And now, the landfills. Colorado needs more regulation after all. Environmentalist hypocrisy: SCC for thee but not for me! State employee? Concerned about PERA?
And now, the landfills. Colorado needs more regulation after all.
Due to a Democrat state law, Colorado must cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50% from the 2005 levels, and, according to the CPR article linked first below, CDPHE is now turning its attention to landfills as a way to help hit that target.
Never mind that we're already falling behind on hitting the 2026 greenhouse gas targets with existing regulations (see the second link below)...
Never mind that the emissions from a our state's landfills emit about 1% of the total greenhouse gases for the whole state (though a NASA study could put that as high as a staggering 1.5%!)...
Environmentalists and CDPHE think the landfills are easy pickings to help us hit this arbitrary target. They propose going above and beyond existing EPA rules about methane emissions.
Quoting Katherine Blauvelt of Industrious Labs, an environmental advocacy firm that released a Colorado landfill methane report from the article:
“'You don’t have to split an atom to address and effectively prevent harmful emissions,' Blauvelt said."
No indeed you don't. There are several options mentioned in the article for doing this. The thing is that new regulations cost money for existing operations. They make it less desirable to open up competition. More costs for business, less competition both add up to more costs for consumers.
So Blauvelt is right about splitting atoms, she just leaves out the splitting of wallets that come from efforts like these.
https://www.cpr.org/2024/12/27/colorado-propose-new-rule-landfills-methane-emissions/
https://open.substack.com/pub/coloradoaccountabilityproject/p/are-we-falling-behind-on-our-greenhouse?r=15ij6n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Related:
I watch Practical Engineering videos from time to time on YouTube. I like the way the host clearly explains things and how he uses visual aids.
For you, me, and anyone else who doesn't know how landfills work and how their regulation/construction/operation has changed over time, I present the below.
Environmentalist hypocrisy: SCC for thee but not for me!
One of the ways that I have seen for adapting to climate change and for easing the transition away from more fossil fuels is the idea of carbon capture.
That is, until renewables and associated technologies catch up to the way that humans actually use power, and until their prices fall to reasonable levels, carbon capture is seen as a bridge technology to let us continue to use fossil fuels while at the same time reducing or decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. We will still use natural gas generators to make electricity and salve our consciences by removing carbon from those emissions (or others) to sequester it underground.
One of the common complaints by environmentalists for a paradigm like this is that it doesn't force us to reckon with our consumption of fossil fuels in general, that it lets us continue business as usual. To many environmental extremists, there is no path other than to stop using fossil fuels. Now. Consequences be damned.
The Sum and Substance article linked first below offers up yet more evidence of this. Quoting the article:
"One provision [of the rules that were being debated regarding permits for wells to sequester carbon deep in the earth] stated that when judging whether projects have no net negative cumulative impact on disproportionately impacted communities — a standard they must meet to receive permits — positive economic impacts like jobs created can’t be considered. The other stated that the ECMC couldn’t consider the social cost of carbon — a measure of the impact on projects on the large-scale environment and public health — when determining if carbon-capture projects offered positive benefits to surrounding communities."
Let me break this into plainer language. In considering the rules to do permits for carbon capture, the more radical environmental groups wanted the Colorado Carbon and Energy Management Commission to not allow any consideration of positive benefits from these efforts.
This is despite the fact that environmentalists in the past have pushed (and pushed hard) to have those same metrics count AGAINST other operations! Don't want oil and gas exploration nearby? Have rules requiring extra steps and checks for disproportionately impacted communities. Want to artificially raise the costs of fossil fuel combustion? Toss in some social costs of carbon.
That is, Social Cost of Carbon** for thee, but not for me.
To their credit, the Colorado Carbon and Energy Management Commission, while not giving in entirely to what industry wanted, didn't listen to the environmentalists. There will be a way to add some positive social benefit for the Social Cost of Carbon in consideration of carbon capture wells.
More details in the article.
**Social cost of carbon is a way of assigning a dollar value to greenhouse gas emissions so that the companies emitting them can bear the costs of emitting them now (well, so that consumers can that is) instead of the costs being diffuse and paid by us all at some future date. This number, made up from whole cloth, is often added to the actual costs of things, say, a new coal-fired power plant. It makes the carbon emitting objects' costs higher, especially when compared with things like renewables where the cost is conveniently often left off of their manufacture. See the second link below for more.
https://tsscolorado.com/colorado-regulators-change-final-rules-on-carbon-storage-projects-in-way-that-could-boost-sector/
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-is-the-social-cost-of-carbon/
State employee? Concerned about PERA?
Or do you know someone who is? Now is your chance to get involved. Run for a PERA seat.
More details in the link below.
https://cdn.mc-weblink.sg-mktg.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
...the state legislature, and find additional funding... Sorry about that!
In my opinion, joining the PERA Board is like being assimilated by the Borg collective. Looks good on your resume but you'll rubber stamp whatever PERA management meekly accepts from the state legislature. It doesn't take a seat on the Board to determine what color the silly PERA performance stoplight is. It will always be red until 2048 until PERA management decides to break up with its longtime girlfriend the state legislature find additional funding mechanisms to augment a losing defined benefit cause. What do you think?