Paul Birkeland's posts on Justmeans

Cow Farts and Oregano: Low Tech Carbon Emissions Reductions

Paul Birkeland — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 16:26:26 GMT

Many people already realize that cows are a climate change catalyst. When it comes to carbon emissions, cows worldwide generate 37 percent of anthropogenic methane. (Their methane is ours since their numbers are due to our dairy and meat production.) And methane is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. So this is quite a bit. In fact, some researchers have estimated that if we stopped eating beef, we would reduce carbon emissions equivalent to taking all our cars off the road! But I'm getting ahead of myself.LiveScience.com recently reported that researchers at Pennsylvania State University found that feeding dairy cows oregano reduces their methane production by 40%! It turns out that cows produce methane in their rumen, the first and largest of their four stomachs. Something in oregano is released in that first stomach and squelches the growth of methanogenic bacteria.The research also found that the oregano supplement increased milk production by 3 pounds per day per cow. The hypothesis is that methane production is energy lost from the food and, hence, the cow. Lower the methane, and you raise the available energy in the food.Research continues to try to isolate the compound in oregano that is responsible for this result, and to make it more conveniently available to dairy farmers.Stepping back, this becomes a more interesting story.Perhaps the major reason that cows produce so much methane is that the diets we allow them are so poor. (Humans, too, develop a lot of gas when on a low quality diet.) Cows on factory farms, especially beef cows, are made to eat all kinds of rich "foods" they were never evolved to digest - grains and 'supplements' that often consist of the processed remains of other cows. Research has shown that giving cows a more natural diet reduces methane production just as effectively. And, of course, reducing our beef and dairy consumption is an even more efficient way to reduce these emissions, with an added benefit of improved human health.So is oregano a real solution to a real problem? Or is it duct tape on a broken system?What we find is that our carbon emissions reduction strategies are still being driven by market dynamics. This isn't all bad. A properly regulated market has been shown to be the most efficient way to propagate a strategy. But what's happening here, and in many other economic sectors, is that the generation of strategies themselves are being driven by vested economic interests who are seeking duct tape solutions when we need an altogether new system. Economic forces militate against the changes we need. Unless and until we get beyond duct tape solutions, we are going to find it very difficult to get below the 350 ppm CO2 concentration in the atmosphere that science is telling us we need to maintain a livable planet.Photo Credit: FlickrPaul Birkeland lives in Seattle, WA, US, and develops Strategic Energy Management Systems for government, commercial, and industrial organizations through Integrated Renewable Energy.

Stop Carbon Emissions. Stop the Renewable Energy Standard.

Paul Birkeland — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 18:14:43 GMT

The main problem with the failed cap-and-trade legislation is that we will be generating runaway carbon emissions for the foreseeable future. But the other problem is that the temptation arises to give away all the bargaining chips. That's what's happening in Congress now where energy policy legislation is still being churned in the back rooms.The Governor's Wind Energy Coalition published a press release last week encouraging Congress to pass a national Renewable Energy Standard (RES), basically mandating that utilities across the nation have a certain percentage of their energy come from renewable sources - wind, tide, solar, etc.Lots of good things to say about RES. We have one here in Washington, as do more than half the other States. It's led to a noticeable increase in wind farms and solar panel installations. It even led some utilities to subsidize residential solar panel systems so that they can claim that as part of their source energy portfolio, which is a really good idea. Distributed generation doesn't get the attention it should in this country.But the Governors' statement is a little creepy. It touts "cost effective carbon emissions reduction" as one of the benefits, and says that it "could lower electricity bills in Southern Atlantic coastal states." This is all very nice until you look at the map.The Governor's Wind Energy Coalition includes Arkansas, Kentucky, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, and Oklahoma, a virtual line up of cap-and-trade assassins. And Oklahoma! Sheesh! Oklahoma has the two most obstructive Senators in DC. And that's saying quite a bit.Then there's Florida and the claim that wind may reduce energy costs in the South Atlantic States. With monster homes sprawling to the horizon, and a laissez faire energy code, it's a bit disingenuous to advocate a RES before seriously implementing conservation.It's clear that these Governors see dollar signs on a RES. They see revenue being brought in from nearby states that are not as blessed with renewable resources. (That's why those other states don't have a RES yet.) But the nation as a whole should not allow these states to tap into that revenue stream without getting commitment to a more broadly beneficial cap-and-trade program. The RES was initially proposed as part of the same energy legislation that included the cap-and-trade regimen. Yes, it reduces carbon emissions. Yes, it provides jobs and income. Yes, it jump-starts an industry we should more seriously support. But if we institute a RES without simultaneously instituting a cap-and-trade system, then we will have lost leverage on these myopic Senators who don't see the threat posed to us by climate change.Paul Birkeland lives in Seattle, WA, US, and develops Strategic Energy Management Systems for government, commercial, and industrial organizations through Integrated Renewable Energy.Graphic: AP

Energy Tremors in Indian Country

Paul Birkeland — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 01:53:17 GMT

Imagine if some corporation discovered coal under your house, and you were powerless to stop them from extracting it. (This is actually the case for a lot of landowners in Wyoming who don't own the mineral rights under their property, and are now subject to disturbance by oil companies using new technologies to extract oil and gas. But that's actually another story.) Indian tribes have been in this position for over a hundred years, with little recourse to the courts. But things may be changing.Indian Country Today reported that Montana's Crow Tribe took a big step in controlling their natural resources with the confirmation of Alvin Not Afraid Jr. as the director of the Crow Coal Regulatory Office. "The CCRO will assume control over the coal that has been regulated by the Department of Interior's Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement," reported the paper.This brings a really interesting dynamic to the energy world. Indian lands have been abused for years by the Department of Interior, which oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but also has as its mission the exploitation of the country's natural resources. It is under DOI direction that forests are logged, mines are dug, mountain tops are removed, and wells are drilled. While the fraction of the nation's coal that lies under tribal lands may be small, this action by the Crow Nation sets a precedent that may ripple across the energy field to cover oil and gas drilling in Wyoming and Colorado, and, most importantly, uranium mining on Navajo lands in the Southwest.Many energy industry officials are counting on nuclear energy to address the dual crises of spiking oil prices and runaway carbon emissions. But uranium mining is a messy business, and the Navajo know this firsthand. Most of the nation's uranium reserves lie under their land. And in the past, little effort was made by either Government or industry to protect aquifers, streams, "air sheds," or the land in general from the contamination that inevitably results from uranium mining.The Crow seemed to realize the ramifications of their action. "Today you have just participated in a history making event across Indian country," said Conrad Stewart, Black Lodge District Representative after the confirmation.No other tribe has exerted this much control over their natural resources, he said. The act strengthened regulatory power over Crow Coal by creating CCRO. It also created and strengthened surface mining codes on the reservation, while forming lines of communication from the regulatory office and tribal and county leaders as well, as private landowners. The CCRO will be under the direction the Office of Surface Mining, but will work independently on the reservation.The tribes, as most people in the West know, are not subject to state law and regulation. They are autonomous nations with direct relations, through treaties, with the US Federal Government. Tribal governments could, conceivably, apply more stringent rules on mining operations than state, or even the Federal, governments do. And the DOI, I think, would be hard pressed to justify overruling the tribes on their own lands. I think this would be a good thing. If non-tribal communities saw what kind of mining regulation was possible, they might themselves feel empowered to demand it in their community through other enforcement channels.Mining is dirty business - literally and figuratively. I don't want to lay too much expectation on the tribes to show how to clean things up. Heaven knows the Indian Nations have suffered enough over the last few hundred years, and it is no one's place to question them if they feel they need to do something to derive some benefit from their resources. But should they choose to consider the larger picture, they could really shake things up in the energy world.Paul Birkeland lives in Seattle, WA, US, and develops Strategic Energy Management Systems for government, commercial, and industrial organizations through Integrated Renewable Energy.Photo: Elly Bookman

Reading the Clean Energy Tea Leaves

Paul Birkeland — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 18:47:50 GMT

The DOE awarded $57 million to support clean energy technology commercialization projects for 33 small businesses across the country. These projects were funded as part of the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Small Business Phase III Xlerator program.Part of the fascination with such a list is that, since money is attached to each project, it gives you clear evidence of what's been deemed viable in the clean energy world. (And, by omission, what has not.) It's like reading really expensive tea leaves. It may be a little biased. This was a small business program and shows what clean energy technologies the entrepreneurs are excited about. But the DOE had to make some judgment of what technologies are relevant.I'm going to dispense with the company names here, and just present you with the tea leaves (topic and amount of money) for your own assessment of where clean energy technology is going. If you want the full list, you can go here.Biomass Technologies: Harvesting/Dewatering Technology for Algal Biofuels $3,000,000Buildings: Solid State Lighting Products made from Organic Light-Emitting Diodes $2,000,000Fuel Cell Technologies: Advanced Materials and Bio-Fueled Solid Oxide Fuel Cells $6,600,000Geothermal Technologies: High-Temperature-High-Volume Lifting $1,900,000Industrial Technologies: Mitigation of Heat Losses, Fouling, and Scaling in Key Manufacturing Unit Operations; Integrated Reaction-Separation Using Non-Thermal Processes $3,150,000Solar Technologies: Lowering the Cost of Photovoltaics $4,600,000Vehicle Technologies $7,000,000Advanced Wind Technologies Systems $9,400,000Nuclear EnergyAdvanced Instrumentation and Control, Radiation Resistant Sensors, and Wireless On-Line Monitoring Systems for Nuclear Power Plant Applications $8,200,000Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability $5,000,000Well, okay, a little editorial.I noticed that carbon capture and storage (CCS) is not on the list. This is striking because so many companies and individuals see CCS as the ultimate technology to allow us to go on living a fossil-fueled existence. But it seems that if you follow the money, CCS isn't among the favored. I'm also wondering where the wave power and tidal power projects are. They get a lot of press coverage, but don't show up here.On the other side, the Industrial Technologies topic is a mouthful. Can anyone but an engineer love that topic? Still and all, it shows that there is a lot of energy efficiency to be gained just by changing what we're doing on a real nitty-gritty level. Not all energy work is as graceful as a wind turbine.If anyone wanted to write their own conclusions, I would be very interested in hearing them.Paul Birkeland lives in Seattle, WA, US, and develops Strategic Energy Management Systems for government, commercial, and industrial organizations through Integrated Renewable Energy.Graphic: Sandia Labs

"Yes And" Vs. "Yes But"

Paul Birkeland — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 14:59:56 GMT

I read an article recently that advocated abandoning the "yes, but" paradigm for a "yes, and" paradigm. "Yes, but" drives us to become fixated on obstacles and difficulties. "Yes, but we tried that before." "Yes, but we don't have the technology." "Yes, but people won't change.""Yes, and" on the other hand drives us to see the relationships that make things possible. "Yes, and we can also alleviate the waste disposal problem." "Yes, and we can also use it for communications." "Yes, and this is something that community groups can lead."I found a good example of "yes, and" this weekend at the local Tilth Harvest Fair here in Seattle.By now it's becoming well known that people, especially women, in the developing world are spending hours each day walking to the receding forest - often a National Park - for firewood. Those hours represent increasing poverty because they are hours spent away from activities such as gardening, food preparation, and cloth making, that used to make those peoples self-sufficient. And today, those hours also represent time not available for education. The search for firewood has become a treadmill to oblivion.On top of this, the exposure to smoke from early childhood leads to disproportionate incidents of lung diseases and conditions among those people. And the inefficient wood burning contributes to climate change far out of proportion to the energy consumed. Enter Dr. Paul Anderson.Dr. Anderson is an "independent stover" working with the Biomass Energy Foundation. He wanted to address this problem of Third World firewood, and came up with an elegant "yes, and" solution. He designed something called the Top Lit Up Draft (TLUD) Gasifier stove that not only burns a plethora of agricultural wastes, but does it efficiently (minimizing the volume of fuel needed) and cleanly (minimizing lung-irritating smoke.) Finally, it actually sequesters carbon in a material called biochar that serves to enrich soils. By any standard, this is a miracle invention. But add to it that the TLUD can be made with readily available materials in the developing nations, and you can see what a miracle it really is.The TLUD works by "burning" fuel in a lower chamber with a controllable air supply. I say "burning" in a loose sense. It's actually pyrolysis, the liberation of combustible gases from the solid fuel. Controlling the air supply allows you to prevent actual burning of the fuel. The gases then travel upward to a point where a second air inlet allows enough air to enter that the liberated gases ignite and burn, creating the heat for cooking or heating. The solid part of the fuel, meanwhile, remains in the lower chamber where it is reduced to almost pure carbon - "biochar" - which is then damped to stop oxidation, and cooled.This "biochar" has been shown to be a fabulous soil amendment. It is not actually absorbed by the plants, but holds moisture, provides aeration, and acts as a microhabitat for beneficial soil organisms. Archeological evidence from Central and South America indicates that Pre-columbian civilizations used biochar extensively. In fact, the presence of biochar is being used as a metric to determine the extent of agricultural development and populations. And the evidence indicates that the carbon in the biochar is not released for hundreds or even thousands of years.You can read about Dr. Anderson's TLUD here. But even better, start thinking of your own "Yes, and" strategies, and let's see where we can go.Paul Birkeland lives in Seattle, WA, US, and develops Strategic Energy Management Systems for government, commercial, and industrial organizations through Integrated Renewable Energy.Graphic: Seachar.org

You Don't Need to Be a Rockefeller

Paul Birkeland — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:11:22 GMT

In a pond where the lily pad population doubles every week, the philosopher/environmentalist David Suzuki once told us, the week before the lily pads smother the whole pond, half the water is still open, so choking from overcrowding still seems a long way off.I thought of this when no less an institution than the insurance underwriter Lloyd's of London released a report titled "Sustainable Energy Security: Strategic Risks and Opportunities for Business." It made me wonder how close we were getting to choking in the energy world.I had already started to imagine that we are getting pretty close. The New York Times recently ran a report saying that there are 74 deep water wells in the Gulf of Mexico, and 3,333 shallow water wells. But when you look at the oil produced, we got 140 million barrels from the shallow water wells, but more than twice as much - 348 million barrels - from the deep water wells. The article itself states that nearly all the shallow wells are owned by small scale operators, while the deep water wells are owned by the big internationals.What these numbers tell us is that the closer-in wells are about spent. The oil is now found almost exclusively in the deep water wells where it is more expensive and risky to extract. This conclusion is borne out by the fact that those who can afford it are out there in the deep water. So - and this is the important point - regardless of how much oil one may think is actually left, it's clear that the CHEAP oil is gone. And this is important because our society is not just structured to run on oil. It is structured to run on CHEAP oil. The risk of disruption is not just that we will run out of oil. The risk is that oil will get increasingly expensive very rapidly once economic activity picks up, and our systems are as yet unprepared for that shock.That to some extent is what the Lloyd's of London report is all about. They took a look at the high cost, high risk sources of oil today. They estimated the insatiable demand from the developing countries (China and India mostly). And they compounded it all with the realization that, despite the dismal failure of our own Senate to act, countries around the world would be putting systems in place to discourage carbon emissions from fossil fuels. They concluded that trouble was afoot, and urged, "both business strategists and government policy-makers to take into account a range of encroaching risks and be bold in making plans for a more resilient and low carbon energy future."Now when Lloyd's of London, a storied firm that makes money from prudent risk-taking, starts telling people to be bold, something serious is going on, and we ought to figure out what it is. The 3,407 facts in the Gulf of Mexico give us a pretty good indication. You don't need to be a Rockefeller to see which way the tide is turning.Paul Birkeland lives in Seattle, WA, US, and develops Strategic Energy Management Systems for government, commercial, and industrial organizations through Integrated Renewable Energy.

10/10/10: Reset for Fighting Climate Change

Paul Birkeland — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:13:25 GMT

What's become clear is that the fossil fuel industry, the most profitable enterprise known to man, defeated the Senate's watered-down climate change legislation this summer without even breaking a sweat. And given how hot the summer was in many parts of the world, that's saying quite a bit. Are we angry enough yet?On October 10, 2010 (10/10/10), the international organization 350.org is leading a Global Work Party to reverse climate change with the motto "Let's Get To Work." Leading the effort, 350.org is right now delivering a Carter era solar panel - shown on the first leg of its journey in the picture - back to the White House where President Carter had it installed to provide hot water and reduce energy consumption. As Bill McKibben reported:"The story is painful even to consider. This panel went up on the White House roof in 1979, with then-president Jimmy Carter (in a wide tie, and with a bushy haircut) promising that it would still be there in the year 2000, producing hot water from the sun for whoever was then president. In fact, it didn't make it through the next decadeit came down in the Reagan years, a symbol of our decision to turn away from the idea of limits and veer sharply down the path we've trod ever since."Meanwhile, around the world other nations took the technology and went to work. Germany and Japan took over the lead in photovoltaic panels, but solar thermal technology like this became the special province of the Chinese. Adding insult to injury, Huang Ming, China's leading solar entrepreneur, who's firm has put up 60 million such systems across China, keeps one of the Carter panels in his private museum."But not everyone in the US went along when Reagan took the panels down. Folks at Unity College in Maine salvaged the panels, and put them up on the cafeteria, where they continued to produce hot water for the next three decades."That is the panel now making its way (in a biodiesel caravan) to the White House for re-installation on October 10. So far, if you can believe it, no one's heard from the White House about whether or not they will accept the gift! Which is pretty surprising. I mean, the Senate cannot filibuster the White House roof. But, be that as it may, the solar panel's just the symbol.Local communities and organizations are planning Work Parties around the world to install renewable energy systems, dig gardens, insulate homes, and just about every other climate saving action you might think of. (Find a work party near you at 350.org.) The message being that if WE can get to work, so can our legislators.You need to help make this action a success. It's a wonder that as the fossil fuel industry rakes in profits by destroying the climate, while the Senate sits and dithers over ineffectual legislation, while our childrens' and grandchildrens' future are taken away from them, that we don't see a revolution, or at least a movement, of some sort erupting. Unless and until voices, angry voices, are heard in the corridors of power, we will remain lambs being led to slaughter. As McKibben wrote:"Some of that movement will go on at the local level, as we transform cities and towns and show what can be done. Some will be done on college campuses like Unity College, or Middlebury where I teach, which are showing the way forward. Some of it will be done in jailsI'd be very surprised if civil disobedience doesn't become a bigger part of this battle in the years ahead, if only because it's the tool we use to show our society how urgent, morally and practically, this crisis really is."Paul Birkeland lives in Seattle, WA, US, and develops Strategic Energy Management Systems for government, commercial, and industrial organizations through Integrated Renewable Energy.Photo: Mark Tardif

Cut 'Em or Not?

Paul Birkeland — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:44:42 GMT

What would Captain Kirk do? Say what you will, his ability to compartmentalize everything in a crisis and just keep moving forward was the implicit core of a vast majority of Star Trek episodes.For us facing a climate crisis, on the other hand, maybe compartmentalization is not such a good idea.There's an argument going on in the forestry community about the ability of forests to absorb carbon dioxide. Here's the problem: Older trees store more carbon, but younger trees absorb more carbon. So, cut 'em down or not?Les Blumnethal reported in the Olympian that new satellite measurements of global forests have sparked a debate on how to use them to address climate change. It turns out that the forests here, in the US Pacific Northwest, are the world's tallest on average. And that puts them at the focus of a mystery.As Blumenthal reported, "From 15 percent to 30 percent of the 7 billion tons of carbon that are released globally every year is unaccounted for, government scientists say. About 3 billions tons remain in the atmosphere, and the oceans absorb 2 billion tons. Vegetation, including the forests, probably absorbs the remaining 1 billion to 2 billion tons, but no one knows for sure how much and where.""Scientists suspect that the forests with the biggest trees store the most carbon, and the Northwest forests are probably among the largest carbon sinks in the world. However, they also say that while slower-growing older trees store more carbon, younger trees also absorb more carbon as they grow rapidly."So now they're debating whether older trees should be cut to make way for younger ones or whether they should be protected to store the carbon they contain. Add to this the expectation that forest behavior will change with global warming, and you have the makings of a world class debate."It's a hot topic," said Elaine Oneil, a research scientist at the University of Washington's School of Forest Resources and the executive director of a consortium that's been studying the issue. "We can't afford a one-size-fits-all solution. We can't lock it all up, and it's not feasible to cut it all for two-by-fours."Oneil's group, the Consortium for Research on Renewable Industrial Materials, suggests that rather than leaving all the tall trees in place, where they could be susceptible to bugs and fires, they be cut and used for wood products such as building materials.Lost in this compartmentalized argument are all the other implications of cutting down forests. (Damn, why does everything always end up being linked?) Salmon runs have been shown to be nature's way of transporting tons of nutrients back uphill from the sea to the high elevations. (If salmon hadn't evolved, nature would have had to invent them.) Cutting forests exposes streams to the solar heating that decimate salmon runs. Forests also act as a sponge to hold rain and release it gradually so that we don't get flooded every spring and have water to run our hydro plants all summer. Forests hold unstable slopes in place, prevent simultaneous melting that would happen with unshaded snowfields, and provide refuge for beneficial insects and animals. I'm an engineer, not a biologist. But I just can't see clearcuts providing so many benefits even if we do plant new trees to absorb carbon.I think a debate amongst foresters is great. But if they ever get to the point of making a Kirk-like compartmentalized decision to cut all the trees, I hope Star Fleet steps in and reverses it pretty quickly.Paul Birkeland lives in Seattle, WA, US, and develops Strategic Energy Management Systems for government, commercial, and industrial organizations through Integrated Renewable Energy.Photo credit : w:User:Nickpdx

Seven Closing Arguments on Biofuels

Paul Birkeland — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 02:43:03 GMT

There's a persistent dream that if we just brew enough biofuels we can continue living the way we do - commuting 50 miles to work each day, flying strawberries in from Argentina in January, and driving a warehouse on wheels to lower prices. The dream is getting harder to sustain, especially in regard to the biofuels portion of it.I've argued before that biofuels should be viewed as an energy transport method, not an energy source. The amount of energy you get from it is about the same amount as you put into the process to make it. (This is not counting the Government's new Fuels from Sunlight initiative.) We should definitely develop biofuels as a niche energy form for energy-intensive applications (we won't have an aviation industry without it). But as a "green" replacement for gasoline? Not so much.The case against biofuels just keeps growing. Biofuels have been identified with raising food prices, felling rainforests, boosting greenhouse gases, culling biodiversity, and deepening hunger in food-insecure nations.As Joel Smith reported in the PCC Sound Consumer, the newsletter of Puget Consumers Cooperative in Seattle, WA, that when Congress investigated the upward spiral of food prices in 2007, the International Food Policy Research Institute argued biofuel production may have driven up grain prices as much as 30 percent from 2000-2007.Organizations such as Oxfam International and the United Nations (U.N.) claim prices are up 40 percent, pricing food-relief agencies out of the market and diminishing stocks of surplus food supplies.Jean Ziegler, U.N. independent expert on the Right to Food, called for a five-year moratorium on biofuel production, hoping researchers will develop fuels from agricultural byproducts rather than food itself.According to the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), biofuel production is forcing the conversion of pastureland into crops, redefining global culture and ecology. Roughly 80 percent of global agricultural land was in pasture in 2008, says the FAO 26 percent of the "ice-free terrestrial surface of the planet" but biofuel cropland is increasing steadily.Annie Shattuck, a policy analyst at the Institute for Food and Development Policy in Oakland, Calif., says biofuels are concentrating land ownership in developing nations and driving small farmers into landlessness and poverty. She cites as examples the recent "acquisition" of 9,500 hectares of farmland by the Phnom Penh Sugar Company in Cambodia to grow feedstock for ethanol production. The Cambodian government awarded the land previously held by 12 farmers to the company, rendering the farmers homeless and landless.In Australia, monoculture eucalyptus plantations, grown for cellulosic ethanol, have supplanted native forests.The Orangutan Conservancy argues that the palm oil industry now outranks poachers in Indonesia as the greatest threat to the orangutan's survival. The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that due in part to biofuels production, 98 percent of Indonesia's rainforests will be razed by 2022 at the current rate of deforestation, and the orangutan likely will go with them."Biofuels absolutely are a threat to hunger," Shattuck explains, "but it's not as direct a relationship as many people have argued. What we're seeing is a dramatic shift in land ownership from investors buying up enormous tracts of land for biofuel production. We call them green deserts."Photo Credit: FlickrPaul Birkeland lives in Seattle, WA, US, and develops Strategic Energy Management Systems for government, commercial, and industrial organizations through Integrated Renewable Energy.

The Psychology of Saving Energy

Paul Birkeland — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 13:49:47 GMT

Quick, which will save more energy, changing your washer setting to 'medium' from 'high,' or line drying your clothes? Is it better to ride your bike, or buy a hybrid car?The answers may surprise you. But it probably won't surprise you that there's a good deal of confusion in the US on energy saving strategies. A recent study by researchers at Columbia University, Ohio State University, and Carnegie Mellon University concluded that people's perceptions of the energy savings of various actions don't reflect reality very well. Consequently, their actions, while virtuous and well-intended, aren't as effective as they might be.The New York Times quoted the study as saying, "Participants estimated that line-drying clothes saves more energy than changing the washer's settings (the reverse is true) and estimated that a central air-conditioner uses only 1.3 times the energy of a room air-conditioner (in fact, it uses 3.5 times as much)."Ouch.One of the interesting things they found was that people tended to think of saving energy in the same way they thought about saving money, i.e. that they can save simply by not using as much. Turning off the lights when leaving the room, for example, was cited by almost 20% of the respondents as a fundamental energy saving strategy, more than any other action.The reality is that more serious energy savings result from replacing things that use a lot of energy, like old appliances, with things that use less, a strategy cited by only 3% of the study participants. In general, the researchers found, people focused on "curtailment" rather than efficiency, doing without something, rather than doing something differently.There may be several reasons for this. First, buying a new energy-efficient refrigerator requires research and, of course, out of pocket expenses. You may save more energy in the long run, but you need to pay out some money in the beginning, and this is an obstacle. (This sounds familiar to anyone in the corporate world.) Second, curtailment is easier to imagine and integrate into your routine. Who among us is unable to turn off a light when leaving the room? Or turn down the thermostat?Psychology comes to the fore here. Recent studies indicate that humans don't actually make rational decisions. Our minds tend to decide something in very short order based on biases and judgment, and then develop the rationale after the decision is actually made. It should be no surprise that we choose actions to save energy that require the least work, but leave us feeling virtuous.Interestingly, of the people in the study, thirty-seven percent considered themselves environmentalists. But the study concluded that "participants who reported engaging in a greater number of pro-environmental energy-related behaviors had less accurate perceptions" about the value of these behaviors than the group as a whole did. This may be because people who are environmentally aware are more likely to see themselves as willing to do the things that others aren't, to do without for the sake of the planet. This is a good sentiment that we should all adopt. But it also leads to misperception of how beneficial 'curtailment' can be.So, what can be done? The "green Tower of Babble" is confusing to us all. The possible actions are infinite, the arguments endless, and certainty hard to find. Paralysis is understandable, but we can't afford that. I think that today, more than ever, it's important to each of us to have a personal narrative, a story about where we fit in our world, our community, and what our goals are. A good narrative will not always guide you toward the absolute best actions, but it will support good decision making over all, and relieve the confusion that comes with the green Tower of Babble.But by all means we need to avoid exacerbating another problem pointed out by the study: About 2.8 percent of those responding said they could save energy by sleeping or relaxing more. That compares with only 2.1 percent who said they could do so by insulating their homes. Paul Birkeland lives in Seattle, WA, US, and develops Strategic Energy Management Systems for government, commercial, and industrial organizations through Integrated Renewable Energy.

Something You Can Do to Up the Ante on Carbon Emissions

Paul Birkeland — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 04:02:13 GMT

I've written before about the obstacles to getting a carbon emission cap passed by the US Senate. Here's the other side of the story - something you can do on your own - a way to up the ante on carbon emissions without having to cajole myopic Senators from coal-producing states (who are, after all, a minority in this country).The EPA is soliciting comment on rules governing carbon emissions, i.e. waste products created by burning coal. The courts have given the EPA jurisdiction over greenhouse gasses directly. But even before that, the EPA had authority to regulate carbon emissions from coal that contained mercury, lead, and other undesirable compounds and elements. They're getting closer to doing it. Clamping down on these toxic emissions will make the true cost of burning coal felt by the industry.But there's another carbon emission that the EPA should regulate, and that is coal ash. This is hard core toxic stuff. Significant amounts of lead and mercury remain in the ash, along with arsenic, cadmium, and selenium. These toxins have been associated with cancer, birth defects, stomach ailments, fish kills, and livestock deaths. But despite this, ash disposal remains a sort of unregulated wild west of an industry.Ten years ago, the EPA stated that if states and industry didn't take clear steps in a reasonable amount of time to protect the public from these threats, then the EPA would step in and do it. Well, ten years seems a reasonable enough time to me. What's been done?According to the Environmental Integrity Project, we've now got seventy-one of what the EPA calls "damage cases," as opposed to the six that were reported in 2000. The list of "Potential Damage Sites" has risen to seventy from three, and private studies identified several hundred sites that have not even been investigated yet. Eighty per cent of the sites that were investigated show evidence of damage, i.e toxic leaks into surface water or an aquifer. So the EPA decided to regulate coal ash. Here's where you come in.Industry wants coal ash regulated as a non-hazardous waste. You read it right. Industry admits that there are significant concentrations of arsenic, lead, selenium, and other unsavories in the ash, but even though these things were regulated out of paints, toys, gasoline, and household products because of the danger they presented, they apparently aren't hazardous in coal ash. Or that's the claim.Consequently, the EPA has posted two sets of rules to govern coal ash. The first assumes that coal ash is hazardous waste, or "special waste" in industry parlance. (Isn't that great wording?) The second set assumes that it is not hazardous. You get to comment on which one you think it is! It's public health by plebiscite! And as long as they are going to take a poll to find the answer, you might as well vote.Go here, fill in the boxes, and send a comment. You can even customize your comment. And I herewith give you permission to lift any words you like from this posting to add to your comment. (Just don't tell anyone at Justmeans that I'm letting you do that.)Go vote.Photo Credit: FlickrPaul Birkeland lives in Seattle, WA, US, and develops Strategic Energy Management Systems for government, commercial, and industrial organizations through Integrated Renewable Energy.

Put a Wind Turbine in Your Tank

Paul Birkeland — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 13:14:34 GMT

People of a certain age will remember putting a "tiger in your tank" at the Esso gasoline station. I remember being really happy when they gave us a furry little tiger tail to stick out of the gas tank hatch. Well the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is going us one better. They want to help you put a wind turbine in your water tank.The BPA is a US Federal agency that transports and sells power, primarily from the Government-owned dams on the Columbia River here in the Pacific Northwest. But while the BPA answers to Federal officials and derives revenue from the sale of power, they are fully engaged with this region's quest to reduce energy usage and shift to renewables. They have been integrating power from commercial wind farms into their system at a rapid rate over the past few years. And in general, they bring a tremendous amount of innovation and brainpower to the energy conservation problem and renewable energy initiatives. This program is a good example of the kind of solutions you can find when your goal is not to develop technology or sell a new product, but to make renewable energy viable on a mass scale. (Hint: You don't have to get bigger, but you DO have to distribute the responsibility.)As most everyone knows, the problem with wind power is that the wind doesn't always blow when you need it. So storing that power when it DOES blow is critical to making wind power reliable. There have been many answers proposed - battery banks, refillable reservoirs, flywheels, etc. But they all require either technology development or a large investment. Not so this latest initiative.The BPA's plan is that our home water heaters can be equipped with a smart grid sensor that receives a signal through the power line that wind power is being generated, and that if you need to heat water, now is the time. When the wind power dies off, the signal commands the water heater to shut down. In essence we are storing the wind power in our water tanks.If you are just considering a few wind turbines and a few water tanks, this is clearly an unworkable system, and a lot of people would be out of hot water on a regular basis. But if you scale up to hundreds, or thousands, of wind turbines around the region, and match it with tens of thousands of water heaters, you should be able to balance things out relatively well, and get everyone the hot water they want using only wind power.The BPA's pilot program will recruit 100 homeowners in Washington State's Mason County to start exploring the operational aspects of such a system. Almost certainly there will be enough wind generated in the region to provide hot water for this number of users at any time. But the lessons learned from such a pilot will enable a larger pilot to be planned where the balance of generation and demand will be finer, and we can really see how effective this distributed energy storage can be. Paul Birkeland lives in Seattle, WA, US, and develops Strategic Energy Management Systems for government, commercial, and industrial organizations through Integrated Renewable Energy.Photo: ectctrains

Fuels from Sunlight

Paul Birkeland — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:05:08 GMT

The Laws of Thermodynamics are harsh. They mandate that each time you transform energy from one form to another, you are going to lose at least a third of it. And that's if your systems are perfectly efficient, which none of them are. Think about making biofuels using solar panels for the energy input.The Laws mean that only two-thirds of the light energy hitting the panel is actually converted into electrical energy. (In reality it's more like one-fifth, a pretty dismal capture rate.) Then that electrical energy gets converted to a different voltage and to AC rather than DC current. Finally it gets converted to heat energy to heat up the ingredients that will become biofuel. The result of this chain of conversions is that you need acres and acres of solar panels to run a biofuel plant, enough solar panels to make the plant uneconomical. That's why it isn't done despite a commonly held belief that doing so will yield carbon neutral gasoline for us to run our cars on. And that's why this Department of Energy initiative is so important.The DOE announced the creation of the "Fuels from Sunlight" Energy Innovation Hub. The idea is to develop ways of generating fuels directly from sunlight. The California Institute of Technology and the DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will operate what they call the "Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP)."The goal of JCAP researchers is to simulate natural photosynthesis to directly produce liquid fuels. They are essentially taking sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide and making a clean fuel. It's a little more complex than it sounds obviously. They have to find or develop a whole set of system components - light absorbers, catalysts, molecular linkers, and separation membranes - and then integrate them into an operational system. They're also charged with figuring out the "scale-up" strategy that will enable the technology to be deployed on a commercial scale. Scaling up is one of the biggest obstacles faced by innovative technologies that tend to work in the lab, but crash and burn as soon as someone tries to do it on a scale that makes economic sense. The DOE intends for them to move from fundamental to applied research and technology development, setting the stage for a direct solar fuels industry.This initiative is a game-changer. It would be as if the Sun got suddenly ten times brighter than it is and was showering ten times as much energy upon us. It's a big bet, of course, with a long term payback. The DOE is funding JCAP to the tune of $122M for five years. But that's what governments are for, to boldly go where no corporation dares risk its profits.Stay tuned! Paul Birkeland lives in Seattle, WA, US, and develops Strategic Energy Management Systems for government, commercial, and industrial organizations through Integrated Renewable Energy.Photo: Professor G1

Any State Can Do It: Decoupling Utility Profits from Energy Demand

Paul Birkeland — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 11:41:20 GMT

What if I told you that we already have the tools we need to reduce our nation's electric and natural gas energy consumption in hand, and that those tools reside, not with the Federal Government, but with each State. Wouldn't that be something? And in many places it doesn't even require legislation.Well, here I am, and that is exactly what I want to tell you.I was speaking with a fellow with the Environmental Integrity Project in Indiana the other day. The EIP, by the way, is doing great work making sure that those who have suffered due to coal ash dumping speak up with comments as the Government finalizes its rules on how to regulate that industry. Our discussion ranged about, then hitting upon strategies for reducing carbon emissions and other wastes resulting from runaway energy consumption. I was a bit surprised to find that he was unaware of the meaning of the term "decoupling" in utility jargon.Utilities are unlike other companies. They are by and large monopolies in their service areas. The reason is that it's uneconomic to have two companies stringing wires or laying pipes, and then splitting the customer base. You'd end up with no utility service at all. So we've made a pact with the devil. We allow utilities to operate as monopolies, but we regulate their profits through a local agency, usually called the Public Utilities Commission or some such, in each State.Historically, PUCs have granted profits to the utilities based upon the amount of sales, i.e. the amount of energy their customers consumed. So the utilities had great incentive to increase energy use, and very little motivation to help customers reduce their energy bills. But it doesn't have to be that way. And in fact, several States, Washington, Oregon, and California for example, have already "decoupled" some utility profits from energy sales, and connected them instead with energy conservation goals.In rough terms, here's how it works: At the beginning of a given finance period, the PUC authorizes a target "rate of return" on the utility's capital investments. If the utility sells less energy than expected because of conservation (and not because of mild weather or economic slowdown), then the rates are increased slightly to reach the target revenue level. Profits go up. If the utility sells more energy than expected because of lack of conservation, then the rates are lowered slightly to hit the revenue target, and profits diminish. Done properly, the utilities make more profit with less risk, and consumers use less energy at less cost.Decoupling saves energy, lowers consumer bills, and reduces carbon emissions. It tends to be "ideologically neutral" since it amounts to a win-win for all involved. In fact, decoupling in Oregon started when some of the largest utilities went to the PUC and REQUESTED decoupling! It puts the condition of the bottom line into the utility's hands, and removes the uncertainties associated with weather and raw energy prices.If you are looking for a local campaign with global impact, you could do no better than organizing to petition your PUC to decouple the utilities in your State from the gross sales of energy. Consumers will thank you, the planet will thank you, and, if you work it right, even the utilities will thank you! Paul Birkeland lives in Seattle, WA, US, and develops Strategic Energy Management Systems for government, commercial, and industrial organizations through Integrated Renewable Energy.Photo: En:Wikipedia

How Green Is Your Airline? (Hint: It's More Than Carbon Emissions)

Paul Birkeland — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 15:41:13 GMT

One airline is advertising that its fleet emits less carbon emissions than a Prius per passenger mile. Obviously there's more to being "green" than low carbon emissions. But let's follow this story.EasyJet, a low cost carrier (LCC) in Europe, advertises that its fleet produces lower carbon emissions, i.e. CO2, per passenger mile than "the best selling hybrid car." If so, this would be good news after all the bad news we've heard regarding airline carbon emissions. I mean, the Union of Concerned Scientists advises people to take vacations by bus or train to reduce the climate change impact. And the US Federal Aviation Administration, which has as part of its charter to promote the aviation industry, says that the effect of carbon emissions on the climate may be the single greatest long-term threat to the aviation industry. The easyJet advertising also makes me wonder where they got their planes and why no one else has them.Given all that, you might conclude that easyJet's claim could use some investigating. Clark Derry-Williams of the Sightline Institute here in Seattle did just that. Here's his take on easyJet's claims and aviation carbon emissions in general.Derry-Williams determined that easyJet's claim isn't completely unfounded. But it is a bit misleading.If one focuses only on CO2 emissions, then airplanes can be quite efficient. Derry-Williams found that emissions per passenger mile look something like this:Prius solo driver: 0.42.Airplane short-haul flight: 0.60.Airplane medium-haul flight: 0.45.Airplane long-haul flight: 0.38. Here's the misleading part: easyJet assumed that their flights were full, but that the Prius had a solo driver. Just add a single passenger to the Prius, and the carbon emissions per passenger mile drop by half. Make it a family of four, and it's no contest.Also, easyJet has mostly short haul flights, which should come with the higher carbon emissions. Short haul flights have higher emissions because a disproportionate amount of the fuel is burned in taxi, takeoff, and climb out. They are actually pretty efficient once they are at altitude.But there's more.Only about one-third of an aircraft's emissions are CO2. The other two-thirds are water vapor, which causes clouds that help retain warmth like a blanket, and various nitrogen oxides, which decay into ozone, a greenhouse gas. Taking all that into account, Derry-Williams estimated the following emissions per passenger mile.Prius real-world solo driver: 0.56.Airplane short-haul flight: 0.90.Airplane medium-haul flight: 1.05.Airplane long-haul flight: 0.97.So, how green is your airline? Well, let's think about it a bit.They all get their planes from the same two manufacturers. So the equipment doesn't make much difference. If you're counting ALL emissions, and not just carbon emissions, the route map doesn't make a lot of difference either. The use of biofuels might be a difference, but that will depend on where the energy to make the biofuel came from. Biofuels are no panacea.The surprise take away here is that an airline's "greenness" comes down to its ground operations. Are they using electric tugs rather than diesel? Are they taxiing on a single engine rather than multiple engines? Have they optimized their dispatch operations to reduce or eliminate waiting time on the tarmac and circling time in the air? These are the places the differences are made. Not in the sky. Paul Birkeland lives in Seattle, WA, US, and develops Strategic Energy Management Systems for government, commercial, and industrial organizations through Integrated Renewable Energy.Photo: BiomassAuthority.com

Another Light on the Hill for Climate Change Action

Paul Birkeland — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:57:39 GMT

Just when you thought cap-and-trade was dead, the seven Western states and three Canadian provinces comprising the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) unveiled their plans Tuesday for a regional program to create a carbon emissions market to fight climate change. It's a promising development at a time when national leadership is enthralled by minority rule in the Senate.There are two other regional carbon emissions markets in North America, but the WCI is important for several reasons. First, it will ultimately cover, not just power plants as the other systems do, but a whole plethora of large, emissions-generating industries. This is important because it will quantify what economists have been saying that reducing carbon emissions generally leads to reduced energy bills, and greater competitiveness, for companies. Studies have estimated that these cost-of-energy savings would amount to $100 billion between implementation in 2012 and 2020.Secondly, the WCI covers a much larger number of emitters. It is three times larger than the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) that is currently operating and covering ten Eastern States. California, the nation's most populous state and the world's eighth largest economy, is one of the signatories. This is precedent-setting stuff!Finally, the WCI addresses transportation, always a particularly difficult sector to control emissions from. But the West Coast states in general, and California in particular, have always been on the vanguard of reducing auto emissions. The three of them, in fact, adhere to a common auto emissions standard that is stricter than the national standard. So this is a good environment for creatively addressing transportation emissions.The WCI isn't a slam dunk just yet. Two Texas oil companies have sponsored an initiative on the November ballot in California to withdraw from the WCI. And Utah and Arizona legislatures are expressing their opposition to participation. On top of that, the general economic malaise has made state and provincial officials around the West hesitant to open a new initiative regardless of the long-term benefits. (The other states are New Mexico, Washington, Oregon, and Montana. The Canadian provinces are British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec.) In fact, only California, New Mexico, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec are on track to adopt the regulations necessary to implement the plan by 2012.Still and all, the WCI would be a real step forward in combating climate change. It's goal is to reduce carbon emissions to 15% below 2005 levels by 2020.Here's where you come in. If you live in any of the member states or provinces, contact your elected officials and let them know you support full participation in the WCI. And furthermore, get your company to express support as well. They say that the world is run by those who show up. And it's now time to show up.Paul Birkeland lives in Seattle, WA, US, and develops Strategic Energy Management Systems for government, commercial, and industrial organizations through Integrated Renewable Energy.Photo: Creative Commons

Electric Dragster Making Inroads with Hot Rod Fans

Paul Birkeland — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:33:10 GMT

You really have to see this.I'm not so much a fan of NASCAR. Or, to be honest, of any auto racing event or league. The picture of fossil-fueled cars driving around in circles as fast as they can, getting nowhere, is too painfully symbolic and apt for me. But, face it, clean energy and environmental awareness need a broader base of support than they've currently got. Still, I would not think that the NASCAR demographic is the place to find it.But one fellow, either visionary or quixotic, it's hard to say which, in Portland, OR did. The Portland Oregonian reported that John Wayland's "White Zombie" has been clobbering gasoline-powered cars at the Portland International Raceway for the past few years. And in the process it's been getting a lot of attention for electric cars among drag racing fans.The White Zombie has been running on standard lead-acid batteries that Wayland has used since he started building electric cars in 1980. For those of you who need the specs, the White Zombie does 0-60 in 2.95 seconds, and has whupped gas-powered cars with muscular 600 horsepower engines.Wayland, by his own admissions, isn't out to save the world. "But I might help tip it one way or the other," he says. He just wants to "kick some butt" while showing people what his electric car can do. And it's about to do more.Last year, Wayland got a grant from Dow/Kokam to adopt some of their lithium polymer batteries. Wayland's team has taken lithium polymer cells, originally designed for starting helicopters, and fashioned them into batteries for the White Zombie. This is the same technology used for laptop computer batteries, but on a massively different scale. When the White Zombie hits the track this month in Portland, it will have 345 pounds of batteries instead of the original 852 pounds, and those batteries will put out 772 ft-lbs of torque instantaneously. That's 926 horsepower. Put THAT in your laptop!Okay. Forget the specs if you want. But there are two points here. First, you have to see the video. It is here. Second, we should all be thinking so creatively about how to reach out to people we don't usually communicate with. It's a big wide world out there. And it's going to take all of us to keep it right.Paul Birkeland lives in Seattle, WA, US, and develops Strategic Energy Management Systems for government, commercial, and industrial organizations through Integrated Renewable Energy.Photo Brent Wojahn, The Oregonian

Carbon Emissions and the Carbon Intensity Red Herring

Paul Birkeland — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 18:25:12 GMT

Thomas Friedman of the NY Times reported this from The China Daily the other day:"BEIJING - The country is set to begin domestic carbon trading programs during its 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-2015) to help it meet its 2020 carbon intensity target. The decision was made at a closed-door meeting chaired by Xie Zhenhua, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission ... Putting a price on carbon is a crucial step for the country to employ the market to reduce its carbon emissions and genuinely shift to a low-carbon economy, industry analysts said."In a week where the US Senate withdrew carbon emissions cap-and-trade legislation because they couldn't muster 60 votes to get it to the floor, this report from China is pretty staggering. Could it be that China sees the global need to reduce carbon emissions and the United States does not? Well, that's asking a lot. But it IS clear that Chinese leadership sees value in motivating the development of low carbon emissions systems and technologies that can then be exported to the rest of the world. (Meanwhile, ask the Senators from Oklahoma, Texas, and other oil and coal producing States how much of these commodities they expect to export from the US.) Once again, a dysfunctional Senate ensures that we go the way of the dinosaurs.But that's not what I'm writing about today. Today I want to write about a deception so insidious that both the Chinese politburo and the US Bush Administration adopted it. And that is the concept of carbon Intensity.In the world of pretend action on climate change, "carbon intensity" is often slipped into press releases and policy statements to make it appear as if the writer actually means "carbon emissions." Look at the China Daily press release above. The last statement makes it sound as if China is going to "reduce its carbon emissions" and "shift to a low-carbon economy." Well, not so fast.The first sentence makes clear that China has a "carbon intensity target." Carbon intensity, for the uninitiated, is the amount of carbon produced per unit of production. For a washing machine assembly plant, it may be the amount of carbon emissions per machine delivered. For a food processing plant, it may be amount of carbon emissions per ton of corn flakes. The point being that no one is really reducing their carbon emissions from current levels. As production rises, carbon emissions rise as well. Your carbon intensity may fall, and indeed usually does since most plants operate more efficiently at higher capacity. But carbon emissions do not fall.What the Chinese government has adopted as the carbon intensity target is still unclear. Is it per renminbi of production? Or perhaps it is per dollar of production, which brings exchange rates into play as well. Or maybe it's per ton of goods produced. So not only is carbon intensity a bit of a flexible target, there are also flavors of carbon intensity with varying degrees of flexibility.The upshot here is that carbon intensity is a red herring of a target. It distracts us from the real goal of reducing actual carbon emissions. It is easy to fabricate numbers that show you reached your carbon intensity goal without doing any real work.But more critically, the planet doesn't really care about carbon intensity. Carbon intensity reduction is a vanity of nations playing games. What matters to the planet is carbon emissions. And we've now got the two largest emitters opting for inaction. It makes you wonder, as Friedman pointed out, do these people have any grandchildren?Paul Birkeland lives in Seattle, WA, US, and develops Strategic Energy Management Systems for government, commercial, and industrial organizations through Integrated Renewable Energy.Photo by Tim Parkinson at flickr.com/timparkinson/.

Five Silver Bullets for the Next Attempt at Carbon Emissions Legislation

Paul Birkeland — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:12:15 GMT

Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) announced that the carbon emissions legislation, aka cap-and-trade bill, that he had hoped to move through the Senate this summer was being withdrawn. This is profoundly disappointing, and represents another example of Minority Rule in the US Senate. But if the carbon emissions cloud itself lacks a silver lining, the demise of the carbon emissions legislation doesn't. So what is that silver lining? And how do we make it into silver bullets?If you are not a corporation, you get things to happen in the US Senate by making things uncomfortable on regional scales for the corporations opposed to it. For example, the Clean Air Act was created and passed only after auto manufacturers complained that having different standards in different States made business untenable. They demanded a national standard. And a state-by-state hodge podge of efficiency standards for major appliances drove the manufacturers to demand a national standard from the Department of Energy.Likewise, the demise of carbon emissions legislation in the Senate means that the corporations aren't uncomfortable enough yet. There are plenty of things out there to be uncomfortable with. But they need to be ratcheted up on the grassroots level. And the upside is, that while this is more work, it ultimately results in less need to compromise and more effective piece of legislation. Here are five things we can do:

Regional Carbon Emissions Markets - I've written before about the three regional carbon emissions trading markets in North America. The Northeast Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is up and (successfully) running, creating a market for carbon emissions from power plants in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States. The Western Climate Initiative is still being organized, but will be a comprehensive carbon emissions cap and trade market, and will be the largest in North America. Finally, the Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord includes seven States and Provinces in the continent's mid section. To the extent these regional markets are successful, it becomes difficult to argue against a national program. And the benefits to those regions will soon be demanded by consumers elsewhere.
State-by-State Renewable Energy Portfolio Requirements - Many States already require utilities operating within their boundaries to get a certain percentage of their power from "green" sources. As power companies get used to operating this way and come to see the advantages of doing so, they become less resistant to such programs. And not coincidentally, they are better prepared - and less resistant - for the carbon emissions legislation when it comes.
District Energy - District Energy Associations, or Neighborhood Energy Districts, provide a means to combat carbon emissions, unplug from the power companies, and rebuild communities in a quintessential American way - independence. Neighborhoods or communities form a "district" to install and collectively benefit from renewable energy systems, cutting carbon emissions in the process. Congresswoman Betty McCollum (D-MN) has introduced legislation that would expand the existing tax credit program for renewable energy, create a bond financing tool, and support a grant program for district energy. We need to encourage this.
Green Energy Programs - Many local and State governments are requiring utilities to offer "green" power to consumers, albeit at a slightly higher price. While this should be the other way around (power sources that generate carbon emissions should cost more to pay for the damage caused), these programs reinforce the drive to renewable systems with no carbon emissions. We should all participate in these programs, and get our places of business to do so as well.
Regional Auto Emissions Standards - When the Clean Air Act was passed, California got special clearance to maintain a stricter standard since they had the most serious problem. But the legislation also allowed other States to adopt California's stricter standard if they desired. Several states in the Northwest and Northeast have, and this is pushing manufacturers to fleets with lower carbon emissions. We should get as many states as possible to adopt California's standards.

So the withdrawal of the carbon emissions legislation is disappointing, and shame on those who obstructed it instead of helping to improve it. But it also gives us more time to shift the starting point for the next attempt. Let's make sure we do it.Paul Birkeland lives in Seattle, WA, US, and develops Strategic Energy Management Systems for government, commercial, and industrial organizations through Integrated Renewable Energy.Photo by eschipul Photostream via flickr

How to Make the Senate Energy and Emissions Legislation Work

Paul Birkeland — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:29:48 GMT

Otto von Bismarck once said that "Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see either of them being made." You're on your own with the sausage, but we need to pay attention to the energy and emissions legislation being worked right now in the Senate. There, in another incidence of minority rule, Senators are mulling over energy and emissions legislation that will cover only power plants. Now, power plants account for about 33% of our total emissions, and are by far the largest single source. But leaving out oil refineries, concrete plants and other major industrial emissions generators (which account for 16% of our emissions) makes it impossible to reach even the modest goal of 17 % reduction by 2020. But worse, it allows our industries to delay making the investments that will make them competitive in a carbon-constrained world. We have some historical analogies to work from here.After WW II, the Russians basically carted off as much of Germany's industrial infrastructure as they could - steel mills, railroad equipment, assembly lines, all kinds of things. The result? Russia was saddled with obsolete technology for decades. And Germany? Germany had to start over again with new, more productive equipment.Or, more recently, the emerging Asian economies are routinely ranked higher than the US for their network infrastructure. Why? Because they had little such infrastructure to begin with, and they started building in an age of wireless broadband. In the US we had vested interests in various cable-based connections that resisted wireless broadband.Brazil has a cell phone network that is the envy of the world. Why? Because, again, they never totally committed to a landline system, and so had little resistance when the more efficient cell phone technology came along.This is all to say that serious energy and emissions legislation will keep US industry competitive in the long run despite the shortsighted industry resistance we see now. Our vested interest is the fossil fuel industry and the States that profit by it. We need to get around them.So, how do we do this?Well, first of all, the fossil fuel industry is NOT monolithic. It is coal and oil and natural gas. And these divisions represent different blocks of States. Coal is Kentucky, West Virginia, Utah, and a couple of others. Oil is Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alaska, and a little Colorado. Natural gas is Wyoming, Colorado, and Texas. As a "fossil fuel" block, these States represent an insurmountable obstacle in our minority ruled Senate. But what if their interests diverged? What if our energy and emissions legislation not only set up our (aggressive) long-term goal, but partly mapped out a transition plan that culminates in a clean energy economy, and forces these vested interests apart?For example, we could have legislation that mandates a move from gasoline-powered autos to natural gas powered autos. Natural gas has lower emissions, so it is progress in that department. But more importantly, the natural gas industry States now have motivation to make this happen. The legislation could also target industries that can switch from coal to diesel (or diesel to natural gas) and drive them to do so by making them responsible for their emissions.The goal here is to not only get us on a path to a clean economy and to maintain our industry's global competitiveness, but to develop a path that in the near term divides the 'fossil fuel' block of States and gets us moving.This is sausage, pure and simple. But our future is in the balance, and if we have to make sausage to get there we should at least get the right ingredients.Paul Birkeland lives in Seattle, WA, US, and develops Strategic Energy Management Systems for government, commercial, and industrial organizations through Integrated Renewable Energy.Photo by Spigoo via flickr