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 National Mining Association sees Jihadists at the gates! Or is that the EPA?

“We need to elect strong environmental leaders tomorrow to defeat the pollution jihad that corporations are waging against our environment and public health.”

Imagine the howls of outrage from the ”drown government in a bathtub" crowd if environmentalists had issued this statement, comparing American corporations to Muslim holy warriors, and, by inference, terrorists.

Betting though, you haven’t heard of Luke Popovich of the National Mining Association, who called enforcement of environmental laws by the Environmental Protection Agency a “regulatory jihad” in this piece by the New York Times on the millions spent by the industry to blunt enforcement of, and elect officials hostile to environmental regulations they deem excessive.

Given the mood of the country, it’s probably ridiculous to suggest that the fossil fuel industry’s energy and money might better be spent deploying strong clean energy technologies and developing futuristic energy futures. No, better to cling tooth and nail to the status quo.

Even so, isn’t comparing pollution regulators in the U.S. to holy warriors in Islamic countries a bit over the top? Rush? Frank? Glenn?

No, I didn’t think so.

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Why doe-eyed liberals aren't responsible for that extra-looking renewable energy surcharge

My DTE Energy electric bill has a separately delineated $3 charge for “renewable energy plan surcharge.”

But, tellingly, there is no similar line item for coal purchases, coal plant operation, or capital costs of coal plants. Nor is there any breakout for nuclear power. None of this, despite the fact that coal and nuclear account for 85 percent of electricity generated in Michigan.

So why is there a separate line item explaining $3 worth of my bill, but no clues as to what the remaining $65.51 goes to?

When Michigan passed its renewable energy standard in 2008 (requiring utilities to provide 10 percent from clean energy sources by 2015), the utilities and their friends in the legislature wanted to make it perfectly clear  that the $3 increase was the fault of those idyllic tree huggers and their insistence on building windmills and solar panels and such. Renewable energy advocates lost their bid to simply fold the rate increase into the rest of the bill.

The renewable line item perpetuates the myth that power from nonpolluting sources is somehow an expensive, boutique hobby horse of weepy, doe-eyed, seitan eaters from Ann Arbor.

And it’s bull. When our rates go up because the price of coal rises, that increase is tucked right into the bill without any separate explanation.

In Michigan, we’ve made progress to a more sensible future. We’ve got a modest amount of renewable energy on the way, and have scuttled a number of ill-advised coal plants. But the Old Guard is not retreating without mining the bridges behind them. And the renewable energy surcharge is one of those land mines.

When it comes time to improve Michigan’s anemic renewable energy standard, it will be more difficult because of the visibility of the $3 surcharge. The response from ratepayers may well be just what the mine layers intended in 2008: “WTF? We’re already paying $3 extra on our bill!”

Kaboom!
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Michigan House Republicans bizarre coal plant assertion: Talk to me in 2022

Michigan’s House of Representatives Republican caucus released a “Task Force on Jobs” report this past week suggesting that building new coal-fired power plants will reduce ratepayer costs.

It’s great news.

Because if had been a defensible falsehood rather than an outrageously transparent one, it might have been convincing.

A good sized coal fired power plant requires ratepayers (not shareholders) to finance $3 billion in construction costs. It saddles our children and grandchildren with a cumulative $9 billion debt to pay for coal from other states (nothing like spending locally!) It creates untold expenses to care for those whose health is damaged by pollution. And it ignores the certainty that there will be a price on carbon emissions in the future.

Western Upper Peninsula customers of WE Energy saw just what happened to their rates last year as a result of new coal-fired capacity built on their behalf. Coal cost them a 33 percent rate hike http://www.miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/536249.html?nav=5003

I’m not among those who believe that we can meet our energy demands without ever building a new coal plant. We likely will need some as a crutch to get us to a cleaner and smarter future that relies first on efficiency and second on renewable energy’s exciting new technologies.

But we don’t need those money sucking coal plant crutches yet. Especially not when our state’s own Public Service Commission staff concluded in September that Michigan won’t need a new coal plant for at least 13 years: http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/michigan/news.newsmain/article/756/0/1552468/Environment/Public.Service.Commission.Says.New.Coal.Plants.Not.Needed

What’s needed now is a wholesale commitment to energy efficiency. Programs that help industry, commercial businesses and homeowners become more efficient are the only ones that truly reduce ratepayer costs. They also provide in-state jobs for builders, installers, and the many Michigan companies that manufacture products that help cut energy use.

Coupled with aggressive use of renewable energy source like wind and solar, efficiency can meet our energy needs until we need to make a decision about whether a dirty, expensive coal plant is a necessary evil.

Talk to me in 2012.

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Power plants recalled for safety defects?

A massive, noisy, hugely publicized recall is underway after Toyota vehicles have been suspected in up to 19 crash deaths and perhaps dozens of preventable injuries during the past decade.

Imagine the outrage if the number of preventable deaths had been 22,000 instead of 19?

That’s how many early deaths are caused annually from coal-fired power plant pollution according to this study: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5174391/

Toyota is replacing flawed brake pedals at a phenomenal rate. They know that it will take a long time to rebuild the trust of a shaken public.

Isn’t it time that the public begin demanding the same accountability from energy producers?

Here’s a start: http://www.environmentalcouncil.org/priorities/mec_priority.php?x=1

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Brewing coffee for three mornings: 8 cents. Tracking energy use like a geek: Priceless

The doohickey plugged into the outlet here is a Kill-a-Watt meter, which tracks how much power appliances draw and how much they use over time.

It’s a fascinating little device that visually illustrates where your energy-hogging devices are. Ours cost about $30, and you can read about them here: http://www.p3international.com/products/special/P4400/P4400-CE.html

Kill-a-Watt has no ideology.  Democrats, Republicans, dirty tree huggers, free-market wackos, Tea Party dullards, crybaby liberals …… they all share a love of saving money.

This week, it told us our coffee pot used 0.93 kilowatt hours (kWh) of juice during the 66 hours its been monitoring the pot (three brewing cycles, I think).

That’s quite a bargain, in no small part because electric bills don’t include many costs passed along to us elsewhere. Medical care for people made ill by pollution from electricity generating coal power plants, for example. Or cleaning up the environmental damage caused by coal mining.

But I digress.

Kill-o-Watt has made some surprising discoveries. The heating coils on the roof that keep ice dams from forming in the gutters after heavy snows draw 373 watts….constantly! The small clock on the front of the coffee pot draws only 1 watt. Takes 42 days for that clock to draw a single kWh.

One big shocker was that the box for our cable television/DVR draws 40 watts on standby! That’s equivalent to a 40-watt light bulb left on permanently. My math says we can save $10 or $15 each year by turning the cable box off at night, which I do. Unless, of course, it needs to stay on to tape a 3 a.m. classic like “Roadhouse” or “Red Dawn.”

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