The New New Sierra Club Energy Policy

by Henry Robertson, Chapter Energy Chair

The Sierra Club Board of Directors has adopted a “final” Energy Policy. Actually, this is likely to remain a work in progress, but for now Club entities must conform their actions and statements to this Policy.

The ultimate goals are to reduce greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions by 70–90 percent by mid-century and reduce fossil fuel use to negligible proportions by 2100. This sounds more manageable when put in terms of what the U.S. must do to reach this goal—reduce ghg emissions by two percent per year.

The conservation ethic
“Guided by the conservation ethic, the Sierra Club has crafted this comprehensive Energy Resources Policy.” But “there must be a fundamental shift in awareness, attitudes and values” to spread that ethic. This is really our biggest challenge, for I see precious few signs of a spirit of conservation in Americans’ use of energy.

Recently I was on a conference call with a national Sierra Club staffer who briefed us on the results of a focus group study on attitudes to energy. The study found that Americans are technological optimists who want a full menu of energy options, including efficiency and renewables but also coal, oil and nuclear. More people are making the connection between cars and global warming but not between coal and global warming. Worse, they’re buying the coal industry’s “clean coal” message. As the Policy notes, “There is no such thing as ‘clean coal.’”

The study also found that environmentalists are seen as unattractive messengers—scolding, elitist and blocking technological progress. It’s best that we just give people the facts they need to make the right energy choices on their own.

The Policy commits the Club to using less energy and calls on members “to take action in their homes, workplaces, and communities and to minimize the energy impacts of their travel and transportation choices.”

Efficiency

The heart of the Policy is a ranking of energy resources according to their desirability. The Policy deals only in passing with important issues like taxes and incentives, land use, agriculture and population; these are left to other policies to consider in detail.

The most favored resource is energy efficiency. Some of the options here are:

•  Efficient vehicles. The Club calls for raising the fuel efficiency of cars and light trucks to 40 miles per gallon, then to 55. (We may be able to do much better than that. A Luxembourg-based company called MDI is developing a car that runs mostly on compressed air and gets 600 mpg. You can check it out online at theaircar.com.)
•  More efficient transportation modes—especially rail.
•  Building efficient communities. Bringing home, work, shopping and school closer together reduces the need to drive and makes walking, bicycling and public transit more practical.
•  Tougher building and appliance efficiency standards.

Ranking the technologies
The Policy breaks fuels and technologies into four categories—preferred, generally acceptable, transitional and those the Club opposes. It also shows us how we can accomplish the goals.

Preferred resources
“Sierra Club entities may support or remain neutral on projects employing these resources… Decisions to oppose a specific facility listed as a preferred resource must be justified with a detailed description of the significant environmental harm.” In this category are:

•  Wind. Siting can be a problem due to visual and other impacts. The Club has a Wind Siting Advisory.
•  Solar, including on-site photovoltaics, water heating and central station solar.
•  Combined Heat and Power (CHP), which uses waste heat from industrial processes for electricity generation, heating and cooling.
•  Low-temperature geothermal.

Generally acceptable resources
These have larger potential environmental costs. Decisions to oppose projects in this category must be “based on the location or other project specific inadequacies.”

•  New small hydroelectric projects; these may include the use of dams but generally not new ones.
•  Ocean energy (wave and tidal).
•  High-temperature geothermal, which taps hot water or rock deep underground.
•  Biodiesel. Waste animal fat and vegetable oil could supply 2 percent of U.S. diesel consumption.
•  Cellulosic ethanol. This technology, not yet fully developed, uses whole plants like native switchgrass or agricultural residue, not just corn kernels. As with all biofuels, the feedstocks must be sustainably managed.

Transitional resources
These are preferable only to more damaging resources. We should eliminate them in the long run but tolerate them now as elements in “comprehensive energy supply proposals” that are acceptable overall.

•  Existing oil fields
•  Existing natural gas fields
•  Liquefied natural gas (LNG)
•  Ethanol from starch and sugar. It would take another article to list the problems with corn-based ethanol.

Resources opposed by the Sierra Club

“Sierra Club entities may support public policy proposals that include these resources only if they find that the overall balance of the proposal strongly favors efficiency, renewable energy and greenhouse gas reduction, and that the environmental impacts are insubstantial.”

•  Combustion coal power plants. Research is continuing on the controversial notion of carbon capture and storage, capturing CO2 and storing it underground or under the ocean. The Policy allows that this research “should receive priority.”
•  Unconventional oil such as coal-to-liquids, oil shale, bitumen and tar sands. Converting these to usable oil products is polluting, takes fossil fuel and consumes huge quantities of water.
•  New oil and gas production.
•  Nuclear power. While voices in the environmental movement are championing nuclear as a solution to global warming, it remains costly and fraught with problems, not the least of which is disposing of the waste.
•  New large hydro is not much of a possibility in the U.S. but is gaining traction in Canada and developing countries.
•  Forest biomass. “Sierra Club entities may support small-scale forest biomass-to-energy projects on non-federal lands where they are carefully monitored and designed as part of a sustainable system similar to that required for Forest Stewardship Council certification.”
• Municipal solid waste incineration. There are too many toxins in this feedstock.

On the whole, this is an enlightened policy that I, for one, can support. All Chapter activists need to be familiar with it; as I’ve noted, national Sierra Club is cracking the whip to get groups and chapters to comply. This shouldn’t be hard, though members may differ, for example, over how tolerant they are of the visual impacts of wind towers—beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

The final Policy shows that the Club listened to the comments it got from Ozark Chapter and many other Club members and entities on earlier drafts. The result is a better document. Now let’s see if we can bring the rest of America around to our conservation ethic.

Missouri’s Sierra Club’s Clean Air & Energy Campaign

1. Promote clean energy options in Missouri.
2. Prevent the construction of any new coal-burning power plant in Missouri.
3. Reduce emissions from existing coal-burning power plants.
4. Promote a balanced energy portfolio for all utilities in Missouri.

Missouri Sierra Club’s Clean Air & Energy Campaign (CA&EC) is helping Missouri choose a clean energy future and do its part to curb global warming. Our first priority must be to stop new coal-burning power plants from being built while we encourage clean, safe and reliable energy options to meet our future energy needs.

The unfortunate reality is that once a new coal-burning power plant is built it will be our energy option for the next 40–50 years. The excess capacity will effectively shut out the development of cheaper and cleaner energy alternatives. And, since there is currently no way to retrofit coal-burning power plants to capture carbon dioxide (CO2), each plant will add more global warming gasses to our atmosphere when we know we must act now to reduce CO2 emissions.

Sierra Club is energizing citizens across the state to demand clean energy solutions while interacting with Missouri’s energy industry and the Public Service Commission to encourage the development of clean energy alternatives. Where necessary we are engaged in litigation with those utilities insisting on adding more coal to meet future electric demand.

Support Missouri’s Clean Air & Energy Campaign
Send your tax-deductible contribution to:

Missouri Sierra Club
1007 N. College, Ste 3
Columbia, MO 65201

Make your contribution payable to The Sierra Club Foundation, with Missouri’s Clean Air & Energy Campaign written in the memo.

Contributions and gifts to The Sierra Club Foundation are tax-deductible as charitable contributions as they support grants for public education, research and public-interest litigation necessary to further the Club's goals in Missouri.