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Join the energy action network to learn more about what you can do to increase energy and environmental security.

Contact Eric Wesselman at (510) 622-0290 x240.

Support Clean Energy in California and Fight Global Warming!

While California is taking the lead in tackling global warming with the recent signing of AB 1493 by Gov. Gray Davis, we are no longer the global leader in renewable energy development. Japan now derives 15 times more electricity from solar energy than does California, even though it only has about half the usable sunlight. Germany is in the midst of a solar boom period, due to new incentive programs for solar and other renewable energy sources. The United States, and especially California, should be a clean energy leader. Let's raise the standard and set an example by passing SB 1524, the Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) bill, which will not only help the environment, but also increase energy security and broaden the renewable energy market.

Take action by August 12 to help pass SB 1524. Taking action is fast and easy!

Renewables Portfolio Standard
Global Warming
Renewable Energy Options
Related Links

Renewables Portfolio Standard

What is a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS)? An RPS requires that all retail sellers of electricity, including investor-owned and municipal utilities and irrigation districts, obtain a certain percentage of the electricity they sell from clean renewable resources, such as wind, solar, geothermal, various forms of biomass and ocean energy. Right now, only 10% of California's energy comes from these cleaner renewable sources. SB 1524 (Sher D), a bill that will be up for review around August 12, 2002, aims to double the use of renewable energy in California by the year 2010 at an increase of 1% per year.

Why does California need an RPS?
The rolling black outs of the energy crisis of 2001 should serve as a warning sign that our energy system is in desperate need of modification. California relies on conventional natural gas for most of its electricity needs, which is putting far too many of our eggs in one basket. An RPS will diversify our energy sources, thereby creating energy and economic security. Since renewable energy sources are not subject to the same price fluctuations as natural gas, increased use of renewables will lessen vulnerability to the rise and fall of natural gas prices. An RPS would benefit our environment, improve the resource diversity in the electricity market, and increase the reliability of our electricity system.

What have other states done to promote clean energy?
Hawaii, Nevada, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maine, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and New Jersey have all incorporated an RPS, while many other states are in the process of creating their own RPS's. To see how other states have set up their renewable energy portfolios, click on the following link: http://www.ucsusa.org/energy/state_fedprops.html

Global Warming

Global Warming: Roots of the Problem
While containing only about 4.5% of the world's population, U.S. fossil fuel combustion produces 24% of the global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main contributor to global warming. As of 1999, the entire United States, the number one emitter of carbon dioxide, emits an estimated 1,527 million tons of carbon equivalents a year. California emits over 400 million tons of CO2 a year. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts an overall warming by 2100 of 2.5 - 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Unfortunately, President Bush broke his promise to curb carbon dioxide pollution and rejected the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty to address CO2 and other greenhouse gases. By abandoning the Kyoto Protocol, the Bush Administration has thrown international efforts to address global warming into confusion and strained U.S. relations with Europe, Japan, and major developing countries. Bush criticizes the Kyoto Protocol for "leaving out" China and India, even though the average person in these two countries is responsible for only 1/10th and 1/20th as much CO2 pollution, respectively, as the average American. China has done far more than the U.S. to reduce its CO2 emissions in the last decade.

Impacts
The effects of the increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere may have grave consequences for the global community, even here in California. Global Warming is likely to make summers hotter and drier, and winters hotter and wetter. In California this means increased winter precipitation over the coast and the Sierras, a drier southeast corner, and a strong warming in the northern Sierras and the Central Valley. Water may become scarcer than it already is and the agriculture industry may suffer serious impacts. Fish that use San Francisco bay for spawning will be threatened by the decrease in fresh water due to reduced stream flow. The increased summer temperatures, along with the Santa Ana winds, increase risk of fires, already a problem in the west this year. The heavy rains of more frequent El Niño events will cause sea level to rise, harming coastal wetlands, housing, agriculture, and public works while increasing outbreaks of insect and rodent populations that threaten human health.

Clean Energy Solutions
One of the ways we can curb the pollution caused by fossil fuels and reduce the future effects of global warming is to increase our use of renewable energies. Research and experience has shown that wind, geothermal and solar energy can be good for our economy and our environment. Instituting a Renewables Energy Portfolio in California is an essential step towards creating a more efficient and secure energy program

Renewable Energy Options

What are the renewable energy options?
There are viable alternatives to fossil fuel. Clean, renewable energy from the sun and wind offer non-polluting, economical, and durable alternatives for generating electricity. We can also reduce pollution by using electricity more efficiently. If we are protect our children and grandchildren from a dangerous change in the Earth's climate, we must make the switch to cleaner, renewable forms of energy, and use electricity more wisely. Solar energy can be directly converted into usable energy through a variety of processes -- solar water heating, passive solar heating and cooling, photovoltaic technology, and solar thermal technology.

From the mountain passes of California to the shores of the North Sea, wind turbines are now producing commercial quantities of electricity without the emission of global warming gases. Wind energy is actually an indirect form of solar energy -- the wind is mainly driven by temperature differences on the earth's surface caused by sunlight. Uneven warming of the atmosphere results in rising and circulating air currents which can be used to generate electricity. Wind turbines, usually with just two or three blades, collect kinetic energy from the wind, which drives a generator and produces electricity. Wind turbines are placed on towers where the wind blows harder and more steadily. The longer the blades -- up to 82 feet -- and the faster and more constant the wind speed, the more electricity the turbines generate.

Wind energy is cheap and clean. Unfortunately, it faces an American, and world, energy market heavily slanted towards fossil fuel technology through subsidies and tax incentives. If we are to curb pollution from electricity generation, this must change. There is enormous potential for greater use of wind energy in the US, especially in the Midwest, and using that potential would mean an economic boon. States such as Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota hold the potential of becoming the Saudi Arabia of wind power.

For years NASA has used fuel cell technology to generate electricity and power spacecraft. Fuel cells work by allowing oxygen to react with natural gas, methanol or hydrogen to produce electricity without combustion. The fuel is fed into an electrolyte near the electrodes and an electric current is created. In hydrogen fuel cells, water and heat are the only byproducts. Fuel cells are poised for a breakthrough into the mainstream, and offer a clean alternative for not only electricity generation, but also powering our automobiles and other vehicles. Both Mercedes-Benz and Toyota both plan to produce fuel cell-powered electric vehicles in the next decade. Such vehicles would have far greater range than today's battery-powered electric cars.