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

A year in green tech: energy from green gunk

I love to travel.  Our development of ways to quickly and physically interconnect people of different cultures stands as one of the great achievements of the human species.  Except traveling long distances, and especially across continents, requires fuel.  Fuel comes largely from large fossil deposits within the earth, that when burned produce carbon dioxide and other pollutants that cause harm to our quality of life.  My love of travel has environmental consequences that counteract the positive effect that inter-cultural connectivity can bring.  As we quickly move to electrify our vehicle fleet for local and interstate travel, we will still power long-distance travel (trains, planes, and large ships) with chemical fuels for the foreseeable future.  If we could find a way to produce this fuel using the pollutants we put into the biosphere in such a way as to continually reduce the net pollution, while still providing the energy, that would reverse the deleterious effects, and remove travel from the list of undesirable activities.

As a first attempt, we started to grow biofuels from plants.  You will not read about traditional biofuel production in this series, because it does not meet a relatively simple requirement for green technology: it takes more energy to produce the fuel than the fuel contains after the process.  This highly inefficient process comes with an additional concern.  When using food stock (such as corn, soy, or sugar cane) as the input to the biofuel process, we introduce demand into the marketplace and affect the price of commodities that supply our nutrition.  Using arable land to grow fuel takes away land from food production, increasing the prices of basic commodities, and potentially every grown food product.  Although we have seen some potential in using the waste products from food production (such as the leftover stalks from corn and cane), we still do not see the efficiencies that a green fuel should have.

The most promising opportunity comes from the cultivation of algae - and more specifically, micro algae.  Although research into algae produces some confusion over their assignment to a specific kingdom, algae essentially are water-based plants that use photosynthesis to produce energy from carbon dioxide and other nutrients.  In the food chain, algae provide nutrients for water-based animal micro-organisms that then provide nutrients to small fish and sea life, and so on.  The useful characteristic that algae have comes from their storage of energy as a lipid, or fat.  If we can extract these lipids, we can convert them to forms of oils that then power the engines of trains, planes, and ships.

Image by John MacNeill, commissioned by Solix Biofuels

Cultivating algae, extracting the oils, and converting them to useful forms takes a significant amount of work, and until recently, required chemical solvents to make the process even moderately efficient.  Furthermore, extraction required significant energy inputs to dry out the algae to ready it for production.  The resource and energy intensity significantly increased the cost, and made increasing the scale of production difficult.  Recent research has found ways to eliminate the drying and chemical processing steps, instead using a continuous process that relies on heat and pressure to accomplish the task.  Although this does not significantly lower the energy input, it does allow for the commercialization of the process.  The energy input to an industrial facility that produces biofuel from algae can then use solar or some other form of renewable energy to accomplish the task, and at large scales, with much higher efficiencies than traditional biofuels.

The great promise of biofuel production from algae comes from the tangential benefits associated with the process.  The water in which we grow the algae can come from freshwater or saltwater, but even more beneficially, from wastewater.  Our wastewater from municipal sources contains many basic nutrients that we need to survive, but which pollute our freshwater sources.  These nutrients, primarily nitrogen and phosphorus, feed the algae, and as we harvest the carbon-based oils, we can also extract the nitrogen and phosphorus.  An algae production facility as part of a sewage treatment plant or run-of-river operation could significantly reduce or even eliminate eutrophication, the destruction of saltwater ecosystems by freshwater pollution.  In addition, as with all photosynthetic processes, the production of energy in algae requires carbon dioxide as an input.  Placing the industrial facilities near and around urban environments would remove carbon dioxide at rates significantly faster than current urban systems.  Monetizing the carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorous extraction, along with increased economy of scale, will bring the price of algae biofuels in line with expected prices for fossil fuels.

Even with this environmentally beneficial method for producing biofuels that can power our planes, trains, and ships, we still need to work on ways to extract the energy without the burning that releases carbon dioxide into the environment.  We also must continue to make the conversion process more efficient so we get more miles out of each unit of energy input.  If we can crack those nuts, and produce biofuels on a large commercial scale, we will have found a component of the green energy future that will allow us to maintain physical contact across borders without damaging our environment in the process.

Resources:
US Department of Energy Bioenergy Technologies Office
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Arizona State University Biofuels Initiative

Flashes: February 26, 2014

Luke Wilson and Terry Crews anchor this hysterical vision for a future where science focuses on curing erectile disfunction and baldness, and we try to grow crops by "watering" them with sports drinks.

Not that we would ever do that.










Yes, he's one of the most endearing Disney heroes of all time, but his world is the way it is because of our misguided actions.












Jack Nicholson, environmentalist?  This film noir-like 1970s mystery has a not-so-subtle undertone about the vulnerability of our quality of life.












If you didn't get hit over the head by the environmental message, there's not much I can do for you.













Just as U2 is the most popular Christian rock band of all time, not every environmental movie needs to be hitting us over the head with environmentalism....some just look amazing.

Honorable mention (not for the faint of heart...or stomach):  Soylent Green...I cannot say anything more...just watch it....and not right after a meal.








Enjoy the journey!

How Amanda Bynes and Miley Cyrus proved clean energy cures cancer and male pattern baldness

The most important issues of the day revolve around shortages of natural resources, questions about public versus private ownership of those resources, and the environmental damage that cultivating and harvesting those resources can produce.

And any trend of internet activity will show that among at least those connected to the web, the lives of celebrities trump all.

Occasionally, a cool viral video will gain some notice...especially if it involves cats.  Kid-based picture memes get shared on Facebook a lot.  And among party faithful, a good anti-Obama or anti-GOP story can get some traction.

But it takes a natural disaster to draw attention to our impact on the environment.

Can you imagine how horrible a feeling it is for an environmental advocate to hear about or see first-hand a disaster brought about by our activities, know that it was 100% preventable, and wish that you had been wrong?  We have a difficult time getting the general public to understand the problem and find a reasonable solution that meets everyone's needs, meanwhile, Amanda Bynes sentencing stands as the top trending story right ahead of anything Miley Cyrus is doing today.

And we have no one but ourselves to blame.  We do not get how to communicate.

You know who does get how to communicate?  Politicians and business leaders.  They get it.  That's why celebrities get attention.  That's why we are willing to do things that harm ourselves and others.  Because they tap into human nature...they understand what drives us, and they exploit it.

If we are going to compete, we need to adapt.  It really is not about money, and it is not about power.  It is about a story.  People like to belong.  We like to feel a part of something bigger than ourselves.  We talk about how awful the results of environmental damage can be, how much it can cost us, and we place the emphasis on how it affects each person individually.  We respond better, however, when the story focuses on inclusion.

I think we have started to get it, but it will take much more effort to make a difference.  Estimates like those in the Limits to Growth remind us that tipping points are not gradual.  We will not get a slow decent into resource scarcity during which we can adapt.  The rug will likely be pulled out from under us.  To prevent that from happening, we need to change the dialogue.  We need to mimic the success of business and politics...and we need to do it now.

But right after I read this story about Man of Steel 2.

It's a matter of priorities, capacity, and fairness

Last week, Ben Adler wrote an interesting take on how we sometimes misplace our priorities when it comes to addressing snow removal in major cities.  On my radio this morning, I hear that the City of Chicago will start removing miscellaneous materials used to hold parking spots on public streets that people have taken the time and effort to clear.  Two weeks ago, print and visual media carried stories about how the current City snow removal operations have exceeded the budget and have already dipped into "emergency" funds for pothole repair...and we still need to get through the end of this winter and the early part of next on this budget.  All of these point to an interesting point about who really has the responsibility when it comes to municipal services, who benefits, and what makes the most sense.

Adler's piece looks at New York City in particular, but major cities in general, and the priority of clearing the public streets, but not the public sidewalks.  Although NYC has a higher percentage of non-car-owning population, his point still applies to Chicago where a significant portion of the population lives without the use of a car.  Cities traditionally remove snow and ice from streets to facilitate vehicular traffic, but leave the sidewalks to private property owners.  Some take care of this responsibility, and some do not, but as the article questions, why should we prioritize one over the other?  Government's argue that they need to clear the streets to "keep the city moving", but it invariably only keeps a portion of the city moving.  Those who walk to school or work, or take public trains, receive no direct benefit of the service, yet they pay for it.  In the article, Adler advocates for public funding of all snow removal - both street and sidewalk - and makes a persuasive point for its efficiency.

The question of responsibility gets exacerbated in cities like Chicago when it comes to "ownership" of the public way.  Much of Chicago lives in densely packed, urban neighborhoods where street space for parking is at a premium.  In these areas, publicly financed snow plowing of the streets creates a hazard for vehicles parked on the street, blocking them in with an even higher wall of snow than Mother Nature provided.  This requires vehicle owners to expend much time and energy clearing the way for their car to get out, and creating a justified sense of ownership of that area.  Although people may wish they had a private spot in the summer, in the winter, the work provides a sense of entitlement to the area into which they put so much effort.  Through our city government, we expect these citizens not only to clear their sidewalk, but also to clear out their car, each without the promise of a direct benefit.  The questions arises as to why we just don't continue the obligation for another fifteen feet and require these property owners to clear the street as well.  In taking the opposite tack as Adler's point, instead of the City providing any snow removal, why do we not just require property owners to clear all the snow to the middle of the street?  Why have this divided responsibility in either case?  The easy answer is that requiring every one of hundreds of thousands of property owners to have the equipment to provide appropriate response would necessitate the purchase of equipment that would go largely unused.  Instead of a city maintaining a fleet of plows to cover large swaths of land over several hours, we would have hundreds of thousands of smaller pieces of equipment operating for minutes at a time.  This would be needlessly wasteful.

The current Chicago budget situation highlights this question of responsibility and waste.  The City budgets about $20 million a year to clear the snow from the streets, paying for this with funds taxed to all property owners.  Only when that fund ran out did the City tap into reserves from excess funds in the motor vehicle tax fund.  This raises the question as to why a tax on motor vehicles only kicks in when the budget cannot cover the work.  If snow removal benefits vehicular traffic, then should not only those who benefit from this benefit pay the costs.  Those who choose not to use the streets would then not subsidize those that do, and we could place the responsibility directly with those who require the service.  Also, we could then afford the suggestion that we use public resources to clear the public sidewalks as well as the streets, using the $20 million in general obligation funds to clear sidewalks, and raising the motor vehicle tax to cover the needed funds for street snow removal.

The larger issue comes in our interpretation of what municipal services provide us.  Do they provide efficient use of capital in order to maintain agreed-upon minimum services that support quality of life?  Then that would support city-sponsored removal of all snow.  Is the only goal to promote commerce and encourage personal responsibility?  Then that would support requiring individual property owners to care for their own streets.  Either way, promoting one service over the other, and requiring everyone to subsidize one they do not need, makes the least sense of all.

Friday Five: February 21, 2014

In a week when we celebrate the societal virtue of applied science and all it has done to improve our quality of life, we get a not so gentle reminder that no matter how much we try, we will never remove the specter of political will from science.  We need a culture change in order to make that happen, and unfortunately, we do not do well at culture changes.
Pretending Keystone XL politics is science
"Since the report’s release, more articles have questioned its integrity. In addition to the piece by InsideClimate News, The Washington Post and BusinessWeek have published stories about ERM’s potentially problematic relationship with the oil and gas industry. In fact, an ethical cloud has surrounded this report before it was even released and dogged the agency during the teleconference with journalists when it was made public. At that briefing, ERM’s potential conflicts came up from the first question, by NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell, to the last, by The Nation’s Zoe Carpenter. All they were really told was that State’s Inspector General is looking into it… but of course we already knew that."

Perhaps part of the problem comes from perspective.  Unless we directly experience something, then we do not perceive it as part of reality.  Take for instance, trying to explain to someone living in Chicago that January 2014 was the 4th warmest on record, and the warmest since 2007.
Global analysis - January 2014
"The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for January was the warmest since 2007 and the fourth warmest on record at 12.7°C (54.8°F), or 0.65°C (1.17°F) above the 20th century average of 12.0°C (53.6°F). The margin of error associated with this temperature is ± 0.08°C (± 0.14°F)."

Amidst the cold snap that has hit the Midwest especially hard, but at times all of the lower 48, we find an interesting irony.  The industry that has fought the expansion of renewable energy tooth and nail finds itself on the losing end of the reliability argument.  As a real-time pricing customer, I can tell you that electricity prices this past January and February have been higher than last July and August.  The shutdown of conventionally fueled electricity plants has driven up hourly prices, and in many cases, the only thing saving the grid from collapse:  wind power.
Polar vortex MVP: Wind power
"Then on Tuesday afternoon, RTO Insider reported that PJM – the mid-Atlantic power pool consisting of 13 states and Washington, D.C., and serving around 60 million customers – had some 36,000 MW of generation, a whopping 20 percent of its installed capacity, 'unavailable due to forced outages.' Reuters said the agency was citing 'weather-related mechanical failures and natural gas supply problems, as well as normal generation issues, for power plants being knocked offline Tuesday.'"

Coal changed the planet.  The minute we understood how to extract huge amounts of energy from it, we could produce steel, we could mass-manufacture armaments, and our population increased geometrically.  Coal has proved a mixed blessing: allowing for innovations that improve the quality of life, but creating sometimes devastating damage to our short-term and long-term quality of life.  The time nears for coal's eulogy, and I will be in line to deliver it.
The coal plant an Illinois town couldn't give away
"Local workers say they wonder if Dynegy plans to invest in keeping the plant running. Neighbors worry about pollution from the smokestack today, and what will happen to the site and the toxic waste or sludge abandoned near the Illinois River if it’s shuttered."

A quote attributed to Einstein suggests that just because we can do something does not mean that we should....in this case, we can and we should.
The Solutions Project: Transition to 100% wind, water, solar (WWS) for all purposes
"The Solutions Project focuses on market-based solutions and identifies opportunities that make economic sense for consumers, businesses, communities, and states. We work with clean energy business leaders, policy experts, NGOs, and other organizations to remove the barriers facing the future of clean, renewable energy. This transition makes economic sense for all of us, and we are going to show you the economic proof. Ultimately, this is a green issue - the additional green that will find its way into your pocket."

Happy Friday!

A year in green tech: Who's the smartest of them all?

Public knowledge about the concept of "smart grid" has grown consistently over the last decade.  Once relegated to far corners of the Department of Energy, operators of the existing grid, and entrepreneurial researchers at some universities, "smart grid" has become a part of the public lexicon.  In Illinois, we saw a political battle among the local utility, the state legislature, the public utility commission, and the governor trying to determine how much the citizens of the state would pay for the improvements to infrastructure necessary to accomplish the seemingly nebulous goals.  Consumers see appliances that have "smart-grid-ready" controls both to maximize energy efficiency and to minimize cost.  A decade ago, many could dismiss the concept of "smart grid" as a fad...today, we know that in some form, the infrastructure improvements and information exchanges that form the  backbone of the modern grid will remain with us for decades to come.

To understand smart grid, let us first discuss what "the grid" means. We use electricity every day in our homes, our cars, our places of work. In most cases, this electricity originates as another form of energy (coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear) which is converted into electricity through the act of burning or releasing energy to drive a rotating shaft. The places and equipment that transform these raw forms of energy into electrical energy - known as generators - create noise and air pollution (among other issues) and generally do not get built close to the customers they serve. The series of cables (to allow flow from one point to another), transformers (to match the right potential to the right situation), switches and relays (to regulate what energy can flow when) that connect these sources of electrical energy to our homes, offices, etc. are what make up "the grid".

For those that want a more detailed history of how our current grid infrastructure came into existence, the Edison Tech Center has a straightforward review of the topic. For over one hundred years, the grid has functioned to transmit electrical energy in one direction, from a small series of point-sources of power to a vast number of individual users. Relays and switches protect the system from damage, and transformers allow for the transmission of high voltage power across long distances which could then be "transformed" to lower voltage power at the building level. All of these devices maintain a steady flow of electricity from the source to the user.

The great limitation of electrical energy comes from the fact that the generators can only supply what the users need at any one time. Unlike water, natural gas, or oil, any excess generation goes to waste (at best) or oversupplies a system (at worst), so managing the grid requires a delicate balance to match generation to load (or need for electricity).

With this as a backdrop, the concept of a "smart grid" sounds simple enough: add "intelligence" to all the devices in the system and share information about real-time activity. That does not tell the whole story, however. Most leading researchers in the arena of "smart grid" more often refer to them as "micro grids" preferring to focus on the size, scale and functionality rather than solely on the additional intelligence. Micro grids have several key components that define them:

1. The grid operators have more information about the distribution of energy at all levels through digital meters and sensors strategically placed throughout the system.
2. End users have much more information about how much energy they use, at what time, for what duration, and most importantly at what cost.
3. As the name implies, the micro grid represents a finite subset of infrastructure at a particular scale. The functionality that flows from this decision allows for more local generation (mostly renewably created), more specific matching of power quality (the preciseness of the voltage and current) to the needs of the equipment using that power, and a greater amount of reliability by decreasing the need for large sources of power far away.
4. Multidirectional (although not simultaneously so) flow of electricity within and around the grid.

The increased metering, increased flow of information, and decreased reliance on distant generation resources changes the relationship between generator and user, creates a scenario in which greater accuracy of generation matches the load, and establishes more sources of electricity within a particular area. With the increased monitoring, the grid can allow a larger number of sources entering the grid, creating greater local resiliency to the users. Traditionally one-direct electricity flow gives way to more "loop" structures that provide greater stability by allowing a single load to be served from multiple points in the grid. Electricity storage in large battery systems, coupled with the intelligent information and response systems, provide more reliability about the flow of electricity, and better backup in case of failures.

The addition of information systems, replacement of old switches with new devices, and deployment of generation sources all require investment. In Illinois, some of those costs have been built into the costs that utilities charge us in order to accelerate upgrades. What do we get for that investment? We get greater reliability of service, decreased waste, and improved management of resources. This does not count the currently unquantified benefits that come from implementation of a new technology: job creation, business recruitment, etc. Although dealing with public and private utilities generally requires a heavy dose of skepticism, "smart grid" or micro grid is the real deal, and we need to take smart, significant steps toward increasing the number of areas that upgrade to the newer, more resilient infrastructure.

Flashes: February 19, 2014...Engineer's Week

Ten Impactful American-Born Engineers

Neil Armstrong 

Astronaut, engineer and symbol of one of man's crowning technological achievements.

Willis Haviland Carrier 

Paved the way for refrigeration to become commonplace, creating a scenario by which comfort no longer depended on the outdoor climate.

George Washington Carver 

Almost single-handedly saved southern agriculture by developing uses for peanuts, pecans, and soybeans beyond simple human consumption.

William Coolidge 

Perfected a commercializable X-ray tube and changed the face of medicine on a wide scale.

Seymour Cray 

Created the first supercomputer and paved the way for the digitalization of our world.

Thomas Edison 

Defined what it means to be an inventor creating a workable light bulb, phonograph,  and many others.

Henry Ford 

Few single achievements have the scale of impact Ford's affordable automobile has had, but on a less positive note, his assembly line allowed us to accept an education system that produces workers who can "pull one lever".  Although his business sense allowed him to pay that worker enough to buy his product, many others have not followed suit, and the assembly line paved the way for the continued commoditization of people that the abolishment of slavery was supposed to end.

Grace Murray Hopper 

Co-creator of the COBOL programming language and inventor of the computer compiler which allowed for the development of more logical programming languages that could still use the same microprocessor for execution.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

Einstein theorized, Bohr hypothesized, but even Bohr's ambitious pupil Heisenberg could not do what Oppenheimer did: weaponize Fermi's nuclear reaction.  It changed the world, literally.

Eli Whitney 

The cotton gin completely changed the foundation of the economy of agriculture in the South.

Five notable foreign-born engineers

Enrico Fermi: The controlled nuclear reaction.

Robert Fulton: The steam engine.

Guglielmo Marconi: Wireless communication.

Nikola Tesla: The induction motor and commercialization of AC power.

Leonardo da Vinci:  Because I love Leonardo da Vinci and every engineer I know owes a debt of gratitude to him.

The first engineer

Celebrating our nation's engineers by honoring our first one

I am an engineer.

Engineer (noun): a person who has scientific training and who designs and builds complicated products, machines, systems, or structures

This week, we celebrate National Engineers Week (when are you holding YOUR party?).  Like most things associated with engineering, no one knows about it.  Engineering has been called the "stealth profession" because you only notice engineering when it goes terribly wrong.  When a bridge collapses, a space shuttle breaks up, or a building makes someone sick, we notice the poor engineering.  However, almost everything we do every day comes from the work of an engineer.

"Scientist discover the world that exists; Engineers create the world that never was." - Theodore Von Karman, aeronautics engineer

As applied science, engineers constantly balance between conservatively working within established limits and identifying innovative applications.  An interesting story traces the history of the engineering that led to the design choice for the size of the solid rocket boosters on the space shuttle to the width of the back sides of two Roman horses.  It highlights how train engineers relied on the carts used widely at the time in order to size their tracks, how the size of those carts came from those widely used on roads dating back to the Appian Way, and how NASA in choosing to transport the solid rocket boosters by train, had to restrict the width to something that would pass through a train tunnel.  In all of these cases, engineers used the known as a basis for creating the previously unknown.

Engineer (noun): a professional who applies science and math to create something of value

So now we come to the choosing of when to celebrate National Engineers Week.  George Washington, beyond his role as father of our nation and first president, is also considered our first engineer.  This primarily comes from his lifetime of work as a surveyor, mapping out large areas of Virginia and Ohio, but also connects to many of this other activities.  Washington "invented" a two-story barn that used horses to separate grain from stalk, as well as a plow that also planted seed.  He recognized the importance of engineering to military pursuits, using engineers as part of the forward thrust that created infrastructure for troop movement and fortification.  (This concept would lead to the formation of military units like the SeaBees - of which my grandfather was one - that would follow the Marines and create camps and bases out of nothing.  We also find it reflected in the establishment of the Eisenhower Interstate System, which was primarily devised to ease troop movements around the country.)  Although he never got to see it come to fruition, Washington pushed for a college devoted to engineering in support of military efforts.  When Jefferson established West Point, it stood for nearly half a century as the only engineering college in the US.

"There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature.  Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness." - George Washington

There was a time when most of our country had some basic understanding of some form of engineering.  Certainly the pioneers understood construction, agriculture, and transportation.  Our urban areas thrived because of the crafts and tradespeople who manufactured goods, built structures, and moved materials where we needed them.  Over the centuries, we have created a society where fewer and fewer understand - or need to understand - how things work.  This has created a chasm that separates those who set policy and manage finances from those who make the world we live in happen.  That chasm gets wider every year, and with that widening comes the cracking of the foundation of the nation.  Our infrastructure grows weaker even as we push to build even more.  Our energy systems continue to poison us, even as we demand more and more every year.  Some of this comes from deliberate choice, but much of it comes from incomplete understanding of not just how technology improves our lives, but how the technology reaches that goal.  The more we incorporate the understanding of both science and engineer into not just education, but our culture, the richer we will be and the more stable we will become.

And the more likely we are to realize the vision our nation's first president - and engineer - had for this country.

 

 

Mr. Mayor, Michigan Avenue is not State Street. Find another reason to deny a Mag Mile ped mall.

We have centered our American lifestyle on the automobile.  We spend billions of dollars each year to expand roads to facilitate transport between and through our cities.  We expect adequate parking facilities and easy throughways in our shopping districts.  We make our life choices not based upon the most convenient, but based upon our desire for the "best deal" or "highest status" purchase, regardless of how long it takes to get there.  Any new downtown development will include parking for residents as well as for those visiting the retail establishments.  Even in the neighborhoods outside of downtown, retailers clamor for more parking so that they can lure more and more people from outside the area to the retail strip.

It was not always this way.

In many Chicago neighborhoods, we see the vestiges of development based on the person...the person walking from place to place.  Grocery stores pop up every couple of blocks, and in the first story of apartment buildings, to serve the local clientele.  Public houses and bars show up in the same fashion.  Ninety-percent of the needs of a resident of Lincoln Park, Bridgeport, or Rogers Park sit within one mile of a person's place of residence.  In the most smartly developed communities, the retail corridors include every manner of shop we need to support our lives.

Around the world, and even here in the US, a movement over the past forty years has sought to reverse the trend of suburbanization of the public space.  This suburbanization minimizes sidewalks, maximizes parking lots and major thoroughfares, and seeks to get people from their garages to their retail outlets with a minimum of time spent outside.  This has put an increased strain on our existing roads, requiring more investment in them, and an increased burden of maintenance.  To lower those costs, and revitalize our urban areas, several advocacy groups now call for "walkable neighborhoods".  These areas allow someone to live comfortably without an automobile, and center development not on what will draw more people into an area to shop, but what will draw more people into an area to live.

As a way to highlight this movement, advocates have started to call for major urban areas to establish pedestrian malls on areas formerly devoted to vehicle traffic.  Some cities around the world have gone so far as to shift their culture from one of driving to one of biking or walking (see Copenhagen), while others have taken less grand steps of temporarily establishing these pedestrian-friendly zones (see Times Square, New York City).  Whatever the scale and permanence, each of these projects seeks a better balance between human-centered commerce and vehicle centered commerce.

In Chicago, local advocates have put forward a proposal to turn the north end of the city's famed "Magnificent Mile" into a pedestrian mall.  For those familiar with the area, it would encompass the final quarter mile of the posh stretch, starting at the historic Water Tower and extending to the end of the street at Lake Shore Drive.  Proponents note the expanded capacity for people to two of the strips largest retail outlets (Water Tower Place and 900 North Michigan), as well as the opportunity for new retail developments in the abandoned right of way.  Opponents - including Mayor Rahm Emanuel - cite the need for vehicular traffic in the area, and point to an old crutch of the anti-pedestrian crowd...

The State Street pedestrian mall of the 80s and 90s.

In response to a particularly harsh round of urban flight in the 70s, Mayor Jane Byrne proposed turning State Street, the other famed avenue in Chicago, into a bus-only street with an expanded pedestrian mall.  The idea centered around competing with an ever expanding number of suburban malls with something similar.  Anchored by Marshal Field's State Street Store, the plan sought to encourage development by making the area more person-friendly.

It did not work.

Development did not follow the change.  People did not flock down, mostly because the area still had issues with crime, the stores outside of Marshall Field's and Carson's did not have much appeal (the area still included adult bookstores and a predominance of fast food).  Also, the presence of many bus lines still kept the air quality suspect.  Pedestrian-friendly development as a driver of economic development did not work.

Michigan Avenue of the present shares little with State Street of the 80s and 90s.  Retail development already flourishes.  Residences in the area command some of the top prices in the city.  People want to live, work, and shop in the area.  Additionally, if you look at the layout of North Michigan compared with State Street, you will notice that State Street forms a necessary spine of the "Loop" of Chicago.  Traffic needs to flow east and west across it to connect people to the major lakefront attractions in Grant Park (and now Millennium Park).  Looking at the map, one sees that State Street forms a natural connection point between the areas south of the "Loop" to areas north of it.  Changing such a necessary artery in a drastic way made little sense.

North Michigan Avenue, on the other hand, and specifically the last two blocks, shares none of those physical qualities.  Blocking the street would not close-off access to anything to the east.  The only major "attraction" in that direction is the Northwestern Hospital campus (which includes Lurie Children's and Prentiss Women's hospitals), and that access would remain open by leaving Chicago Avenue open.  Michigan Avenue ends at Oak Street, thus it already has a natural termination.  Access to Lake Shore Drive can happen easily one-half mile south at Illinois Street where development has already eased access.  The only people negatively affected by the establishment of a pedestrian mall are the residents east of Michigan and north of Chicago who might rely on the use of the small number of side streets to cross Michigan Avenue to go to other parts of the city.

There may be many reasons why a pedestrian mall on North Michigan Avenue will not work.  There are an equal number of reasons why it will work, and the City will have to wrestle with the economic development advantages and the logistical challenges.  That said, dismissing the idea on the grounds that we have done it before and it failed does not hold water.  Cities as close as Madison, WI have made it work, as has the aforementioned NYC.  I, for one, want to see the studies, the data, and the pros and cons.  If it does not work, then I want to see where it will work.  We have ceded our public space to the automobile for too long, and the time has come to take some of it back.

If not Michigan Avenue, then somewhere of equal profile.

Friday Five: February 14, 2014

I remember a striking image in The Time Machine where man mines the moon for elements after depleting the earth, and ends up splitting the moon into pieces.  This causes cataclysmic changes to the planet.  I get the feeling that not enough people play chess...looking two or three moves ahead to see what might happen.
Seismologist: Fracking well injection linked to earthquakes
"And also what was happening with the actual injection parameters was that they had been injecting fluid into these wells since about the 1990s, and so it was somewhat of a surprise to see that, you know, 20 years later we see a series of earthquakes occur. But if you look in detail at the injection pressures, what happened was initially they could inject wastewater without any pressure. It would just basically go straight down the well, and they didn't have to put any pressure to make it go into the formation. But those pressures gradually rose over the 20 year period until essentially they'd have to keep increasing the pressure at which they'd force the water down in order to continue injecting the same volume of water. And so we think that was showing that essentially this formation, which had been previously drilled and produced and now is being reinjected into, was essentially filling up, that it was a closed space where they were pumping a lot of water down into, and essentially it got to the point where the formation was full, and that caused increases in core pressure, which may have led to these events along the existing fault systems there."

This week saw a minor breakthrough in fusion technology, but of greater impact and importance is the state of electricity and thermal storage technology.  Whereas fusion would create an arms race to use the most energy, storage creates a platform for using the right amount of clean energy.
Is energy storage in Germany and America the key to sustainable energy?
"Once more, best practices in the U.S. may illuminate the path forward. Three recent rulings by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission are requiring grid operators to accurately value energy storage as a generation resource, meaning investors can see the economic value of storage instead of just the environmental upside. In fact, one bullish energy industry executive has predicted battery storage will be cost competitive with natural gas within the next 18 months."

My desired response to this question is "At least!", but developing fossil-fuel-based strategies does not mitigate the risks we face.  We have the technology, the understanding of how to implement it cost effectively, and a world clamoring for energy stability and justice.  We could move to a 75% distributed/100% renewable world by 2030 and do so at lower cost than our current methods.  All it takes is a willingness to see past the fear.
Will distributed energy make up one-third of the US power supply by 2030?
"But there’s a catch -- this supply isn’t mostly made up of rooftop solar PV, or homes and business equipped with modern energy-saving, peak-shaving demand response technology. While those resources are growing fast, by far the biggest share of this untapped DER resource comes in the form of two decidedly un-sexy technologies: combined heat and power (CHP) systems and rarely used backup generators."

All politics is local, and all sustainability starts with the community.  The quality of life where we live is of utmost importance, and it does not matter what ones politics are, no one wants their community to be a toxic place to live.
Kansas mayor says sustainability is about community, not politics
"Dixson, a Republican, won the mayoral election in a landslide. Now halfway through his second term, Dixson has delivered: Greensburg has a new hospital and a new school built using sustainable architecture. There are wind turbines and solar panels all over town. He says he had to get past the idea that being 'green' was a liberal principle."

Corporations claim they have a mandate to do whatever they have to do in order to gain market share and return profits to their investors.  Should we accept that this "mandate" includes immoral activities as long as the corporation is not caught doing them?  Would you buy an item if you knew someone's life was harmed to make it?  If so, do you seek out information or wait for it to surface on its own?  If not, why?
A guide to ethical chocolate
"For African children, chocolate poses a much bigger threat than just cavities. A 2011 Tulane University study found a “projected total of 819,921 children in Ivory Coast and 997,357 children in Ghana worked on cocoa-related activities” in 2007-2008. (I use the term “work” loosely: That implies payment, when most of these children are in fact slaves who are imprisoned on farms, beaten for trying to leave, and denied any wages.) NGOs, politicians, and even a Hershey shareholder have tried to force the industry to change, but so far, these efforts have been stymied by the powerful chocolate barons, who are surprisingly evil for folks who make candy for a living."

Happy Friday!

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