For the known ways to obtain and transport fossil fuels, we are on a downward slope to running out of them sometime in the next century (based upon current population growth and planned development of second and third world countries - and yes, including fracking for shale gas and oil). We also know that exhausting all that resource with the emissions generated by current technologies will create irrecoverable climate change. That scarcity has leant support to environmental efforts, but what happens if scarcity no longer has the same relevance?
What if we never run out of oil?
"But methane hydrate is being developed in much the same methodical way that shale gas was developed before it, except by a bigger, more international group of researchers. Shale gas, too, was subject to skepticism wide and loud. The egg on naysayers’ faces suggests that it would be foolish to ignore the prospects for methane hydrate—and more foolish still not to consider the potential consequences."
This issue has even more poignancy given the recent State of Air released by the American Lung Association. (Note to my fellow Chicagoans: our city is the 16th worst!)
The state of america's air, mapped
"So how risky is your area? The State of the Air website allows you to search for your city or county and see its assigned grade. But we've gone ahead and plotted the counties identified in the report as the best and worst for pollution."
Regardless of efforts to convince Americans that government is ineffective at solving problems and delivering on improvements to quality of life, we see that government can effectively incentivize industries to develop and succeed. Then there are governments that miss those opportunities because of ideology. Perhaps those that deride the ineffectiveness of government should stop creating their own self-fulfilling prophecy.
In Wisconsin, politics continue to hold back wind development
"In 2012, a year that saw a nationwide surge in wind farm installations as developers rushed to beat expiring tax credits, Wisconsin added only 18 megawatts of capacity.
By comparison, Michigan and Ohio, with much lower wind potential, had already installed 138 MW and 308 MW in just the first three quarters."
I do not believe that the owners of the West, Texas factory intended to kill people. I do not believe that the citizens of West, Texas intended to put their elderly and youth in a dangerous situation. I do not believe that state and local officials in Texas intended to neglect the safety of the population of West, Texas. I believe they all wanted a business that supported the local agriculture and economy and added to the quality of life of the people of West, Texas. Regulations are not necessary to provide inordinately onerous intrusion into the pursuit of business objectives, or to provide an opportunity to punish business. Regulations provide a clean basis for a market economy, and they protect lives because business will not, on its own, consider safety and quality of life for all...only the profitability of the business.
The Texas fertilizer plant explosion cannot be forgotten
"The explosion of the West Fertilizer Co. plant on April 17 in West, Tex., killed 14 people, injured more than 160 and destroyed dozens of buildings. Yet unlike the tragedy in Boston, the Texas plant explosion began to vanish from cable TV less than 36 hours after it occurred. Marquee correspondents like Anderson Cooper were pulled out of West and sent back to Boston, and little airtime was spared for updates from Texas, even as many town residents remained missing. The networks seemed to decide covering two big stories was covering one too many, as if we journalists can’t chew gum and walk at the same time. The media’s neglect has greatly increased the danger that the explosion will quickly be forgotten, to the detriment of U.S. workers."
Let us hope that common sense transparency and safeguards will provide consumers what they deserve...the freedom to choose what they purchase and put into their bodies. Everyone of every political belief can agree that a functioning free market requires each party to agree on what is being purchased.
GMO foods subject of bill in US Senate
"The legislation, which would require food manufacturers and stores to tag items made with genetically modified ingredients or grown from genetically engineered seeds, has support from both sides of the aisle, including more than 20 co-sponsors combined in the Senate and House of Representatives.
It has been hailed by food labeling advocates as a boon for consumers who have repeatedly tried to get such laws passed. California's Proposition 37, a referendum on requiring genetically engineered food labeling last year, failed to pass. Boxer tried to pass a similar bill, without success, in 2000. But activists say that Boxer and DeFazio's proposed legislation shows that demand for a genetically engineered labeling law has reached critical mass."
Happy Friday!
Friday, April 26, 2013
Friday, April 19, 2013
Friday Five: April 19, 2013
Recognizing that events of this week put much of our life in perspective, it is important that we continue to work toward making a high quality of life possible for all. With that in mind, we should put into perspective how our flawed, human-created system of managing and distributing scarce resources - otherwise known as a psuedo-capitalist economy - does a poor job of actually benefiting all people. It has had success in some ways, and has failed miserably in others, but the most important consideration: it is human-made and not natural. We need to improve the way our economy accounts for our natural resources and the benefits they provide us. As consumers, we need to avoid purchasing from companies that "game the system".
None of the world’s top industries would be profitable if they paid for the natural capital they use
"So how much is that costing us? Trucost’s headline results are fairly stunning.
First, the total unpriced natural capital consumed by the more than 1,000 'global primary production and primary processing region-sectors' amounts to $7.3 trillion dollars a year — 13 percent of 2009 global GDP."
An interesting argument about eliminating the government from regulation posits that in the absence of government, industry would avoid doing things that harm people because it would not make good business sense to do so....
except that, even with government regulation, industry does plenty to harm people.
In meat tests, more data tying human illness to farm antibiotics
"EWG researchers found that 53 percent of raw chicken samples were contaminated with antibiotic-resistant E. coli. Resistant salmonella was also common on the meat samples: Of all the salmonella found on the chicken samples, some 74 percent were antibiotic-resistant. And 26 percent of the chicken tested positive for resistant Campylobacter."
Even in an era of sustaining rancor in our state and federal legislatures, we have some small amount of hope coming in the area of energy efficiency. We seem to have finally reached a point where we understand that using twice as much energy per person to deliver, at best, an equal quality of life to the rest of the developed world does not benefit the health of our people or the health of our economy.
Jeanne Shaheen, Rob Portman have high hopes for energy efficiency bill
"Among other things, the bill strengthens building codes to make new homes and buildings more efficient, creates a new Energy Department program called SupplySTAR to improve the efficiency of companies’ supply chains and requires the federal government — the country’s largest energy user — to adopt strategies to conserve the electricity used for computers."
At the same time, although concentrating wealth in the hands of few fossil-fuel-based industries has had a dragging effect on the pace of policy adoption to improve the energy industry, we see progress in the economic development of the industry for renewable energy. We need to move from the "extraction economy" to the "quality of life economy", but in that transition, we need to focus more on industries that create jobs in our cities and states to improve our communities from within.
The US solar industry puts people to work in all 50 states
"According to The Solar Foundation's (TSF) recently released interactive map, California has more solar workers than actors; more Texans work in solar than ranching; and the U.S. solar industry has more workers than the coal mining industry. Those findings and many more were discovered by The Solar Foundation team, led by Andrea Luecke, as they put together comprehensive solar job data about all fifty U.S. states and the District of Columbia."
Maybe, just maybe, we can change our relationship with "ownership" and "consumption" as sources of a high quality of life, and see more value in relationship, improvement, and time. To that end, imagine having access to a mode of transportation that would be always at the ready, would be incredibly safe and fuel efficient, and would not require you to provide maintenance or storage. This will happen in most of our lifetime...and personally, I cannot wait.
The future, coming soon: Self-driving cars mainstream by 2025
"The consensus among auto industry technologists, gathered in Detroit this week for SAE International World Congress, is that by the middle of this decade, cars that can largely pilot themselves through traffic jams will be offered for sale. By 2020, cars capable of taking over most of the work of high speed driving could debut, and by 2025, fully autonomous vehicles might hit the streets in meaningful numbers."
Happy (and safe!) Friday!
None of the world’s top industries would be profitable if they paid for the natural capital they use
"So how much is that costing us? Trucost’s headline results are fairly stunning.
First, the total unpriced natural capital consumed by the more than 1,000 'global primary production and primary processing region-sectors' amounts to $7.3 trillion dollars a year — 13 percent of 2009 global GDP."
An interesting argument about eliminating the government from regulation posits that in the absence of government, industry would avoid doing things that harm people because it would not make good business sense to do so....
except that, even with government regulation, industry does plenty to harm people.
In meat tests, more data tying human illness to farm antibiotics
"EWG researchers found that 53 percent of raw chicken samples were contaminated with antibiotic-resistant E. coli. Resistant salmonella was also common on the meat samples: Of all the salmonella found on the chicken samples, some 74 percent were antibiotic-resistant. And 26 percent of the chicken tested positive for resistant Campylobacter."
Even in an era of sustaining rancor in our state and federal legislatures, we have some small amount of hope coming in the area of energy efficiency. We seem to have finally reached a point where we understand that using twice as much energy per person to deliver, at best, an equal quality of life to the rest of the developed world does not benefit the health of our people or the health of our economy.
Jeanne Shaheen, Rob Portman have high hopes for energy efficiency bill
"Among other things, the bill strengthens building codes to make new homes and buildings more efficient, creates a new Energy Department program called SupplySTAR to improve the efficiency of companies’ supply chains and requires the federal government — the country’s largest energy user — to adopt strategies to conserve the electricity used for computers."
At the same time, although concentrating wealth in the hands of few fossil-fuel-based industries has had a dragging effect on the pace of policy adoption to improve the energy industry, we see progress in the economic development of the industry for renewable energy. We need to move from the "extraction economy" to the "quality of life economy", but in that transition, we need to focus more on industries that create jobs in our cities and states to improve our communities from within.
The US solar industry puts people to work in all 50 states
"According to The Solar Foundation's (TSF) recently released interactive map, California has more solar workers than actors; more Texans work in solar than ranching; and the U.S. solar industry has more workers than the coal mining industry. Those findings and many more were discovered by The Solar Foundation team, led by Andrea Luecke, as they put together comprehensive solar job data about all fifty U.S. states and the District of Columbia."
Maybe, just maybe, we can change our relationship with "ownership" and "consumption" as sources of a high quality of life, and see more value in relationship, improvement, and time. To that end, imagine having access to a mode of transportation that would be always at the ready, would be incredibly safe and fuel efficient, and would not require you to provide maintenance or storage. This will happen in most of our lifetime...and personally, I cannot wait.
The future, coming soon: Self-driving cars mainstream by 2025
"The consensus among auto industry technologists, gathered in Detroit this week for SAE International World Congress, is that by the middle of this decade, cars that can largely pilot themselves through traffic jams will be offered for sale. By 2020, cars capable of taking over most of the work of high speed driving could debut, and by 2025, fully autonomous vehicles might hit the streets in meaningful numbers."
Happy (and safe!) Friday!
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Friday Five: April 12, 2013
As we gradually have picked up steam in our pursuit of energy efficiency, we recognize the impact our operating our car or home can have on the wider energy picture. Turns out, we also need to be concerned about the impact of our computer and phone use as well beyond the energy we pull from the outlets in our house to power these devices. Cloud computing, "Googling", and using the data network of our modern phones adds a layer of indirect energy use that continues to increase even as other uses in our lives decrease. It will be interesting to follow this as it develops.
Cell networks are energy hogs
"In a new whitepaper, the CEET estimates that when we use wireless devices to access cloud services, 90 percent of the electrical consumption of that system is eaten up by the network's infrastructure, not the servers or phones.. The data centers themselves use one-tenth that amount of electricity. Worse, cloud services accessed wirelessly will continue to explode, leading to a ballooning electrical load as well. By 2015, they estimate this system could eat up between 32 and 43 million megawatt hours. In 2012, the figure was only 9 million megawatt hours."
A smart "local food" movement recognizes that as we improve transportation energy efficiency, and reduce the environmental impacts of moving things from place to place, the importance of eating what grows near us will come from the idea of growing strong local economies and creating strong regional character. That is not to say that embodied energy will ever be an insignificant issue, but as with every ecological issue, we need to understand all the impacts and benefits to build a wide consensus. When it comes to food, local is a great goal, but healthy, diverse, and socially just growing are still the priority.
Vermont bests nation in local chow
"The ranking was based on several factors: the number of farmers markets in a state; the number of Community Supported Agriculture projects, in which consumers buy shares in a farm's output; and the number of "food hubs," which help farmers with economies of sale by distributing products to consumers and stores."
It is important in our conversation about the impacts of our actions on our neighbors, our country and our planet, that we participate in an active discussion that focuses on sound scientific investigation. Not every weather issue will come from climate change, and not every wacky event comes from our greenhouse gas emissions. For those of us who tire of the war on science, we should recognize that our small contribution to the backlash against it comes from focusing on results instead of process. A good process always leads to a better understanding - and never a "correct result" as some want to suggest. It may turn out that after further study, the freak weather experienced in the lower 48 last summer all occurred as a result of climate change, but we should recognize that it does not lessen the veracity of climate change if it does not cause every issue.
Federal report says don't blame global warming for freak of nature 2012 US drought
"Thursday’s report by dozens of scientists from five different federal agencies looked into why forecasters didn’t see the drought coming. The researchers concluded that it was so unusual and unpredictable that it couldn’t have been forecast.
'This is one of those events that comes along once every couple hundreds of years,” said lead author Martin Hoerling, a research meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Climate change was not a significant part, if any, of the event.'"
To help that cause of improving the national discussion on science, for the first time in almost 20 years, we have started a national dialogue on how to improve the understanding of science for all students. Educators will now look at science as a process instead of science as a rote memorization subject, while also focusing more on science as a hands-on relationship with our natural world instead of a series of notes in a textbook. I have longed for the day when instead of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Geology we would take Science I, Science II, Science III, Science IV and learn about the process and overlap among disciplines - much the same way we investigate our language or our history. We live in a multidisciplinary world, and it is high time our science education recognized that. (Side note, it is also about time we understood that young children are the best scientists, and our science education needs to start younger....middle school is a start, but I advocate for even younger.)
New guidelines call for changes in science education
"The guidelines also take a firm stand that children must learn about evolution, the central organizing idea in the biological sciences for more than a century, but one that still provokes a backlash among some religious conservatives.
The guidelines, known as the Next Generation Science Standards, are the first broad national recommendations for science instruction since 1996. They were developed by a consortium of 26 state governments and several groups representing scientists and teachers."
This movement proves more important as we will need more and more of us to participate in the investigation, commercialization, and implementation of ideas that will quickly solve many of the problems associated with rapid development and population increase. We need new materials, and less environmentally damaging ones, to provide the services that lead to our quality of life. We need news processes and technologies to eliminate old, inefficient ways of maintaining our quality of life. Every day, new steps are made toward these goals. If we can get back to a life built on that which we grow instead of that which we extract, we approach the goal of making our lives better while ensuring that we make no one else's life - either now or in the future - worse.
The next world-changing super material is grown, not made
"Cellulose, in its macro form, is one of the most abundant things on the planet. That's what tree bark is made out of. That's the fiber in your bowl of shredded wheat. But like so many other things, cellulose is a different beast at a sub-nanometer scale. Remind you of anything? When nanocellulose is tweaked just right—chained into long polymers or crystalized—it could be put to use in super-light body armor, biofuel, new thin displays, making ridiculously light aerogels, even growing replacement organs for transplants. The stuff has serious potential."
Happy Friday!
Cell networks are energy hogs
"In a new whitepaper, the CEET estimates that when we use wireless devices to access cloud services, 90 percent of the electrical consumption of that system is eaten up by the network's infrastructure, not the servers or phones.. The data centers themselves use one-tenth that amount of electricity. Worse, cloud services accessed wirelessly will continue to explode, leading to a ballooning electrical load as well. By 2015, they estimate this system could eat up between 32 and 43 million megawatt hours. In 2012, the figure was only 9 million megawatt hours."
A smart "local food" movement recognizes that as we improve transportation energy efficiency, and reduce the environmental impacts of moving things from place to place, the importance of eating what grows near us will come from the idea of growing strong local economies and creating strong regional character. That is not to say that embodied energy will ever be an insignificant issue, but as with every ecological issue, we need to understand all the impacts and benefits to build a wide consensus. When it comes to food, local is a great goal, but healthy, diverse, and socially just growing are still the priority.
Vermont bests nation in local chow
"The ranking was based on several factors: the number of farmers markets in a state; the number of Community Supported Agriculture projects, in which consumers buy shares in a farm's output; and the number of "food hubs," which help farmers with economies of sale by distributing products to consumers and stores."
It is important in our conversation about the impacts of our actions on our neighbors, our country and our planet, that we participate in an active discussion that focuses on sound scientific investigation. Not every weather issue will come from climate change, and not every wacky event comes from our greenhouse gas emissions. For those of us who tire of the war on science, we should recognize that our small contribution to the backlash against it comes from focusing on results instead of process. A good process always leads to a better understanding - and never a "correct result" as some want to suggest. It may turn out that after further study, the freak weather experienced in the lower 48 last summer all occurred as a result of climate change, but we should recognize that it does not lessen the veracity of climate change if it does not cause every issue.
Federal report says don't blame global warming for freak of nature 2012 US drought
"Thursday’s report by dozens of scientists from five different federal agencies looked into why forecasters didn’t see the drought coming. The researchers concluded that it was so unusual and unpredictable that it couldn’t have been forecast.
'This is one of those events that comes along once every couple hundreds of years,” said lead author Martin Hoerling, a research meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Climate change was not a significant part, if any, of the event.'"
To help that cause of improving the national discussion on science, for the first time in almost 20 years, we have started a national dialogue on how to improve the understanding of science for all students. Educators will now look at science as a process instead of science as a rote memorization subject, while also focusing more on science as a hands-on relationship with our natural world instead of a series of notes in a textbook. I have longed for the day when instead of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Geology we would take Science I, Science II, Science III, Science IV and learn about the process and overlap among disciplines - much the same way we investigate our language or our history. We live in a multidisciplinary world, and it is high time our science education recognized that. (Side note, it is also about time we understood that young children are the best scientists, and our science education needs to start younger....middle school is a start, but I advocate for even younger.)
New guidelines call for changes in science education
"The guidelines also take a firm stand that children must learn about evolution, the central organizing idea in the biological sciences for more than a century, but one that still provokes a backlash among some religious conservatives.
The guidelines, known as the Next Generation Science Standards, are the first broad national recommendations for science instruction since 1996. They were developed by a consortium of 26 state governments and several groups representing scientists and teachers."
This movement proves more important as we will need more and more of us to participate in the investigation, commercialization, and implementation of ideas that will quickly solve many of the problems associated with rapid development and population increase. We need new materials, and less environmentally damaging ones, to provide the services that lead to our quality of life. We need news processes and technologies to eliminate old, inefficient ways of maintaining our quality of life. Every day, new steps are made toward these goals. If we can get back to a life built on that which we grow instead of that which we extract, we approach the goal of making our lives better while ensuring that we make no one else's life - either now or in the future - worse.
The next world-changing super material is grown, not made
"Cellulose, in its macro form, is one of the most abundant things on the planet. That's what tree bark is made out of. That's the fiber in your bowl of shredded wheat. But like so many other things, cellulose is a different beast at a sub-nanometer scale. Remind you of anything? When nanocellulose is tweaked just right—chained into long polymers or crystalized—it could be put to use in super-light body armor, biofuel, new thin displays, making ridiculously light aerogels, even growing replacement organs for transplants. The stuff has serious potential."
Happy Friday!
Friday, April 5, 2013
Friday Five: April 5, 2013
A real economy should be eliminating waste, improving service, and supporting high quality of life. It is disturbing that most businesses seek first to maximize revenue without concern for whether a product minimizes resource use, and in truth want people to waste more in order to increase revenue. As consumers, we need to demand better our of the businesses and products that we support. (Note that the original WSJ article requires a subscription, so I have included a freely available article that has the most egregious quote.)
Is innovation killing the soap business?
"The sales downturn has set off an unusually frank debate in the industry over when innovation goes too far, and it has led to finger-pointing about who might be at fault. James Craigie, the outspoken chief executive of Church & Dwight Co., CHD -1.16% which sells low-price detergents under the Arm & Hammer and Xtra brands, has an answer: P&G. 'Pod is killing the laundry detergent category,' Mr. Craigie said at an industry conference in February. New products ought to expand the revenue pie for manufacturers and retailers, not shrink it, he said. That is what innovation always did in the past, he said."
There is great debate right now as to where and how we should invest our limited capital in a transition to a new energy economy. There are those that want the focus on efficiency and renewables, and those that want the focus on natural gas and nuclear as a bridge to a potential for a future dominated by renewable energy. As with every piece of "independent analysis", we must be careful to consider the source, but it is worth following this discussion over the coming months and year.
Citigroup: Renewables will triumph and natural gas will help
"The good news is that Citi expects renewable energy to triumph; it believes that typical forecasts like those from the International Energy Agency are too pessimistic. Contrary to a certain strain of conventional wisdom, it says, shale gas will not crowd out renewable energy. Quite the opposite.
The pill? Citi expects it will take lots of natural gas — more than we’re currently using, in the medium term — to get to a power system run primarily on renewables. In fact, renewables and shale gas are in a 'symbiotic' relationship, the report says, each helping the other increase market share. If that’s true, a moratorium on fracking, called for by many greens, might serve to inhibit the spread of renewable energy."
Any attempt to predict the future always makes some assumptions on the costs and benefits. I find it interesting that when we talk about the economic impact of protecting the environment, predictions always overstate the costs and understate the benefits, but when looking at investment in fossil fuels, predictions always overstate the benefits and understate the costs. As we enter a crucial time period in the discussion on the Keystone XL pipeline, recent pipeline leaks in Arkansas - as well as those previously in Michigan - should serve as reminders that whatever sense of security one wants to imagine, the only thing we know for certain is that there will be a leak in a pipeline. We must be prepared to accept that consequence - or more truthfully to force someone else to accept that consequence - if we decide to allow the investment to happen.
Kalamazoo River reopens, 23 months after spill, but submerged oil remains
"Crews have been cleaning the waterway since July 26, 2010, when a ruptured pipeline owned by Enbridge Energy Partners, the U.S. branch of Canada's largest transporter of crude oil, was discovered in wetlands in Marshall, Mich. The Canadian crude oil, known as diluted bitumen, contaminated more than two miles of Talmadge Creek and about 36 miles of the Kalamazoo, forcing people to flee their homes because of the overpowering smells.
The cost of the cleanup has now reached at least $765 million, making it the most expensive oil pipeline spill since the government began keeping records in 1968. Enbridge is responsible for all of the cost, with most of the cost being paid by its insurance company."
We have seen that smart approaches to policy, and a willingness to focus on the resiliency and decentralization, can lead to a strong marketplace for renewable energy...even in climates and areas not blessed with abundant sun.
Can you have too much solar energy?
"In 1991, German politicians from across the political spectrum quietly passed the Erneuerbare Energien Gesetz (renewable energy law), or EEG. It was a little-heralded measure with long-lasting consequences.
The law guaranteed small hydroelectric power generators—mostly in Bavaria, a politically conservative area I like to think of as the Texas of Germany—a market for their electricity. The EEG required utility companies to plug all renewable power producers, down to the smallest rooftop solar panel, into the national grid and buy their power at a fixed, slightly above-market rate that guaranteed a modest return over the long term. The prices were supposed to balance out the hidden costs of conventional power, from pollution to decades of coal subsidies."
It is understandable that we hold tightly to what we know, for fear that anything new might not be as reliable. However, the evidence is mounting that if we reduce our waste and use the right amount of energy to support our life, then invest new capacity only in those technologies that support a high quality of life for all - with no transference of risk to another - we have the technology available to us today. It only takes a focus on what is important, and the incentive to put our best minds on finding the most optimal solutions.
Off-shore wind: State-by-state analysis
"Potential for offshore wind is best where population is largely focused - along the East Coast. States such as Delaware, Massachusetts and North Carolina could generate enough electricity from offshore wind to equal current electricity generation, entirely eliminating the need for fossil fuel based electric generation.
New Jersey, Virginia, and South Carolina could supply 92%, 83% and 64% of their current electricity generation with offshore wind, respectively. In all these states, wind could provide more energy than the states currently get from fossil fuels."
Happy Friday!
Is innovation killing the soap business?
"The sales downturn has set off an unusually frank debate in the industry over when innovation goes too far, and it has led to finger-pointing about who might be at fault. James Craigie, the outspoken chief executive of Church & Dwight Co., CHD -1.16% which sells low-price detergents under the Arm & Hammer and Xtra brands, has an answer: P&G. 'Pod is killing the laundry detergent category,' Mr. Craigie said at an industry conference in February. New products ought to expand the revenue pie for manufacturers and retailers, not shrink it, he said. That is what innovation always did in the past, he said."
There is great debate right now as to where and how we should invest our limited capital in a transition to a new energy economy. There are those that want the focus on efficiency and renewables, and those that want the focus on natural gas and nuclear as a bridge to a potential for a future dominated by renewable energy. As with every piece of "independent analysis", we must be careful to consider the source, but it is worth following this discussion over the coming months and year.
Citigroup: Renewables will triumph and natural gas will help
"The good news is that Citi expects renewable energy to triumph; it believes that typical forecasts like those from the International Energy Agency are too pessimistic. Contrary to a certain strain of conventional wisdom, it says, shale gas will not crowd out renewable energy. Quite the opposite.
The pill? Citi expects it will take lots of natural gas — more than we’re currently using, in the medium term — to get to a power system run primarily on renewables. In fact, renewables and shale gas are in a 'symbiotic' relationship, the report says, each helping the other increase market share. If that’s true, a moratorium on fracking, called for by many greens, might serve to inhibit the spread of renewable energy."
Any attempt to predict the future always makes some assumptions on the costs and benefits. I find it interesting that when we talk about the economic impact of protecting the environment, predictions always overstate the costs and understate the benefits, but when looking at investment in fossil fuels, predictions always overstate the benefits and understate the costs. As we enter a crucial time period in the discussion on the Keystone XL pipeline, recent pipeline leaks in Arkansas - as well as those previously in Michigan - should serve as reminders that whatever sense of security one wants to imagine, the only thing we know for certain is that there will be a leak in a pipeline. We must be prepared to accept that consequence - or more truthfully to force someone else to accept that consequence - if we decide to allow the investment to happen.
Kalamazoo River reopens, 23 months after spill, but submerged oil remains
"Crews have been cleaning the waterway since July 26, 2010, when a ruptured pipeline owned by Enbridge Energy Partners, the U.S. branch of Canada's largest transporter of crude oil, was discovered in wetlands in Marshall, Mich. The Canadian crude oil, known as diluted bitumen, contaminated more than two miles of Talmadge Creek and about 36 miles of the Kalamazoo, forcing people to flee their homes because of the overpowering smells.
The cost of the cleanup has now reached at least $765 million, making it the most expensive oil pipeline spill since the government began keeping records in 1968. Enbridge is responsible for all of the cost, with most of the cost being paid by its insurance company."
We have seen that smart approaches to policy, and a willingness to focus on the resiliency and decentralization, can lead to a strong marketplace for renewable energy...even in climates and areas not blessed with abundant sun.
Can you have too much solar energy?
"In 1991, German politicians from across the political spectrum quietly passed the Erneuerbare Energien Gesetz (renewable energy law), or EEG. It was a little-heralded measure with long-lasting consequences.
The law guaranteed small hydroelectric power generators—mostly in Bavaria, a politically conservative area I like to think of as the Texas of Germany—a market for their electricity. The EEG required utility companies to plug all renewable power producers, down to the smallest rooftop solar panel, into the national grid and buy their power at a fixed, slightly above-market rate that guaranteed a modest return over the long term. The prices were supposed to balance out the hidden costs of conventional power, from pollution to decades of coal subsidies."
It is understandable that we hold tightly to what we know, for fear that anything new might not be as reliable. However, the evidence is mounting that if we reduce our waste and use the right amount of energy to support our life, then invest new capacity only in those technologies that support a high quality of life for all - with no transference of risk to another - we have the technology available to us today. It only takes a focus on what is important, and the incentive to put our best minds on finding the most optimal solutions.
Off-shore wind: State-by-state analysis
"Potential for offshore wind is best where population is largely focused - along the East Coast. States such as Delaware, Massachusetts and North Carolina could generate enough electricity from offshore wind to equal current electricity generation, entirely eliminating the need for fossil fuel based electric generation.
New Jersey, Virginia, and South Carolina could supply 92%, 83% and 64% of their current electricity generation with offshore wind, respectively. In all these states, wind could provide more energy than the states currently get from fossil fuels."
Happy Friday!
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