A Sad Shad Story

Seems like energy issues are everywhere in the news these days, but sometimes the real impact of energy policy is seen, not in the headlines, but in off-beat local stories that make these somewhat abstract issues hit closer to home. I had this experience last week when following a story in one of our local newspapers. I've been living in the Hudson Valley area of New York for about 15 years and one of the things I like about living here is the abundance of local spring and summer festivals that come around every year. Some of them, like the popular Clearwater festival have some national recognition. But my favorites are the really small festivals focused around popular local happenings. One of the best was a little festival held at Croton Park on the Hudson River every year in April when the Shad start their run upriver to spawn.

The festival is called Shadfest, but this year it was a rather different event. That's because this year there weren't any Shad at the Shadfest Festival. Yep, this year it was a "Shadless" Festival so to speak. Why, because the Shad populations have declined so precipitously that the festival managers decided they didn't want to further endanger the fish population by serving them at the festival like they usually do.

In a certain sense not serving Shad at the Shadfest is true to the purpose of the event since because the festival was started 19 years ago by the environmental group Riverkeeper as a way of drawing attention to the health of the Hudson River estuary. Needless to say that its health is more than a little suspect given the decline in the fish populations in the river. A study commissioned by the Riverkeeper which was just released found that there was a 90% decline in the American shad populations in the river over the last 20 years. In the 1940's it was estimated that the shad populations were over 30 million, but now the whole population is estimated to be around 3 to 4 million and only about 200,000 of these come up the Hudson to spawn. At this point the entire species is at risk of disappearing from the river. Biologists from the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) are particularly concerned that the shad comprising the spawning stock (adult fish) have become smaller and younger, and mortality has increased to excessive and unacceptable levels. Meanwhile, juvenile production dropped to an all time low in 2002 and has not recovered.

There appear to be two primary causes behind this drop in population. One is extensive overfishing on the Hudson. As a result the DEC is in the process of changing fishing regulations so that it is a catch and release program only. This sounds like a common sense action to help the populations, though it is probably coming about 10 years too late. However, the other major cause of declines in the shad population is going to be a bit tougher to solve. That is because the other part of the problem are the numerous power plants on the Hudson River such as the Indian Point nuclear power plant. These power plants suck in huge quantities of water from the river for their cooling systems. When they do this they suck in the eggs of the shad which are then killed by the turbulent water flow. Local environmentalists have long advocated putting filters on the water intakes to help prevent this but the power plants have fought any such regulations. It seems 150% profits per year are not sufficient so the only choice is to save a few cents by killing off the fish populations.

Unfortunately the decline in fish populations on the Hudson is not limited to the shad alone. Last week, Riverkeeper released a study saying that 10 species of Hudson River fish are in decline. The report said shad, alewife and blueback herring are facing disappearance from the river. Riverkeeper aims to get the state to force the five power plants that pull water from the Hudson to cool their equipment, and inadvertently destroy fish larvae and eggs in the process, to switch to technology that uses 95 percent less water and, therefore, kills fewer fish. Indian Point is among the power plants that the group cited.

We support the Riverkeeper organization in trying to get the power plants to behave in an environmentally responsible manner. As much as we tend to talk about global warming on this site the environmental damage from coal and nuclear plants is not limited to just temperature change. Problems like this are yet one more reason why changing over to energy generation approaches such as wind and solar is so needed and so urgent. The cost of continuing to generate energy from coal and oil is, in every sense, just too high!

Is Food versus Fuel Really the RIght Debate?

The bio energy sector of the renewable energy market is under a good bit of fire these days. Seems like everyone, including Congress, is blaming bio fuels for the sudden increase in food prices. Not surprisingly the ethanol manufacturers have gone on the offensive (or is that defensive) in trying to counter this criticism. What's the truth of the situation?

There is no question that ethanol is one of the factors in the rise in demand for corn. According to the Department of Agriculture this year 22% of the U.S. corn crop will go towards producing ethanol rather than fuel. That's up 17% over last year. However, ethanol is not the only factor in the increased demand for corn. The biggest culprit is actually the increased demand for corn from China. Most of this demand is not for feeding the people of China directly, but instead for feeding their cows and pigs. Why, because the people of China and Asia have begun adding meat to their diets, something that used to be a rarity. Weather is also a factor in the current wave of demand. A drought this year in Asia reduced the supply of corn, wheat and soybeans. Imports increased to make up the difference. Finally there is the dollar itself. As the value of the dollar continues to fall on the currency market prices get higher.

As a result of the higher food prices Congress has begun to question the many incentives being provided to the ethanol industry. While this might be a good idea we suspect it is coming about four years too late and for the wrong reason. In our last two presidential election the Red states, most of which are large grain producers, managed to win themselves big government incentives for ethanol. Lost in the rush to win votes was the question as to whether or not ethanol is a particularly good approach for creating fuel in the first place. There continues to be much legitimate debate over the efficiency of corn-based ethanol. At best, according to industry spokesman, the fuel is only 1.25 efficient, meaning it only produces 25% more energy than it takes to make the fuel in the first place. However, recent studies that look at the full production cycle, including the cost of oil-based fertilizers to grow the corn in the first place, suggest that this number is optimistic and that ethanol could be a net negative (see our section on Food vs Fuel for more on this).

Yes, ethanol may be contributing to higher food prices but it is certainly not the only factor. The real problem is that at best corn-based ethanol is only a marginally efficient fuel. There are other renewable energy alternatives that have proven themselves in the marketplace to be far more efficient and effective, particularly wind energy and solar energy, which right now lack government incentives. Congress has still not renewed the renewable energy tax credits for wind and solar despite the fact that they represent probably the greatest energy resource that the U.S. has. Nor has the government invested in supporting the development of electric vehicles which would then make it easy for us to leverage electricity for transportation. If we are going to wean ourselves off of oil and coal and protect the planet the country is going to have to move much more forcefully to support renewable energy solutions. Therefore we support government incentives for renewable energy. But let's provide the most effective incentive for the most efficient renewable energy sources.

We are now in another election year. Let's not make the same mistake this time around. Let's have a real debate on where to put our government's energy dollars. Let's think wisely about how the taxpayer's dollars are used so that it has the greatest impact. Support the candidate that has the best energy policy and encourage your members of Congress to support energy policies that are wise, not just politically expedient.