutch Space Agency) and KNMI (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute) to monitor the amount of methane, ozone and other air quality-related pollutants in the atmosphere.

There has been quite a buzz around this unique advancement in space, and the valuable data it will provide on methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that accounts for a quarter of the warming our planet is experiencing today. Curbing anthropogenic methane emissions is one of the most efficient and economical options available to slow the rate of warming over the next few decades, while efforts continue to reduce CO2 emissions worldwide.

Detecting methane from space

Methane sources include both natural and manmade emissions from livestock, agriculture, oil & gas operations, and landfills. These sources are distributed around the world and vary widely at local, regional and temporal scales—which makes it challenging to quantify emissions from diverse sources.

This is where satellites come into play. They bring together the unique capability of continuously monitoring the entire planet, measuring critical geophysical variables, and mapping change by collecting long-term datasets.

The TROPOMI satellite sensor brings significant advances in the monitoring of air pollution in terms of better resolving methane, and other major pollutants affecting air quality (e.g. NO2, SO2, formaldehyde, aerosols). For instance, data from TROPOMI will be available at 7 km x 7 km grids around the world, on a daily basis—which has never been available a this level of spatial-temporal resolution for methane or the other pollutants.

Since clouds affect the detection of methane from space, TROPOMI’s daily data coverage will be critically important to ensuring we have regular measurements of emission levels in order to build robust statistical pictures of what is happening. Combined with sophisticated techniques such as atmospheric inverse modeling, data from TROPOMI will be used to derive methane emissions occurring on the ground.

So-called “bottom-up” methods of characterizing emissions—measuring from facilities on the ground—provide valuable and detailed information about emission sources. But the bottom-up emissions inventory often has gaps. For technical, political and proprietary reasons, accurate on-the-ground data on emissions of pollutants is not available for many parts of the planet.

Yet, atmospheric inversion allows us to produce “top-down” estimates of emissions which can be done without access to a site and much less expensively. This technique accounts for complex atmospheric transport processes in determining the emission source and magnitude. The resulting emission data is key to improving emission inventories, and helping inform effective policymaking.

Relevance to monitoring oil & gas emissions

EDF is partnering with researchers from the Dutch Space Agency responsible for TROPOMI to characterize methane emission hotspots linked to the global oil & gas sector, in addition to other emissions/leaks occurring from the fossil fuel energy sector.

Using data from TROPOMI, the project aims to attribute emissions to specific sources over time, from days to months to years, as well as quantifying those emissions. This project will involve developing state-of-the-art algorithms for processing vast amounts of raw satellite data to derive value-added methane emissions data.

This multi-year project, led by Ilse Aben from SRON, also involves other partners including Airbus Defense and Space Netherlands, Shell and TNO. EDF will provide technical expertise and advisory in the spatial-temporal characteristics of methane sources from the O&G sector, and participate in the data analysis and synthesis of the results from this project.

This satellite mission is a big step forward in painting a clearer picture of worldwide methane emission sources and the associated rates of emissions.

* TROPOMI is a partnership between SRON, Airbus Defense and Space Netherlands, KNMI and TNO, as part of the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-5P satellite mission.