Want Michigan businesses to be competitive? Don't play 'Lucy yanks the football on Charlie Brown' with energy efficiency program

Dear Gov. Snyder and Michigan legislators:

You’ve been consistent in saying that making Michigan’s business climate more competitive is your top goal. 

Michigan’s energy efficiency program provides businesses with an affordable way to cut overhead expenses. It meets energy needs at a cost that is 90 percent lower than one of the most talked about alternatives, a coal power plant. It is also significantly less costly than wind farms or other clean energy sources.

So, the notice below is not the sort of thing you want to read if you are a business hoping to quality for efficiency programs.

The Consumers Energy Business Solutions electric incentive program is fully subscribed and has been closed. Electric incentive applications received on or after August 1, 2011 will be placed on a waitlist and filled on a first-in basis subject to the availability of funds.

Nor is this:

DTE Energy Star rebates 91% paid as of August 1. (in other words, about to run out of money…parenthesis and links, mine)

In April, your Michigan Public Service Commission boasted that efficiency programs were ”bigger and better.” But if they're unavailable the remainder of 2011, that seems a hollow boast.

Please adjust this program – that was created in 2008 with a bipartisan vote of the Michigan House and Senate – so that the utilities don’t get to slam the door partway through the year on businesses and homeowners trying to save energy and money.

 

Thank you,

Mitten State

Hat tip to Frank Zaski for digging up the highlighted statements from the utilities’ web sites.

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What Nolan Finley really means

No links in this post. Just some plain English translations of Nolan Finley's
recent column spreading unfounded terror among the citizenry.......

EPA raises risk of blackouts  As an opinion columnist, I do not need a source or any data or attribution for this statement, unlike the poor schlubs in the newsroom who are required to substantiate statements they make in their stories. Can you imagine?!

NOLAN FINLEY

An especially stormy summer gives us a taste of what life would be like if the electric umbilical cord attached to the side of our homes were to run dry.

Prepare to panic

Silent air conditioners and refrigerators full of spoiling food is the shared experience in countless neighborhoods hit by weather related power outages.

Saved by the backup

A generous generating reserve in the state kept the power interruptions fewer than they might have been. Despite an unrelenting heat wave, no blackouts occurred because of shortages in electricity supplies, says Steve Kurmas, president and chief operating officer of Detroit Edison, a DTE Energy subsidiary. The utilities did their jobs. I’m about to use their talking points to string together this column.

DTE has a production capacity that exceeds normal demand by 26 percent, and is more than twice the standard 12 percent reserve, Kurmas says. That's largely because the recession wiped out so many customers in this region. So when demand peaks, DTE can ramp up production to cover the load, even on hottest days. Customers are paying to maintain capacity they don’t need, but on a handful of days a year, the utility is able to fire up the oldest, least efficient, most expensive and dirtiest coal plants to meet demand. It may well be less expensive to buy that  energy from the electric grid, but exploring that would collapse the premise of the column.

EPA energy killers You thought I was going to use "job killers" again, didn't you!

That's the situation today. Four years from now, who knows?

Between now and then, DTE will have to shutter 10 coal-burning units, reducing capacity by 20 percent to meet new Environmental Protection Agency regulations on coal plants. Updating the plants to comply with the new EPA standards in the three-year period allowed would be massively expensive. So DTE will take them off line. Anybody with brainwave activity would question my contention that the utility will shut down 10 coal plants in 36 months, but I'm counting on no one applying critical thinking here.

That will reduce reserves to 6 percent and leave the system vulnerable to blackouts on scorching hot days like the ones we've had this month. Now you may panic.  I remain calm because I know full well the huge lobbying power of the coal industry will easily tie the whole thing up in court for a decade.

Kurmas says DTE has no intention of allowing reserve capacity to drop so low. The utility also is not panicking because they know this too. The company is taking time to assess the regulations, and to get some clarifications from the EPA. Michiganders are going to be funding a new team of utility company lobbyists and lawyers to castrate this idea. If there's a change in the White House next year, it will likely mean a new regulatory ballgame. We all know a new administration will mean more delays, if not a complete about face. Utility lobbyists can outlast any president.

But the plan now is to replace the coal burners with plants that operate on natural gas. That's cleaner power, but costlier. I am pointedly ignoring mountains of credible evidence that energy efficiency programs have vast potential to meet energy needs at a fraction of the cost of gas, nuclear, coal, windmills, solar, etc. Instead, I will pretend natural gas plants are our only option. I'm also not going to mention the conclusions of our state's Public Service Commission, which foresees no need for a new coal plant for more than a decade.

Watch your wallets

Kurmas says to expect electricity bills to soar by 25 to 35 percent. Panic, I tell you! I need not provide any source for this claim, because you can trust the man from the utility company. For residential customers, that'll leave less money to spend on other goods and services, further closing the damper on the economy.

For power-intensive businesses, such as manufacturers, it will mean higher operating costs that will have to be offset either by raising prices or trimming workers. Manufacturers can lower their costs with energy efficiency upgrades, but you'll have to read that elsewhere. We're against that because dope-smoking hippie environmentalists are for it.

The consequences of the coal mandate will be huge. And yet such a momentous change was pushed through by regulatory fiat, without a vote by our elected representatives.

President Barack Obama has proven wholly inept at putting Americans back to work. But as an economy killer, he is without equal. I stray from the topic here to take a generalized, gratuitous shot at the President, who by most accounts is moderately liberal but by the Detroit News’s standards is a raving, communist devil.

The EPA's move to turn the occasional summertime power outage into a daily threat is just the latest example.

nfinley@detnews.com

(313) 222-2064

Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of The News. Read more of his recent columns and read his blog at detnews.com/finley. Also watch him at 7:30 p.m. Fridays on “Am I Right?” on Detroit Public TV, Channel 56.

Catching up: Michigan River News; North America's awesome-ist marathon river race and some guy who treaded water 17 hours in Huron

Geez. Looks like we've got some catching up to do!

In June, the Michigan Environmental Council released a report showing that the state’s oldest coal-fired power plants cost $1.5 billion annually in health care costs and damages – the equivalent of $500 annually for a  family. We pay for that in our health care premiums and copays. It is not reflected in our electricity rates, nor is it ever cited by clean energy opponents when they compare the costs of various energy sources. But it should be. Dirty air costs us, new reports increasingly show.

The Mackinac Center is still clinging to the status quo though, prompting this response from some really smart and handsome dude.

If you’re a fan of Michigan’s rivers (and who’s not?) check out the news Michigan River News web site co-founded by my MEC colleague Andrew McGlashen. The coolest river news lately is a Circuit Court ruling that a dam must be fully removed from the Pigeon River, after numerous fish kills. Thanks to our friends at Trout Unlimited’s Michigan chapter for fighting for the ecosystem.

The RiverNews guys will be at the awesome AuSable River Canoe Marathon this weekend. It’s the longest nonstop canoe race in North America, and been part of our pure Michigan summers for 64 years.

Finally, this guy is my hero for the day, 17 hours without a life jacket in Lake Huron, “I have people that depend on me,” he said.

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The Alamo? Not so much, but bike sharing service in San Antonio was the real thing (and maybe coming to a Michigan city near you?)

This woman does not come with the bike

Our trip to San Antonio would have been much, much different if not for their outstanding new Bcycle service, which allows people to check out bicycles and drop them off at numerous points throughout the city.

We rented cycles three days, pedaling ourselves to the point of heatstroke checking out places like the botanical gardens, the many tremendous Tex-Mex restaurants and the meandering Mission Bike Trail that follows the San Antonio River.

And of course we joined thousands of sweating, sloppy tourists ogling The Alamo, where an IMAX movie and lots of other "educational" materials explained the mission's historic and inspirational role in Americans stealing Texas from the Mexicans  standing up for freedom against the tyranny of Santa Anna.

But the cycles were the most pleasant surprise of the trip, allowing us to tour the city in a way we never otherwise would have been able to.

You just insert your credit card and select a bike from the rack. When you’re done, you find another rack (an easy Smart Phone app will locate them for you, but there were plenty of signs in the city too) and slide the bike in an empty slot, where it locks tight until the next user arrives

$10 per bike per day, plus fairly nominal charges for the time you use (the first half hour of every use is free).

My friend and colleague and Lansing City Council candidate  Rory Neuner is among a group trying to bring Bcycle to Lansing. I’ve heard several other Michigan cities are considering such programs, but I don’t know which for sure.

It’ll take some work in Michigan’s cities, which still are designed primarily for cars and NOT for pedestrians or cyclists. But that is changing and Bcycle might help that momentum. Bike lanes, curb cuts, great signage and the Riverwalk all helped make San Antonio’s work.

Honestly, I don’t know if we contributed any more cash to San Antonio’s economy than we would have if the Bcycle rentals weren’t available. But the whole Bcycle experience makes it far more likely that we will return one day. And we can recommend a trip to that town far more enthusiastically than we otherwise would have.

Linked to Michigan’s already outsanding trail networks, bicycle sharing programs in certain areas could be a great, low-impact way to market a region's best cultural, recreational and retail opportunities to visitors.

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I get a campsite, you get Pure Michigan NASCAR and everybody's happy

Seemed reasonable at the time!

There are eight rustic camp sites, first come, first served.

There were three left when we got there, and we got site #2. It wasn’t one of the lakefront spots, but it was nestled back in the woods far enough so that … at night with a fire crackling, unobstructed stars overhead and a couple of Bellaire Browns it seemed like we were the only ones in the county. 

Where? Oh hell no. I’m not about to tell you. But with a little detective work on the DNR’s web site you shouldn’t have a problem figuring it out.

Our campground was a couple hours from Lansing, and a couple hours from magnificent Torch Lake where we spent the day Saturday with family. That night, again, we were the only ones in the world. In the morning, we drank camp coffee and a breakfast of soy sausages and homemade pesto (it seemed sensible at the time).

After a three mile walk in the woods interspersed with magnificent meadows of sun-dappled chest high grasses, we were home in time to watch the Tigers and entertain more family. Maybe I took a nap too.

It was a little slice of Michigan living. But it may not so for long. Fifteen dollars a night, times eight campsites, generates $120 … not nearly enough to cover the expenses of trash removal, outhouse and fire pit maintenance, road grading, administrative matters, tree trimming and securing the picnic table to the ground with a braided metal cable the thickness of a child’s wrist.

That leaves taxpayers on the hook. Many never use a rustic state campground, and never intend to. Many of our friends and neighbors don’t believe their tax dollars should be used to supplement the campgrounds' user fees. In fact, many were on the verge of closing this year for lack of funding, until DNR Director Rodney Stokes found a way to limp along in 2011.

So why should taxpayers who never use the rustic campgrounds be willing to fund them?

Because it is that sort of opportunity -- and thousands like it and very much unlike it – that makes people want to live, work and play in this state. It’s not very quantifiable, like tax rates and safe streets and availability to public transportation are. But it’s real, and it shows up consistently on surveys nationwide about what attracts people to live where they do.

So as legislators – many of them indoctrinated in the drown government in a bathtub cult prepare to slash away at many of the opportunities that makes our state so unique, we need a robust discussion. Not just about closing a few dozen rustic campgrounds. But about what sort of opportunities we can capitalize on here to create the Michigan we all want.

In that mix, I vote for some tax money to maintain the rustic campgrounds. In fairness, I’ll agree to use state money on something I have no interest in, like NASCAR races.

Iit’ll cost a lot less than $972k to maintain a fire pit. And while you’re at the race, I’ll be putting another log on.

 *****

If you feel like contacting your legislator you might tell them you’re glad the state’s rustic state forest campgrounds remained open this year, and that you expect him/her to work to maintain adequate funding for the state’s DNR to operate them.

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Environmental funders reassess climate change tactics: First base starting to look pretty good now

Oops, wrong first base photo!

Shortly after joining the Michigan Environmental Council in 2006, I became aware of an obscure public notice in the Federal Register soliciting comments on a plan for the U.S. Coast Guard to begin live ammunition training exercises with .50 caliber machine guns in 34 areas of the Great Lakes.

I tipped some journalists to the story, lighting the fuse for a maelstrom of protest that forced the Coast Guard to re-evaluate its plans. For a couple months, I invested a fair amount of time into helping spread public awareness of a plan that heretofore had been very, VERY quietly pursued.

At one point, a longtime veteran of the environmental movement asked, “so, who’s funding you for this?” When I replied no one was, she appeared befuddled, and perhaps a little put off.  It had not occurred to me that my work priorities should be dictated by funders. The most important work should get the most attention, right? Not necessarily.

As  this interesting article from Politico points out, the donors who fund environmental work call the shots … to a certain extent. And they are not happy about the results they’ve gotten from the money they’ve poured into addressing climate change during the past several years.

Federal Cap and Trade legislation that would have begun to address the issue crashed and burned. Amid the wreckage, environmental groups are regrouping to try and accomplish change on a piece by piece basis – fighting for better building efficiency standards, and stopping new coal plants, and investing in public transportation.

If this seems like a half-assed way to deal with the planet’s most important issue, it is. But it’s what we have. As the aforementioned Politico article notes, the environmental community has neither sufficent power to punish do-nothing politicians, nor the clout to reward the good ones.

Without that power – or a groundswell of public demand for action – there is little hope of the sweeping change that many of us would like to see.

Does that mean we don’t need visionaries laying out idealistic plans? No. But it means most of us need to hunker down and work for incremental change if we’re going to have something to show for it at the end of the day.

As President Obama’s Advisor Rahm Emanuel told an environmental funder, “Your DNA and my DNA are so different. I’m about trying to get to first base. You’re about trying to hit it over the fence.”

First base might sound like a crappy place to be when you’re so far behind.

But it beats striking out. And it might get funded.

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An antidote to what ails you; a remedy for disillusionment: Michigan's Dark Sky Park

Unnecessary light pollution plagues our cities, suburbs and countrysides.

Gas stations are illuminated like white hot suns. Whole floors of office buildings stay lit for a solitary night owl worker. And blazing security lights click on constantly throughout my neighborhood (note to neighbors: walking my dog on the sidewalk is NOT A THREAT; recalibrate your lights, goats).

But in Michigan we are still blessed with dark places where the Milky Way and a million twinkling stars inspire awe and wonder. Places where science and religion combined seem pitiable tools of inquiry. Places where – necks craned and mouths agape – words are insignificant to define what we see.

One of those places has now been recognized internationally. Michigan has an International Dark Sky Park. It’s one of only six Dark Sky Parks in the nation – one of nine in the world. 

Located along the Straits of Mackinac on 550 acres of undeveloped Lake Michigan shoreline called The Headlands, the stargazers' paradise is the result of years of hard work by Emmet County citizens and officials. They were dedicated to preserving this little slice of Pure Michigan that speaks volumes about the quality of life Up North.

The designation required light meter readings from the International Dark Sky Association, the adoption of a special lighting ordinance and 75 pages of paperwork according to my friend Ron Dzwonkowski’s Detroit Free Press column.

In a great tidbit of storytelling, Ron says one “key to securing the designation was the endorsement of Patrick Stonehouse, a teacher and astronomer in neighboring Cheboygan County who from his rooftop observatory in Wolverine discovered a comet in 1998 that the International Astronomical Union has labeled 1998 H1, or Comet Stonehouse.”

Michigan’s International Dark Sky Park. What a great, great story!

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