Friday Five: February 28, 2014

The risks associated with not only the burning, but the transportation and use of fossil fuels, affects many parts of our quality of life.  Certainly not the least among these is our economy.
Oil spill has shut down Port of New Orleans
"Officials say only a sheen of oil has been reported, but that they don't know how much oil was actually spilled, and are planning a conference call today to figure out how long it will take for the river to reopen. Cost Guard Petty Officer Bill Colclough told the Associated Press that the barge was being pushed by the Hannah C. Settoon tugboat when it hit the grain-barge-pushing Lindsay Ann Erickson tug. The Settoon is a 84.5-foot-long boat built in 2010 and owned by Louisiana-based Settoon Towing."

I remember distinctly listening to the radio when commentators talked about then Vice President Cheney convening an "energy task force" at which Mr. Cheney sidelined Christine Todd Whitman in favor of energy industry leaders.  To me, that stands as the Fort Sumter of the battle between environmental protection and industry.  Much like our Civil War, no one will win.  When it ends, we will do what we can to pick up the pieces.  I only hope that we end this ludicrous battle over whether we as a people have the right to enforce our desire for clean air and water.
Yes, the EPA has the power to stop climate change
"The Supreme Court said as much seven years ago in Massachusetts v. EPA, with Justice Anthony Kennedy casting the deciding vote. As the court explained in that landmark decision, Congress chose to define the air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act in 'sweeping,' 'capacious' terms—terms that easily cover greenhouse gases. This precedent is the foundation for all of the work the Obama administration is now doing to address climate change, including the regulations and related permitting scheme at issue in UARG."

Speaking of water, evidently John Roberts' influence on the judiciary runs deeper than we think.  A Florida judge just decided that the "individual mandate" applies not only to health insurance purchases, but connecting to municipal water.  Two elements of the story have greater interest to me in the story (and I recommend following the link to the Off the Grid story).  First, the judge seems to have some reluctance in enforcing a code that seems to not fully address the situation.  Second, the website doing the initial reporting supports both environmentalists looking to use natural resources and second amendment proponents looking to protect themselves.  It is an interesting combination of audiences.
Florida judge rules it's illegal to unhook from city's water system
"It’s not really clear why it’s illegal to live off rainwater — it just is. The law doesn’t understand, essentially, how it would even be possible to live without city-provided water. The fact that water regularly comes out of the sky is apparently not compelling."

Maybe we should worry a little less about whether people hook up to municipal water service, and worry a bit more about taking care of people who have worked most of their life and would like a couple of years to enjoy their time on this planet.  Or maybe we should try to fix the paradox that comes with spending the most on healthcare but ranking 33rd in life expectancy.  Don't even get me started on income inequality.
US scores poorly in retirement rankings
"Still, 'the rapid ascent of several other nations' caused the U.S. to remain stuck at 19, Natixis says. Moreover, despite being a wealthy country, the U.S. ranks relatively low when it comes to life expectancy (#33) and income inequality (#81). Other factors dragging down the U.S.’s ranking include high government debt, limited access to medical care, and high per-capita spending on health care. (When it comes to health-care spending, we are #1!)"

This is part #135 in my #575 part series on how money spent on renewable energy and energy efficiency creates more jobs, and a more resilient economy, than money spent on fossil fuels.
Renewable energy firms looking to hire more staff
"The survey indicated Glasgow, the Lothians, Highlands and Islands and the north east topped the list of regions employing the most people, while onshore wind (39%), offshore wind (21%), marine and bioenergy (both 9%) were the most notable sources of employment.
Of the 540 companies surveyed, 54% said they would be looking to employ more people in the next 12 months.
A further 42% said their employment levels would stay the same and only 1.6% expected them to fall."

Happy Friday!

Montreal Gazette

Daily Decisions: How did I get here?

Throughout 2013, Adding Light will take a look at practical decisions that everyone can take to contribute to making our communities more ecologically and economically resilient. Everything in this Daily Decisions comes from experience or research applied directly by our family or people we know directly.

Tonight, I took a tap class for the first time in almost a decade, and it felt great.  Although there is a "feed your soul" sort of personal quality of life moment associated with doing this, my decision today had to do with how to get to the class.  Let's look at my three main options for this kind of commute and see how the balance of quality of life compared with the economic and ecological impact.

Starting point:  my house on the Southside of Chicago
Ending point:  the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue
Event time:  6:00 p.m. to 7:15 p.m.

Option 1:  Drive
Departure time = 5:10 p.m. (25 minute drive + 5 minutes parking and walking to car)
Return time = 7:45 p.m. (20 minute drive + 10 minutes leaving, walking and retrieving car)
Total miles travelled = about 30 miles
Cost per mile = $0.35-0.45 (in my 2001 Toyota Prius)
Parking = $5.00 - $18.00 (street vs. garage)
Total cost of trip = $15.50 - $31.50
Gasoline used = 0.78 gallons (the Prius gets about 38 mpg in winter)
CO2 emissions = approximately 7 kg (8.92 kg/gallon per EPA)
Activities in transit = listening to music, sports radio, or news

Option 2: CTA (103rd St bus to the 95th Red Line Station; transfer to Red Line to Jackson)
Departure time = 4:25 p.m. (10 min. wait + 10 min. bus + 5 min. wait + 45 min. train + 5 min. walk)
Return time = 8:35 p.m. (same travel + 5 minute leaving event)
Total miles travelled = about 30 miles (9 by bus, 21 by heavy rail)
Total cost of trip = $5.00 ($2.50 each way including transfer)
CO2 emissions = approximately 4 kg (using values from Figures 2 and 3 in this DOT document)
Activities in transit = reading online magazines, texting friends and family, doing crosswords, reading

Option 3: Metra (Rock Island Line to LaSalle Street Station)
Departure time = 4:20 p.m. (10 min. walk + 30 min. train + 5 min. walk...last train for event was 4:30)
Return time = 8:20 p.m. (10 min. leaving/walk + 20 min. wait + 30 min. train + 5 min. walk)
Total miles travelled = about 30 miles (almost all by commuter rail)
Total cost of trip = $7.65 ($3.825 each way)
CO2 emissions = 7.8 kg (using values from the Appendix of this DOT document)

Given the options above, I chose Option 3.  I did not choose it because it was the most environmentally friendly way to travel, nor because it was the least expensive.  I chose it because it combined the cost effectiveness with the reliability.  On Option 2, those times heavily depend on the frequency of operation and could vary significantly, especially on the return trip.  For Option 1, traffic could have held me up, but in general, I would spend less time in transit, but at a significant cost.  It should be noted that the environmental performance of my single-occupancy vehicle travel is heavily influenced by the car I would have chosen to drive.  If I had driven a mini-van or SUV getting less than half of the gas milage, I would have had more than twice the environmental impact and slightly greater cost.  All in all, there is no perfect solution to the question right now.  If we can shift vehicle travel to all electric vehicles, that still does not improve the cost of parking or owning a vehicle.  Lastly, the per passenger mile data that feeds into this analysis comes from current ridership, which is under capacity.  Performance would be improved greatly if more people used the service.

This analysis can be done (and in the future I will revisit it) for many different types of trips.  What makes sense for one type of travel (in this case, short duration event travel), may not make sense for others.

Request Monday (06/25/12): Which way does the wind blow?

"At a recent meeting, I heard a politician say that he didn't want his city to buy electricity from wind energy because 'Wind energy creates just as many greenhouse gas emissions as coal'. This can't be true, can it?"

- Becky from Chicago

This is an odd, although not surprising question. Generating electricity from wind energy has several questions that communities have to answer, mostly those communities where the wind turbines produce the electricity. Low level noise from the rotating turbines can disturb neighboring residences, turning blades can cause issues with migrating birds, and installing the turbines in the middle of farmland (although a great financial benefit to farmers) can cause disruption with new roads and infrastructure to build and maintain the turbines.

The claim made by the politician stems from one of two additional issues, or perceived issues depending on your point of view: the need for reserve energy should the wind stop blowing, and the lifetime energy intensity of building, operating, and decommissioning the turbines. I will deal with the latter question first.

According to a 1990 study by the Solar Energy Research Institute, an at-the-time, state-of-the-art coal power plant generated 1,041 metric tons of CO2 per GWhe (giga-watt hours of electricity generated), mostly coming from the burning of the fossil fuel (96.8%), with the remainder coming from ongoing operation and maintenance (2.7%) and initial construction (0.5%). As a comparison, a natural gas turbine electricity generating plant, according to a 2000 report by the Energy Center of Wisconsin, has a lifetime CO2 emissions of 464 metric tons per GWhe. In 2009, an Australian research team looking to improve upon previous studies that underestimated the embodied energy (and therefore emissions) associated with constructing wind turbines, calculated that the life cycle emissions for a wind turbine fell in the range of about 8-10 metric tons per GWhe. Admittedly, the study did not focus on quantifying the decommissioning of the plant for the case of the study, but even at a level equivalent to construction, wind power appears to reduce electricity-related CO2 emissions by 98% relative to late 20th century technology for electricity generation from coal and by 95.5% relative to modern natural gas generation.

Since the embodied energy theory does not make sense, that leaves the case of reserves.
This will require a (hopefully) straightforward analogy to explain the difference between the two types of reserves: spinning and non-spinning reserves. As the name implies, spinning reserves are already in motion, ready to go, and non-spinning reserves stay dormant until called into action. Like any machine, a generator producing electricity has a level at which it likes to run to efficiently produce electricity. Above or below that level, the unit still works, but produces less energy output per level of input. Also, when starting a generator "cold", it takes significantly more energy to get running than during normal operation.

Since the human body acts as a machine as well, the best analogy I can come up with relates electricity generation to a relay team. Each team member contributes to the overall goal of completing the distance in the best time possible. Consider electricity generated by coal, nuclear, natural gas, and wind as the four relay team members. Nuclear has strong efficiencies, but must get going as soon as it has warmed up and must run at a constant rate...a good lead runner. Coal should run next, as its plants also run large and requires a relatively constant load. Wind runs in the third leg of the relay, and when running at peak form, it generates a significant amount of electricity very efficiently and puts the team in great position to finish. Currently, natural gas runs as the anchor because it can get up to speed quickly and increase speed if necessary to bring the team to the finish line.

The problem with wind comes from variability...it does not always produce as forecasted, and on some rare days, does not show up at all. Reserves, in the electricity generation realm, help to cover for this in one of two ways. Spinning reserves increase the output of other generation already online. In the analogy, this takes the form of other runners running faster (and less efficiently) to make up for a dip in wind's contribution. Non-spinning reserves act like a substitute runner who takes wind's place in the event at the last minute. They do not get optimal time to warmup, and cannot perform at their best, but fill in as best they can.

A 2011 study by a team of researchers from Argonne National Labs, the University of Illinois and the Georgia Institute of Technology looked at the implication to emissions reduction from the need for fossil-fuel-based generation to be brought on during times when wind forecasts failed to meet expectations. They found two interesting results. First, the amount of "base load" wind (meaning the amount of possible wind generation available as a percentage of total generation) heavily influenced the type of reserves available, and therefore, the total emissions. When new wind generation reached a high level of base load, it allowed nuclear plants (which normally run full out) to act as spinning reserve and enabled more natural gas plants to transition to non-spinning reserve. Under lower levels of wind base load (or none at all), nuclear and natural gas run at capacity leaving inefficient coal plants to provide most of the spinning and non-spinning reserves. In the relay race, under the low base-load scenario, the variability of wind gets covered by the coal leg running faster but less efficient, and if wind cannot run at all, it gets replaced by a less efficient coal runner, reducing the overall efficiency of the team. When wind has a larger base load, the nuclear and natural gas team members have more capacity to cover for wind, thus enabling better overall team performance, even when wind cannot perform. The second observation answers the question fully: under every possible scenario, the presence of wind generation reduced the overall emissions of the electricity generation relative to a "no wind" baseline.

Every new technology displaces an established way of life or business practice. Those that profit from the status quo will always find reason to question the validity of the new technology's supposed performance. This skepticism provides a healthy check against getting "ripped off" by new ideas that do not really deliver. In this case, relative to carbon emissions, the new technology completely betters the old. Additionally, as wind generation increases penetration, we will find more efficient ways to handle the variability, and will reduce the risk of variability through the citing of generation facilities in a wider area of service. As the grid becomes "smarter", this area of service can expand to include large areas of the country, thereby decreasing the risk further.

Thanks for the question.
Enjoy the journey!