The Climate Race
Harvesting gas from the dairy air
A California utility is aggressively developing power sources cleaner than coal -- natural gas, nuclear, hydro, wind, solar ... and now even cow manure. But Pacific Gas & Electric isn't turning green totally on its own. It's the law. Sarah Gardner reports.
A cow at the Vintage Dairy in Riverdale, Calif. (Sarah Gardner / Marketplace)
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Kai Ryssdal: So far this week on our series "The Climate Race," we have been to the U.K. and to China. Taking a look at how those countries are trying to maximize their green technology profits. Whether next month's climate change meeting in Copenhagen comes up with a substantive agreement or not, the environmental economy is set for a boom. To the tune of trillions of dollars worldwide.
The United States doesn't really regulate greenhouse-gas emissions at the moment. Many American businesses oppose a global treaty that would do that, as well as a law curbing emissions here at home. But some do embrace the idea. Including the West Coast power company Pacific Gas & Electric. Marketplace's Sarah Gardner reports.
SARAH GARDNER: When PG&E talks about making electricity from "natural gas," its customers probably don't know just how "natural" some of it is.
RENEE RIPPCHEN: These are Holsteins. They're actually very happy cows.
Renee Rippchen works for BioEnergy Solutions. Her company is selling PG&E what they casually refer to as "poo power." And they make that power by capturing the methane gas from cow manure, cleaning it up, and feeding it directly into PG&E's natural-gas pipelines.
RIPPCHEN: So one average Holstein will produce around 120 pounds of manure every day. And so we can capture the gas from those cows, and it takes basically two cows to power one average California home.
Every day. Now that's renewable. But cow power isn't the only renewable energy PG&E is buying these days. In the last few years, it's been aggressively signing contracts for wind, solar and geothermal power, too. The idea is to cut its emissions of gases that trap heat and cause global warming. The utility's exploring more sci-fi sort of stuff as well.
CEO Peter Darbee.
PETER DARBEE: One, a satellite-based system where there would be solar collected in space and then transmitted down via microwave. And that certainly would be an exciting breakthrough if it can be accomplished.
But PG&E can afford a little California dreamin'. See, this West Coast utility has never depended on coal, the country's biggest source of global warming emissions. The natural gas it uses for almost half its power supply is much cleaner. It also uses a lot of nuclear and hydropower. The state's year-round sunshine makes solar power viable. Add in a CEO convinced that global warming's a real danger, and you've got a recipe for a greener American power company. But PG&E's not going green just because it can. In California, it's the law.
DAVID VICTOR: PG&E is a highly regulated company. And its regulators and its ratepayers want the company to do more to control emissions of warming gases.
That's David Victor. He's a climate-policy expert at the University of California, San Diego. Victor's referring to a California law that requires utilities to get at least a fifth of their electricity from renewable energy by next year. By 2020, they'll need to get a full third from renewables like solar and wind. Other states have similar mandates but California's is among the most aggressive.
CEO Peter Darbee admits it's been a driving force in PG&E's "green" evolution.
DARBEE: From my own standpoint I think 33 percent is a significant challenge, but we have 10 years to pursue it. I think there's a very reasonable likelihood that we will achieve it.
PG&E is also motivated by a sweeping California law that will ultimately make industries pay for the heat-trapping gases they spew. PG&E actually lobbied for that bill. And it supports similar legislation in Congress. CEO Darbee would like the Feds to flex their muscle even more: when utilities need to build new transmission lines for green power.
DARBEE: And say, yes, we're going to put this in place. We understand it may not be entirely popular with every little locale. But it's in the best interests of the state, the region, and the nation.
So if a utility as big as PG&E can get religion over green energy, what's stopping so many other American businesses? Well, lots of utilities and other big companies don't have the luxury. Many depend on coal, an industry that also provides millions of jobs.
Dan Esty heads Yale's Center for Environmental Law and Policy. He says the gas, coal and oil industries see their economic survival at stake and have spent big bucks to defend their dominance.
DAN ESTY: And they've done it in a variety of ways, traditional lobbying, creating kind of a false impression of lack of clarity around the science, and they've done it the old-fashioned way, with big campaign contributions.
Esty says these efforts to protect the jobs and profits these industries have now have effectively held back American innovation.
ESTY: And there's a real risk that the United States, which has led so many of the recent economic trends, such as information technology, could well be left behind in the race to move to a clean-energy future.
A race companies like PG&E say they want to win.
In San Francisco, I'm Sarah Gardner for Marketplace.
Comments
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From Roseville, CA, 11/20/2009
In reading this article and more importantly the comments I find it interesting that a lot of people are complaining about PG&E, well my question to these complainers, especially those in CA is, what are you doing? Are you driving a Hybrid or Alternative Fuel Vehicle, use public transportation? Is you house solar? Do you recycle or reuse everything rather than throwing it in a landfill? Do you buy water bottles or use tap water? I could go on. . . Lets stop complaining that PG&E isn't doing enough and start taking responsibility for our world ourselves
From Wichita, KS, 11/19/2009
It's high time for NO correspondent to take advocates (both for and against anything) at face value.
Iowa is right. No mammal produces nearly 10% of their body weight per day as feces. You don't--my dog doesn't--and that mouse in the garage doesn't, either.
Anything that's fetid and rotting is producing methane--and capturing it is a good idea. (ditch weed, fallen leaves, human garbage and body wastes, too)
But mindlessly repeating that one cow can produce the energy needed for two homes--well, I'm extremely skeptical--and I noticed that no studies (or even observations) were cited.
Might I suggest that more of the "city based theorists" get out of town before they write about ethanol, natural gas, or cows? (Maybe you could visit that big hole-in-the-ground known as the Alberta Tar Sands--I'd like to know more)
From San Francisco, CA, 11/19/2009
Thanks for this piece! Rather than pursue completely unproven technologies like microwaves from outer space, PG&E should show it's serious about curbing emissions by investing heavily in local generation from off-the-shelf technologies that can be installed without major transmission lines -- technologies like solar, district heating, co-generation, and effective efficiency programs. By doing so, they'll be complying with the law, and they can stop the big fossil build-out as covered in this article: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/news/pg_e_wants_more_fossil_fuel/Content?oid=1232894
From Oakland, CA, 11/19/2009
I strongly support efforts by PG&E and all utilities to meet the 33% RPS. What you aren't reporting is that PG&E is using renewables as an excuse to continue our addiction to fossil fuels. It is currently operating the new Gateway power plant without the air permits required by federal and state law, and is trying to get approval to buy/build two huge new power plants that combined will emit 2,760,000 tons of GHG. That's the real story we should be hearing about PG&E!
From Berkeley, CA, 11/18/2009
While there is a lot of promise in producing power from manure, PGE is not using shareholder money to do this project but is funding it with an assessment on all ratepayers with the hope that some consumers will pay $5/month extra to be carbon-neutral. Even though PGE assured regulators that the program would be taken over by shareholders after 3 years, they have gone back to the regulators to renege as only 11% of project customers signed up and they are losing customers every month even with huge marketing expenditures. To add insult to injury to ratepayers such as myself, they decided to go from metric tons of offsets to short tons, 2000 pounds rather than 2200 pounds in a metric ton, to allow themselves to purchase 10% fewer tons from holsteins and other projects. PG&E is doing a great job using regulator approved surcharge to run an advertising campaign extolling PG&E as a green leader - but are still not williing to put their money where their mouth is.
From HI, 11/18/2009
Shit Howdy,
Pardon my Texan Drawl! Last time I was swimming in a mountain stream we noticed that leaves accumulating at the bottom of the stream were loaded with methane bubbles. When I step on the leaves the methane bubbles up. I can catch methane in submerged face mask. It will burn briefly when released from mask. But leaves are much more rife than cow-pies and buffalo-chips. Some cities send truck by to pick up leaves free of charge from homes during the fall.
Could the autumn leaf collections be used for underwater methane production that might burn until spring time? Are we going to get shot for running the Uranium Guys out of business? Uh Oh! Duke Nukem has laser gun-site trained on me.
I'm out of here.
From Milan, MI, 11/18/2009
Now, turning a waste product into energy is a good idea, as is solar power in generally-sunny places. But overall, so far the "race to move to a clean-energy future" is like an arms race to see who can get rid of gunpowder-, explosives-, and nuclear-based weapons first, and in such a contest whoever finishes LAST wins, because until the supposed next-generation technologies become workable realities rather than extrapolations whoever is least hampered by the demands of this "race" can defeat any opponents that have handicapped themselves as easily as modern aircraft can outshoot archers.
From Spokane, WA, 11/18/2009
When I heard RENEE RIPPCHEN say that "very happy" Holstein cows produce 120 pounds of manure a day, I about drove off the road. Having a lot of experience shoveling manure (or shit) as an Iowa farm boy, I know from first hand experience that dairy cows, beef cows, pigs and sheep can generate a lot of shit in a day, but 120 pounds for a dairy cow?? That amount of shit from one cow in a day would have made my exit from the farm a whole lot faster than it already was!!!
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