Environmental Economics

Warning track power

Back in the good old days when Tim and I played on the same intramural softball team (I was the player/coach, Tim was the guy I had to bat fourth or he'd throw a tantrum*), Tim would boast about his power hitting and he looked the part: late 20s, 6' 8", big Wookie beard. And, give him credit, he swung for the fences every time.**

So I know that this story has got to be eating at his insides (Swinging ...):

Home runs are outs in this otherwise all-American Houston suburb about nine miles west of downtown, where encroaching development has upended one of the sport's most hallowed rules, even, for a time, getting home run hitters ejected from the batter's box.

*Joking; it must be Friday.

**Joking. He didn't swing for the fences all the time, just most times.

'Trump'ed up conservation

From CNN.com:

Donald Trump is donating 436 bucolic acres in New York City's northern suburbs for a new state park that will be named for -- you guessed it -- Donald Trump.

Gas demand

From McPaper [do they still call it that?] (Drivers curb use ...):

Americans have cut back gasoline use in apparent response to increasing prices, separate surveys by the government and a petroleum trade organization showed Wednesday.

Gas use last month was 0.6% less than a year ago, the American Petroleum Institute reported, because "high fuel prices have led to decreased demand for gasoline and other refined oil products."

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said gasoline use the past four weeks was up a slight 0.6% vs. a year ago. Typical is an increase of 1.5%, and that's the growth rate assumed in many industry, analyst and government forecasts.

Cutting back just a little more could cause gasoline prices — which average $2.801 nationwide, up 57.7 cents from last year, according to motorist organization AAA — to drop dramatically, one veteran analyst says.

"If everyone decided to drive 3% less the next 30 days, prices would crash," says Tom Kloza, senior analyst at the Oil Price Information Service.

Crash? For a 3% drop in demand (a shift of the curve in response to non-price factors, say, a continent-wide desire to stick it to the oil companies) to significantly affect gas prices, the supply curve must be near vertical (highly inelastic). Even then, wouldn't the price only fall by about 3%.

What am I missing?

Quote of the Day

From the WSJ's Morning Brief:

"Right now the entire mining industry is going berserk, and we're feeding into it," said Michael Hickman, co-owner of Ohio-based H & H Industries, one of the nation's largest retreaders of used mining tires and which has tripled its work force to 160 in the last two years. The world-wide thirst for materials as diverse as copper and coal, gold and oil has set off a stunning boom in the market for supersize tires used by giant dump trucks and other heavy equipment, the New York Times reports, with prices quadrupling for some of them in the last year to more than $40,000 a tire.

The power of blogs?

Blogs put developers on the defensive (A blogfest ...):

Like any developer, Forest City Ratner has had to contend with suspicious community groups, concerned politicians and skeptical editorial boards while seeking approval for the 8.7-million-square-foot venture.

But Atlantic Yards may well be the first large-scale urban real estate venture in New York City where opposition has coalesced most visibly in the blogosphere.

This reminds me of the time env-econ.net shut down that dirty coal burning power plant. Sweet!

Visions of Sustainable Forestry

An Earth Day vision from Don Melnick, professor of conservation biology at Columbia University and Mary Pearl, president of Wildlife Trust:

Not Out of the Woods Just Yet, by Don Melnick and Mary Pearl, Commentary, NY Times: Our forests are the heart of our environmental support system. And yet, in the 36 years that have passed since the first Earth Day, on April 22, 1970, we have lost more than one billion acres of forest, with no end in sight. The people most vulnerable to the disappearance of forests are the poor: nearly three-quarters of the 1.2 billion people defined as extremely poor live in rural areas, where they rely most directly on forests for food, fuel, fiber and building materials.

Can consumers force gas prices lower? The Answer

On Monday, I challenged you to decide if a boycott of Exxon/Mobil will reduce gas prices as suggested by an e-mail chain letter.  A lot of good answers and comments came in, both here and over at the Oil Drum, where they cross-posted the challenge to get a peak-oiler view on the question. Now I will give you my take.  First I'll give you the simple supply and demand answer then I'll get a little more realistic and talk about some of the real-world issues.

More Green Versus Green

Anne Applebaum at the Washington Post asks "...are we really ready, politically, to build any new energy sources at all?"

To my eye, they are lovely: Graceful, delicate, white against green grass and a blue sky. Last summer my children and I stopped specially to watch a group of them, wheels turning in the breeze.

But to those who dislike them, the modern wind turbine is worse than ugly. It is an aesthetic blight, a source of noise pollution, a murderer of birds and bats. As for the still-young wind industry, it is "an environmental plunderer, with its hirelings and parasites using a few truths and the politics of wishful thinking to frame a house of lies." Far from being clean and green, "corporate wind is yet another extraction industry relying on false promises," a "poster child for irresponsible development."

Grapes of Wrath

Forecasters are predicting an extremely dry summer in the mid-west and plains drawing comparisons to the 'Dust Bowl' era of the 1930's. 

The Pennsylvania-based forecasting service AccuWeather.com predicts a high-pressure system will be parked across the central United States much of the summer. The system would lead to scorching-hot days and prevent moisture from coming into the region — something that in turn causes even higher temperatures.

Putting aside the shaky nature of any weather forecast--the only forecasts that make economic forecasts look accurate by comparison--the economic consequences of another 'Dust Bowl' are likely to be much less severe than in 1930.

Before cap and trade there was bubbles

And I'm not talking about the clown.

Michigan wants to cut mercury emissions past Bush admin goals (Granholm orders ...*):

Michigan electric companies are being ordered to slash mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants by 90 percent within nine years, a step toward cleansing the state's waters of a poison that has prompted fish consumption warnings.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm on Monday said the Department of Environmental Quality would develop a rule requiring utilities to achieve the reductions by 2015.

The state policy goes beyond mercury reduction standards announced by the Bush administration last year. The federal goal is to cut mercury pollution 70 percent nationwide by 2018, although the DEQ says Michigan probably would see little if any reduction until 2025 or later.

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