From the federal government to states, contractors, conservation groups and the man and woman in the street, everyone is worried about global warming.
There’s a growing feeling that the “greenhouse effect” is part of the reason for long stretches of desert-like droughts, or gray skies and rainfall rivaling Northern England and Ireland. Such temperature extremes can bedevil contractors and seriously impede their projects.
In the global warming section of its Web site (epa.gov), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says that “according to the National Academy of Sciences, the earth’s surface temperature has risen by about one degree Fahrenheit in the past century, with accelerated warming during the past two decades.”
Over the century, EPA says, the snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere and floating ice in the Arctic Ocean have decreased, sea level has risen 4 to 8 inches, worldwide precipitation over land has increased approximately 1 percent, and “the frequency of extreme rainfall events has increased throughout much of the United States.”
One of the main culprits, EPA adds, is the increased concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2), 98 percent of which is caused by fossil fuels burned to run cars and trucks, heat homes and businesses, and supply power to factories.
Power plants also emit a lot of CO2. A Nov. 12, 2002, report from the General Accounting Office (GAO) warns that carbon dioxide emissions from power plants could increase 48 percent by 2020 if such emissions are not regulated.
“In 1997, the United States emitted about one-fifth of total global greenhouse gases,” EPA’s Web site says, warning that “by 2100, in the absence of emissions control policies, carbon dioxide concentrations are projected to be 30 to 150 percent higher than today’s levels.”
Concern has increased because the 20th century’s 10 warmest years all occurred in the past 15 years of the century. Of these, 1998 was the warmest year on record. More attention also is focusing on El Nino events — the periodic warming of the equatorial Pacific Ocean — becoming more frequent and fierce as greenhouse gases inject more heat into Pacific waters.
As concentrations of greenhouse gases continue to increase because of more vehicles and factories throughout the world, EPA also warns that the rate of climate change is likely to accelerate, stating: “Scientists expect that the average global surface temperature could rise one to four degrees Fahrenheit in the next 50 years and 2.2 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit in the next century, with significant regional variation. Evaporation will increase as the climate warms, which will increase average global precipitation. Soil moisture is likely to decline in many regions, and intense rainstorms are likely to become more frequent. Sea level is likely to rise two feet along most of the U.S. coast.”
Crisis in the Atmosphere
EPA says human activities have altered the chemical composition of the atmosphere through the buildup of “greenhouse” gases — primarily CO2, methane and nitrous oxide — which trap some of the solar energy which the earth radiates back into space as it is heated by the sun.
CO2 is released when fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, and coal), wood, or solid waste are burned. Methane is emitted during the production and transport of coal, natural gas and oil, from decomposition of organic wasters in municipal landfills, or from the raising of livestock. Nitrous oxide is emitted during agricultural and industrial activities, as well as during combustion of solid waste and fossil fuels.
Very powerful greenhouse gases, which don’t occur naturally, include hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride, which are generated in industrial processes.
The gas molecules retain heat somewhat like the glass panels of a greenhouse, absorbing and re-emitting some of the infrared radiation in all directions. The effect of this is to warm the earth’s surface and the lower atmosphere.
What to Do?
Some would argue that a federal government “War on Global Warming” is urgently needed. Currently, however, there are no federally mandated controls on emissions of carbon dioxide.
The Clean Air Act, passed in 1970 during the Nixon Administration, and amended in 1977 and 1990, requires that EPA set national health-based air quality standards to protect against common pollutants. These include ground-level ozone (smog), carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, lead and particulate soot.
State governments must devise cleanup plans to meet EPA’s standards for these pollutants by a specific date. EPA also sets national standards for major new sources of pollution including automobiles, trucks and electric power plants.
Carbon dioxide, however, is not among the pollutants that the act identifies. No national standards regulate CO2 emissions from cars and other sources.
“There are no mandatory requirements at the federal level to reduce carbon dioxide emissions,” said Amy Royden, senior staff associate of State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators/Association of Local Air Pollution Control Officials (STAPPA/ALAPCO) in Washington, D.C. “There is, however, a voluntary registry at the Department of Energy [DOE] to record emissions reductions. This was started under the Clinton Administration and President Bush last year announced that he wanted DOE, in addition to a few other agencies, to improve the registry. Our position is that early voluntary reductions should be encouraged. We haven’t taken a position for or against mandatory reductions.”
Serious Concerns Among States
Some states are pushing ahead with their own plans to reduce global warming emissions. California has taken the lead. Last year, this state passed a law (Assembly Bill 1493) requiring its air board to set a standard for CO2 emissions from motor vehicles. This regulation is to take effect by 2005. California is the only state with such a law.
The California law gives the board full flexibility to decide appropriate measures, though it can’t mandate smaller-size cars or increased gas mileage. New England states also have moved ahead on greenhouse gases. New Hampshire, Connecticut and Massachusetts have passed laws regulating CO2 emissions from electric utilities. The Massachusetts regulation, for instance, issued in May 2001, sets a CO2 standard for six of the state’s large power plants.
Three states in the Northeast — Connecticut, Maine, and Massachusetts — recently sued EPA, saying the agency has “a mandatory duty to regulate carbon dioxide” under the Clean Air Act.
“It will be interesting to see how this suit progresses,” said Royden. “It’s quite innovative. I can’t recall such a suit by three states ever happening before on an environmental issue.”
The suit, in the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals, says EPA needs to establish a National Ambient Air Quality Standard for carbon monoxide, just as it has for pollutants like ozone.
The states say former EPA general counsel Jonathan Cannon has pointed out in a memo that EPA has authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide.
They also say in their legal brief that one of the criteria for regulating pollutants under the Clean Air Act is danger to public health, and that EPA, in its own literature, has pointed out such danger from CO2, some of which comes from man-made sources.
“If the suit is successful, it sets in process a program where EPA has to write criteria documents establishing the environmental impacts of CO2 and then must propose a standard for review by the agency’s science advisory board,” said Nancy Seidman, division director of the Bureau of Waste Prevention for the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection in Boston, MA.
“It takes a number of years to do that. It would be something different for EPA, which has not felt they should undertake the long process of deciding whether CO2 should be included. This suit asks that they at least look at that question thoroughly. It sort of forces the issue because of the seriousness of climate change.”
The New England Governors has also adopted a CO2 climate action plan.
“I think there has been a lot of evidence that a lot of things are happening which are of serious concern,” Seidman told Construction Equipment Guide (CEG). “There’s a signed statement by all the governors about how serious the problem is.”
The New England states also have been collaborating with the Eastern Canadian provinces to address the health gap from greenhouse gas emissions and have actually set regional targets for reducing them.
New Jersey also has an active climate action plan.
Other regions seem to be moving less aggressively, though individual states have addressed the issue.
Wisconsin has developed a registry for reductions in emissions, including CO2. The North Carolina General Assembly has directed the state’s Division of Air Quality to study, and report on, how to implement a program to control CO2 emissions from coal-fired generation units and other stationary sources of air pollution.
The National Governors Association has taken the position in favor of voluntary programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Bush Approach
Dave Deegan, an EPA spokesperson in Washington, D.C., told CEG that “the bottom line currently is that both President Bush and [EPA] Administrator Christie Whitman have both publicly stated that they do not believe CO2 should be regulated as an air pollutant under the Clean Air Act.”
“Carbon dioxide is not listed as a criteria air pollutant in the Clean Air Act,” he said. “This is one of the issues that keeps getting kicked around. In actual fact, Congress has identified what chemicals EPA is to regulate as air pollutants. Carbon dioxide is not listed in the law. We don’t change the law.
“This is not to say that EPA and this Administration are not concerned about carbon dioxide. There’s a lot of research going on. We have voluntary programs under way. About a year ago, some pretty senior people from this administration attended a fairly major conference with the whole purpose of identifying what additional research ought to be done on CO2. The basic philosophy is that, at this point, the science is a lot less certain on exactly what should be done or how to do it. They’re really focusing on getting additional research done so that we can make better-informed decisions.” (Whitman recently announced her forthcoming retirement as EPA administrator.)
Voluntary Partnerships
The Bush Administration is addressing the greenhouse gas problem in a new way, steering toward more voluntary efforts in a “market-based” approach that is the central theme of its proposed Clear Skies Act (see Blowing in the Wind on page 118).
In February 2002, President Bush announced an aggressive climate change policy “designed to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of the U.S. economy by 18 percent over the next 10 years.”
EPA accordingly launched two partnership programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In one, called “Climate Leaders,” companies commit to working with EPA to inventory their greenhouse gas emissions, set aggressive reduction goals, and report their progress.
At least 37 companies have signed on. Nine of these have already announced their goals for reducing greenhouse gases.
EPA says Miller Brewing Company has pledged to reduce emissions by 18 percent per barrel of production by 2006, while General Motors pledged to reduce total emissions by 10 percent for all of its North American facilities by 2005.
In a second program, called “SmartWay Transport,” which was launched this January, EPA has partnered with 13 business leaders to develop a comprehensive strategy to improve environmental performance of the freight sector by reducing harmful emissions. SmartWay’s announced goal: reduce carbon emissions by up to 18 million metric tons by 2012, and NOx emissions by up to 200,000 tons, saving 150-million barrels of oil a year. EPA says this is equivalent to taking 12-million cars off the road.
EPA also is working closely with the Portland Cement Association to reduce CO2 emissions by 10 percent per ton of cement product by 2020 (from a 1990 baseline). The Department of Energy this February launched the President’s Climate VISION (Voluntary Innovative Sector Initiatives Opportunities Now) program in which the transportation, manufacturing, and other sectors pursue cost-effective initiatives to reduce the projected growth in CO2 emissions in a voluntary public-private partnership.
Fuel Efficiency
One of the best ways of combating carbon dioxide is improving the fuel efficiency of vehicles. More mileage per gallon means less CO2 over a given trip. The Federal Government’s CAFE standards regulate fuel efficiency of vehicles sold. Improvements in the standards would be a big step ahead.
New technology, such as fuel cell propulsion, often has little or no emissions. A steampowered car, the Stanley Steamer, also with no harmful emissions, reached more than 100 mph in the early 1900s. The Williams Brothers in Ambler, PA, have advanced this technology. Their approach has been patented and is now being carried forward in a program at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA.
New “distributed generation” facilities, which supply power closer to users than central power plants, also offer much potential for CO2 savings, if they use non-polluting sources.
The New York Police Department, for instance, supplies electricity to its 22nd precinct station through a fuel cell system in Central Park. A wind farm near Fort Davis, TX, generates enough electricity for more than 10,000 homes and avoids emissions of 5,498 tons of CO2.
Global Efforts
The United States under the Clinton Administration agreed in the Kyoto Protocol that it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 7 percent over the period from 2008 to 2012. After his inauguration, President Bush withdrew from this, saying the agreement was “fatally flawed in fundamental ways.”
“Kyoto is, in many ways, unrealistic,” Bush said. “Many countries cannot meet their Kyoto targets. The targets themselves are arbitrary and not based upon science. For America, complying with those mandates would have a negative economic impact, with layoffs of workers and price increases for consumers.”
Bush said that China, the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, was entirely exempted from the Kyoto requirements, as was India. While withdrawing, Bush did, however, acknowledge sharply rising temperatures since the 1970s and pledged “to work within the United Nations framework and elsewhere to develop with our friends and allies and nations throughout the world an effective and science-based response to the issue of global warming.”
Bush said the policy challenge “is to act in a serious and sensible way,” addressing such problems as developing “cost-effective ways to capture carbon emissions at their source.”
He said there are still many unknowns which technology must address, and established an inter-agency work group to develop research on climate change, including a $120-million three-year Space Agency program.
The Department of Energy also sponsored a $25-million initiative with international energy companies, including Shell and Texaco, to develop new technologies to reduce the cost of capturing carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion plants.
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