How to solve the problem of fossil fuels in fewer than 100 years.

Last week, I had a reunion of sorts with several colleagues whom I met during graduate school.  Among the pleasant conversations about family and work, we got onto the topic of fossil fuel energy and its place in our world.  As we all met working on "green energy" projects, we all agreed on the need to get away from fossil fuels, but disagreed on the timeframe.  One friend noted it would be one hundred years before we were able to eliminate them from the bulk of our economy, and challenged me to come up with the actions I would take if I had all the capital and power in the world to make them happen.  I considered the question for most of the week, and came up with the following:

1.  Buy up all leases for fossil fuel deposits, all American public utilities, and all the aging fossil fuel reliant infrastructure and capital.
Sunk costs for electricity-generating assets and infrastructure, as well as the expected profits associated with future development of fossil fuels weigh heavily on the economics of switching to an efficient and renewable future for energy.  The next great financial bubble will come from the over-valuation of the carbon resources in the earth, resulting in another potential - and perhaps even more devastating - market correction.  The need to recover sunk costs puts a cyclical burden on the transition to a green energy future.  First, we prolong the use of the infrastructure in order to allow the utility to make back its investment with a guaranteed return, then we make complementary investments in infrastructure that works with the existing in order to meet growth.  We need to break both of these cycles in order to move forward at a rapid enough pace.  In addition, I would buy up all the used parts and pieces I could, disassemble them into their constituent parts, and repurpose the raw materials for green energy development.

2.  Reissue the resource and utility leases as a package deal, with a twist.
In order to continue the services that the utilities facilitate, but with a minimum of damage to human health, I would auction off the leases to fossil fuels, but link them (by energy content) to management of a utility.  This would link production and performance.  Then, I would restructure the utility in two ways.  One, the utility would provide the end service (i.e. heat, light, access to entertainment) instead of energy.  Customers would pay for the service instead of the units of energy, and thus reward those who provide the best end result, not the ones whom they are forced to pay.  Then, at the end of each year, these new utilities would receive a bonus payment based upon the amount of resource remaining in the ground.  They would not only increase profitability by using fewer resources in efficiently delivering services, they would receive incentive payments for leaving more of the carbon resources in the earth.

3.  Carbon tax to meet the real cost of using the energy and eliminate all subsidies.
The mining, transporting, processing, transferring, and eventual releasing of energy associated with fossil fuels has myriad negative impacts, and currently receive almost $700 billion in worldwide subsidies.  Currently, the fossil fuel industry only pays direct costs (transportation, storage, processing) but does not pay for ecological restoration of mined areas, healthcare costs for those located near combustion sites, property damage associated with polluted air, or other similar indirect costs.  To start with, we would end any subsidy to a fossil-fuel based company, using the money to subsidize a transition for those who cannot immediately afford the increased costs that might result from the end of that subsidy.  Then, each year, the insurance industry would determine the tax level based upon the reinsurance costs for each of the indirect impacts.  Governments would collect the tax to continue to provide the services they do to make up for the slight from industry, and would offset the new tax collected by lowering the overall income tax to balance.  Companies could lower their tax burden by including some of the indirect costs into their direct costs.  They can do this by taking over ecological restoration of mined areas, implementing complete carbon capture and repurposing (the act of preparing the carbon or carbon dioxide for benign storage and reuse in a specific industry...this means no sequestration without a plan for reuse), completely scrubbing exhaust streams for particulates of all size, and reducing waste heat to benign levels.

Tar sands mining area

4.  Require 99.99999% reliability from fossil fuel infrastructure and complete restoration of ecological services.
Currently, we tolerate too many oil spills, coal ash pollution incidents, and mine collapses as "the cost of doing business".  Industries know what they need to do in order to ensure near perfect performance records.  We need, as a society, to expect that they deliver.  In addition, when they complete mining activities or do have an environmental issue, we need to expect the complete restoration of ecological services.

5.  Immediately implement ecological valuation into the world economy.
Perhaps the best way to make sure capital flows to poorer regions of the world without the extractive growth that fueled southeast Asia and continued our damaging ways comes from the concept of ecological valuation.  Scientists and economists working together determine the real-time value of watersheds, forest systems, plains, species, etc., then include that value in a nation's asset sheet.  This would provide incentive for investment and restoration, while providing a mechanism for richer countries to offset their activities by investing in the preservation of existing ecosystems.  This provides the resources for developing economies to increase quality of life without the health sacrifices we had to make.

6.  Capitalize a series of building and loans in each 50-75,000 person community whose investment portfolio carries only energy efficiency and renewable energy projects in that community.
These nearly 5,000 banks would provide the needed capital to drive the shift from extractive energy reliance to neighborhood energy reliance.  The development of local businesses, and the expansion of local manufacturing to meet this demand would build a more resilient economy while improving the quality of life.  The banks would remain independent entities, beholden to shareholders like any bank, with the only restriction being the boundary of their investment region.  They could link their risk through insurance products, or state/regional-government based loan guarantee programs, in order to minimize their exposure.

7.  Provide free college tuition to top students entering the field of clean energy research and development.
Currently, the top students go into the financial sector or into fields associated with the extractive economy.  Fewer enter the fields of medicine or engineering associated with life-supporting activities.  We want the best ideas to prepare us for a future without fossil fuel energy, and need to provide the incentive to get them into those fields.

8.  Place clean-energy-based restrictions on the not-for-profit status of university endowments.
University endowments represent a significant portion of the nations held wealth, and as such, they wield great power.  For the significant benefit they receive from their tax-exempt status, the universities can bear a certain level of restriction over what they can do with those assets.  First, all of them must divest from all fossil-fuel investments.  Second, they must commit one-third of their asset portfolio to clean energy or energy efficiency projects; they choose the ones that maximize their return.  Third, they must make all buildings on all properties that they own net zero impact buildings within a decade; this includes all existing buildings as well as new and recently constructed.  The knowledge base and technology exist to make this happen, and institutions that have a forty to one-hundred year horizon for building ownership have the ability to recoup their investment easily.

9.  Change the current way we discount future life value.
We need to make all energy and quality of life decisions providing equal value to a life seven generations from now as we do to a current life.  We conveniently employ a discount rate that makes positive impacts on the future have to save ten lives to have equal value to saving one life today.  For non-life threatening activities, discounting the future has merit, for it favors conservative allocation of resources.  For activities that damage human health, however, this practice amounts to a death sentence for the future.

10.  Manage a smart transition for developing economies.
In addition to the economic development incentives offered by ecological valuation, we need to provide reasonable support and incentives for the developing world.  Unlike the developed world, these economies cannot easily remove fossil fuels from their quality of life systems.  People in these parts of the world still have underdeveloped fresh water systems, little or no electrification, and must travel great distances for basic needs.  We do not need to enable reliance on fossil fuels for new development, but cannot pull the rug out from under their current way of life.  Pursuing the above strategies will free resources to help manage this process, and ensure that developing economies avoid our pitfalls while raising the quality of life for nearly half of the world's population.  People are resourceful, and right now they are finding the simplest way they can to develop with the most readily available technology.  If we put the right technologies in front of people, they will innovate and find the right solution with the best outcomes.  We do not need to do things for them, but we need to make the right pieces available to them.

The challenge presented to me gave me no limit on my power or wealth, so I have not concerned myself with the economic impact of these activities.  Over the coming months, I will investigate them further and evaluate the costs and benefits of them.  We need to pursue these, and all other ideas for realizing a clean energy future, with a great sense of urgency.  We do not have the one-hundred years my friend conjectures we need to fully transition.  From this point forward, we need to stop enabling our dependence on fossil fuels merely because it is hard to do otherwise.  We need to expect more of ourselves; we have the knowledge, resources, and ability...now all we need is the will.

Friday Five: March 28, 2014

We hold onto a shaky hope that the use of fossil fuels to power our lives has little to no consequence on our quality of life. The truth is far more certain: our reliance on fossil fuels harms our lives, albeit unequally. For those with the means to live far from threatened areas near mines, power plants, and waste facilities, life goes along without complaint. For those not so lucky, they at best lead a life that is less healthy, and at worst die younger than those more fortunate.
When the rivers run black
"The result is that the exhaust that emerges today is far cleaner than it was decades ago. But cleaning up the airborne emissions means that the solids remaining after the burn are far dirtier than before. In fact, coal ash is often loaded with arsenic, mercury, lead, and other contaminating elements. A 2012 study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology found that cleaner air emissions are traded for 'significant enrichments of contaminants in solid wastes and wastewater discharged from power plants.'"

The anti-regulation economist believes that in the absence of regulation, business will always do what is best for quality of life because its customers will demand it do so and business always responds to its customers. Except, that what its customers don't know....
Activists catch power plant on hidden camera
"...a hidden camera set up by the Sierra Club ... shows a power plant regularly discharging coal ash pond water into the Ohio River, apparently permitted via a very liberal interpretation of the meaning of 'occasional.'"

The coal industry requires subsidies to stay profitable. An industry over a century old still needs government help to remain afloat. If you think that to be a bunch of environmentalist lies, here is but one example of the over $650 billion in worldwide subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.
Why are we hauling Pennsylvania coal all the way to Germany?
"'The industry was struggling, and the Pennsylvania delegation wanted to do something to help it,' says Jim Dyer, who today is a lobbyist with the Podesta Group, but began his career four decades ago in the office of Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Joseph McDade. 'The one way it could help it was ... to get the federal government interested in buying some of it.'"

Even with these subsidies, we know that the coal industry - without a game changing technology breakthrough that addresses the myriad health and environmental issues - cannot survive economically. This is not conjecture, but a fact of the marketplace.
Pacific Power's reliance on coal sends Oregonians' electricity bills soaring
"The OPUC hearing comes in light of Sierra Club’s analysis of reports from the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) showing that Oregon Pacific Power customers have seen their electricity bills increase by 61% since 2006, the year after Warren Buffet started operating the utility. Pacific Power customers saw a greater rate increase than customers of any other major utility in the six states that Pacific Power serves. The costs of continuing to operate old, outdated coal plants continue to rise, and Pacific Power’s parent company, PacifiCorp, will seek rate recovery from Oregon customers for its $4.2 billion coal fleet expenditures. PacifiCorp owns the largest number of coal plants in the West, and Pacific Power customers in Oregon get 63% of their energy from out-of-state coal plants."
Goldman Sachs declares solar energy will soon be cheaper than fossil fuels, and Elon Musk is a genius
"'…our Clean Energy team believes the number of households hitting grid parity will continue to grow as the cost of the systems comes down … SolarCity has seen a 40% decline in the per watt cost of PV panels since the second quarter of 2013 driven by improved scale which is expected to continue,' state clean tech analysts Brian Lee and Thomas Daniels. 'This has been true for Tesla’s battery costs as well, which have declined from of $500/KWh in 2008 to $250/KWh for the Model S to potentially $125/KWh at the gigafactory. As a result we should note that the quantitative grid parity and return calculations we show above are arrived at without any Federal or state credits.'"

This past winter showed us that fossil fuel electricity generation has intermittency issues on par with those of wind and solar. That does not mean that we should trade one intermittency for another (although the environmental costs should force that decision on us), but we should solve the issue regardless of energy source chosen. Batteries will not solve the problem, and although hydro and flywheels have promise, I like simple solutions. This one is "in the book" as Paul Erdos might say.
Energy storage hits the rails out west
"Compared to the mechanics of chemical batteries, the idea behind rail storage is simple. During periods of low electricity demand, power is dispatched from the nearby grid to pull a chain of weighted train cars uphill. And there they will sit—losing no power to degradation—until the grid has a period of high power demand. Then they are sent rolling downhill. Their momentum sends electrons back to the grid through a system of regenerative braking that uses the turning power of the wheels to generate electricity."

Happy Friday!

Why we won't be driving into a green energy future.

Imagine a world where you step out your front door, walk to the curb, and step into a car that had waited for your arrival.  The car takes you to your office while you ride comfortably checking your email and reading the morning news.  You get out of the vehicle at your office, close the door, and step into your building.  Sounds like the story of a CEO making his way to the office, doesn’t it?  Except there are three differences:

1.              The car is not yours.

2.              You are not a CEO, you’re just a regular middle class worker.

3.              The car drove itself.

For fans of Star Trek, we have already seen this driverless technology in action in a commercial with Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto in which the new prototype driverless Audi features prominently.  The development of communication technology, low-cost proximity sensors, and fast-acting computer technology combine to give us a car that will virtually eliminate accidents, completely eliminate drunken driving, and lead us to a future where the only vehicles are high-efficiency ones.

Although the first two benefits make sense – fewer chances for human error and no chance that someone who has been drinking will drive will certainly make life safer, the third might not be as apparent.  Why does a driverless vehicle necessarily mean that we will guarantee a fleet of higher-performing vehicles?  Truth is, on the surface it does not.  However a natural economic extensions of driverless vehicles will lead to higher efficiency: ubiquitous car-sharing.

Driverless vehicles will have some imbedded efficiency to them.  A control system that picks acceleration and velocity based upon the most efficient use of resources will top what most humans can consistently do.  Plus, the communication and navigation technology will always find the most efficient route instead of the one chosen by human habit.  Also, driverless vehicles will cause fewer traffic jams once fully adopted.  Without a minimal need for traffic signals, cars will self-regulate cross traffic, and without speeding and accidents, jams will occur less frequently if at all.  Some of the largest causes of inefficient vehicle operation fall to the wayside with driverless cars.

More importantly however, an industry replete with companies providing driverless car service will drive innovation for more and more fuel efficient vehicles.  Currently, the average car owner uses their vehicle less than 10% of the time they own it.  Most of the time it sits in their garage, driveway, or street parking idly waiting for use.  In a car-sharing, driverless vehicle economy, the cars run at about 60-90% of their capacity.  This has the effect of reducing resource consumption in the making of the vehicles, and it incentivizes a significant increase in efficiency.  When a business operates a vehicle for large portions of the day, the fuel costs increase dramatically from the use of the typical car owner.  Some average consumers see only a small benefit from an extra couple of miles per gallon, but a fleet operator will see even small percentages increase their bottom line.  One only need look at modern taxi service in our urban centers for proof of this.  The two most popular vehicle types are the minivan (for capacity) and the hybrid vehicle (for fuel efficiency).  If someone produces a hybrid minivan, I expect we will see them out there as well.  Taxis operate significantly more than the standard commuter vehicle, and the fuel savings signifies how the industry approaches efficiency differently from the average consumer.

We are over a dozen years away from seeing significant penetration of driverless technology and especially car-sharing systems associated with it.  When we get there, we will see the fuel use per GDP drop significantly, and with it, the prices of fuel.  That drop in price will reduce the ability of oil companies to drill for new, much more difficult-to-reach sources.  The sooner we can make this happen, the sooner we will have a higher quality of life, more lives saved, and better air quality.

If Indiana is against energy efficiency, then what are they for?

Indiana's governor, Mike Pence has a serious decision to make.  The Indiana General Assembly has come out against energy efficiency with an overwhelming vote to end the popular, and by most accounts effective, Energizing Indiana program.  Senate Bill 340 originally sought to give large industrial customers a chance to opt-out of the program - shifting more of the responsibility to small and mid-sized customers.  The House hijacked it, however, and turned it into a bill that as of December 31, 2014 would make it illegal for the Indiana regulatory commission to require an energy efficiency program.  In 2009, that regulatory body enacted the program to help drive energy efficiency and boost job growth in the state, keeping up with programs enacted in most of the neighboring states.  Since its inception, the program has created as many as 5,000 permanent, direct jobs, resulted in three times as many indirect jobs, and saved almost a billion kilowatt hours at a cost of approximately $500 million.

More importantly, the programs have reduced demand by 100 MW, and if continued would reduce it by almost 1800 MW in 2020 when the program would have cost $2 billion.  We often think of building new power plants to meet increased demand, but given the size of our current demand, we can offset increases by reducing usage elsewhere.  Every dollar we spend on permanent energy efficiency avoids us having to build a power plant.  Currently, the reductions of energy efficiency cost about $5 per kilowatt of power.  By 2020, the 1800 MW reduction will have cost about $1 per kilowatt.  Compared with $6 per kilowatt of nuclear, $2.3 per kilowatt for coal, and $1 per kilowatt for natural gas, the investment makes the most economic sense.  This is especially true when factoring in the job creation impact.  Energy efficiency creates twice as many jobs per dollar invested as any of the fossil fuels, and just slightly more than nuclear energy.

The reason for the backlash against the bill comes from the utility industry in Indiana.  Although they accurately claim no direct sponsorship of the bill, their interests get ignored if the program continues. In Indiana, unlike other states, the utilities still control both the generation assets and the delivery network, and their profits are coupled to usage: as people use more energy, they receive more revenue and profit.  In deregulated states, utilities can decouple their charges from usage, recouping the cost of investment even as usage flattens out or drops.  Although this creates a whole set of issues that all utilities will have to deal with by changing their business model, it at least gives the utility economic incentive to improve reliability and efficiency.

The other issue, and perhaps more important one, comes from the fact that the program resulted not from direct legislation, but rather from a legal order from a regulatory agency.  Although fully supported by the governor at the time, and even the majority of the legislature, the program did not come from a newly enacted law as in other nearby states.  This perceived "over-reach" provides an opportunity for those who would oppose the effect to claim that the rules do not have the appropriate legitimacy.

Both of the objections raise valid arguments, and after nearly four years, it makes sense to revisit programs to make sure they maintain relevancy and effectiveness.  Mike Pence has a hard decision because his own party did not deliver him the most important thing he needs right now....

Options.

By making it an all-or-nothing, the governor faces the decision to either eliminate jobs and create a further burden on the middle class, or further enrage a portion of the corporate base.  (I should note that business groups come down on both sides of this issue as many large and small businesses have seen growth in the marketplace because of the program.)  If the legislature had proposed a fix that addressed the concerns of utilities, and provided some realistic relief for large corporate customers, the decision would not be about a politically-charged ending of a program, but rather a fix.  There are many possibilities the legislature could have proposed: scaling the contribution based upon customer size, fully deregulating the utilities to allow them to decouple cost from usage, and/or setting the rate of contribution at the cost of new investment to ensure that energy efficiency targets only the most cost-effective programs.  Any of these would have made reasonable sense, and given the governor options.

But right now, he really has no options.  He must veto this bill and tell the Assembly to start anew.

It’s time to start paying the cost

Twenty-five years ago today, the Exxon Valdez spilled 161 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound near Alaska. After billions of dollars of clean-up and reparations, and decades of legal disputes, and thousands of lives changed forever….

Crude oil still pollutes the waters of the sound.

When incidents like this happen, we are supposed to learn a lesson. Tell a person that they should use caution because something MIGHT happen, and most of the time you caution will fall on deaf ears.  However, once someone sees what HAS happened, they usually respond with a passion to correct the wrong – especially if it has harmed them or someone they love.

After twenty-five years, however, we seem slow to make the corrections necessary.  Every year, we hear of a new spill, leak, or other environmental incident associated with the extraction, transportation, or processing of fossil fuels.  The news stories talk of companies that regret the damage, and that will make reparations swiftly and fairly.  As Exxon Valdez proves, all the talk in the world will not restore an ecosystem, or return a living to a fisherman who no longer has a place to fish.

The common response from politicians or industry leaders conveys part of the problem.  They state that, “Everything that could have been done to prevent the damage was done, and everything that can be done to clean it up will be done.”  This makes for a helpful sound bite, but does not convey the whole truth.  What that statement means is that they did the bare minimum of what they were required to do, and that they will do whatever they can afford to do.  Neither the business leaders nor the politicians have all the responsibility for this.  Their response echoes the desires that we as a society have for the energy from these fossil sources.  We want to believe that our use of these energy sources has no negative consequence, and that any disturbance causes only temporary and localized damage.

As populations increase, and the need for these resources continue to increase, we will only hear about more oil spills, mine collapses, earthquakes, etc. associated with fossil fuel development.  If we truly want to quell or mitigate these incidents, then we have one simple recourse…

Make sure that the companies that we have delegated to perform this task carry all the costs associated with prevention, response, clean-up, and damage to health.

This means that the fossil fuel industry needs to employ more inspectors, build more resilient and protective infrastructure, and maintain response crews at and along every piece of its network.  They would employ better technology, find the most efficient way to accomplish the risk management, and protect lives in the process.  In this requirement for bearing all the costs, we would include a zero-tolerance policy for failure.  Any life ended or damaged would require full and pre-determined compensation.  Any ecosystem damaged would require full and immediate restoration.  Any clean-up would require full and immediate completion.  Although I know that the costs of climate change should fall under this umbrella, I would accept – as a start – including the direct costs of spill prevention, mine collapse prevention, earthquake prevention, particulate emissions elimination, coal ash decontamination, oil spill clean-up….all the activities that have a direct tie to the supply chain.

Those in industry would decry such regulation as over-reaching.  In truth, it simply lets the reality of the industry match the perception and outward appearance that the corporations want.  People want to believe that fossil fuels systems have little to no impact on their daily lives, and that we can use them safely.  Industry wants us to believe that environmental issues occur rarely, and that when they do happen, they respond immediately and completely.  It is not an over-reach to want this to be the reality.

Industry is right when it says that this will impact the viability of the industry.  If people do not want to pay the cost for this level of security, some sectors of the industry may collapse.  In few other businesses, however, do we let this prevent us from protecting lives.  We do not allow a restaurant to remain open if it poisons someone, we do not allow a medical practitioner to continue work if they do not do everything within their power to save a life.  If the industry cannot protect life and survive, then we need to know that.  A basic principle of economics holds that all parties in a transaction have full knowledge of the transaction when they do business.

For years, the fossil fuel industry has violated this basic tenant of the free market, and it is time that we held ourselves accountable.

Friday Five: March 21, 2014 Limits to Growth?

This week, there is only one story that I think we all need to take the time to read, dissect, analyze, and pick a course of action to address. The link's author took the most balanced and factual approach to the story, and I recommend it as a starting point (note he has one factual discrepancy addressed in the next link). The study notes that throughout history, civilizations have collapsed...even highly ordered ones. Signals in our patterns of consumption can help identify weaknesses.
Society is doomed, scientists claim
"The researchers used the HANDY model to analyze three different social scenarios: an egalitarian society with no elite class; an equitable society with workers and non-workers (students, retirees, disabled persons); and an unequal society with a robust class of elites.
The egalitarian and equitable societies could produce a sustainable civilization and avoid collapse, even with a high ratio of non-workers. Social collapse was more likely after people overreached and depleted natural resources. Importantly, even without any social stratification, collapse could occur if a society exhausted its natural resources.
In the unequal society, however, collapse was almost unavoidable — and these were the HANDY scenarios that mirrored our current globalized society."

Most coverage of the press release for the study mentioned that NASA funded it. Although NASA funded the development of the tool through another study, it did not fund the research that led to the conclusion about societal inequality.
NASA clarifies its role in new civilization collapse study
"NASA officials released this statement on the study today (March 20): 'A soon-to-be published research paper, 'Human and Nature Dynamics (HANDY): Modeling Inequality and Use of Resources in the Collapse or Sustainability of Societies' by University of Maryland researchers Safa Motesharrei and Eugenia Kalnay, and University of Minnesota's Jorge Rivas, was not solicited, directed or reviewed by NASA. It is an independent study by the university researchers utilizing research tools developed for a separate NASA activity. As is the case with all independent research, the views and conclusions in the paper are those of the authors alone. NASA does not endorse the paper or its conclusions.'"

The study ties back to concepts presented in the 1970s by MIT researchers working through the Club of Rome. In their work, Limits to Growth, they identified patterns of consumption and activity that would lead to collapse of civilization. It is worth reading the entire work.
A synopsis: Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update
"These are symptoms of a world in overshoot, where we are drawing on the world’s resources faster than they can be restored, and we are releasing wastes and pollutants faster than the Earth can absorb them or render them harmless. They are leading us toward global environ- mental and economic collapse—but there may still be time to address these problems and soften their impact."

I think it important to hear multiple sides of an issue from learned people with something to say, no axe to grind, and a relatively clear way of stating their position. I disagree with Mr. Lomborg on many issues, and find some of his analysis incomplete, but having read his books and articles, I find his approach fair and reasoned. In order to put some perspective on the predictions of collapse from resource consumption, I recommend reading this post and other work of his.
The limits to panic
"The Limits of Growth got it so wrong because its authors overlooked the greatest resource of all: our own resourcefulness. Population growth has been slowing since the late 1960’s. Food supply has not collapsed (1.5 billion hectares of arable land are being used, but another 2.7 billion hectares are in reserve). Malnourishment has dropped by more than half, from 35% of the world’s population to under 16%."

For another analysis, this time one that verifies the predictions of Limits to Growth, I present the following. I am less familiar with Mr. Turner's whole body of work, but find the presentation of data clear and reasonable. I recommend that everyone take the time to understand the fundamental factors affecting out ability to sustain high quality of life with continued growth of population and consumption (as less developed countries strive to gain the high quality of life we enjoy). It quite literally is a matter of life and death.
Looking back on the limits of growth
"Turner compared real-world data from 1970 to 2000 with the business-as-usual scenario. He found the predictions nearly matched the facts. 'There is a very clear warning bell being rung here,' he says. 'We are not on a sustainable trajectory.'"

Happy Friday!

A year in green tech: 3-D printing

Like most members of my generation, I remember the red and blue glasses that people would wear to watch three-dimensional movies - which had been invented a generation earlier - and then three-dimensional television.  They did not really work all that well for TV, but the movie experience was entertaining...even if most of the movies were not.  It is funny now that almost every major action movie gets released in a 3-D version, my family and I vote much more often to watch the 2-D version.

With three dimensional entertainment still more of a fashion than a value-added experience, there is a 3-D technology that could completely change our quality of life and even the way that we think of moving goods and resources.  Three-dimensional printing offers the possibility to create objects with a minimum of waste, and at the user scale not the industrial scale.  The technology follows a simple principle of adding material to create a model, item, or form.  Traditionally, we either cast items in injection molding, or we machine away material from a stock to create a solid object.  The first takes significant amounts of energy to accomplish the end goal, while the second either wastes material or takes time to collect and recycle the remnants.  In 3-D printing, the device continuously layers material to build the item.  It uses only the material necessary to create the finished product.


How will this change the way we live?

Airwolf 3D

Currently, we use most of the items we own only a fraction of their useful lives.  For many of these, we only need them for minutes, then we do not need them again for a long period of time.  Instead of having to own all of these only to use them sporadically, what if we could use the item, break it down into its constituent materials, then reform it into something else that we need.  If we continue to do this over and over again, we not only eliminate the concept of waste, we minimize the amount of resources we need to support our quality of life.  It will take the addition of energy to continually make the changes to the material, but given the amount of renewable energy available to us, and the knowledge we have of how to do most everything else with a minimum of energy use, tackling both concerns coincidently seems well within our technological grasp.

In manufacturing, 3-D printing can reshape industry.  Currently, our manufacturing industry works with a small number of relatively large scale points taking stock resources and assembling finished products that they then ship to a larger number of wholesale or retail outlets.  This requires "double handling" of first the stock material and then the finished product.  It also creates "feast and famine" economies for many towns that host these large scale operations.  Down the road, as technology improves, we can move to the point where each community has multiple manufacturing centers similar to today's big-box retail.  In those spaces, stock materials and a small-number of manufactured-for-assembly items would arrive, and a local workforce would use these inputs to create the products that their community needs.  If a resident or small business owner needs a specialty replacement part, they do not have to worry about a manufacturer no longer supporting the item, they just send a scale image to the center and receive a new one within hours.  Institutions already are doing this and saving both time and money.

Three-dimensional printing does have challenges.  First, the process moves slowly, and currently only supports small-scale items on even a remotely commercial level.  Also, with the level of current technology development, the quality of the finished product does not meet the expectations many of us have for some items.  Industry has made much progress, and just today, HP announced that they have made some breakthroughs on both these issues and will have an announcement later this year.  That may just amount to corporate propaganda, but the presence of such a large company in the arena means that capital and talent have converged on the issue.

The technology will not, in and of itself, feed an ever-growing population, or right all the injustices of inequality that threaten our quality of life.  It does move us one step closer to making life easier to support with fewer resources, and given our current projected predicament, every improvement helps.

Flashes...for St. Joseph's Day

Joseph Priestly - English scientist who isolated Oxygen
Joseph John Thompson - Nobel prize winning English physicist who "discovered" electrons
Joseph Black - Scottish chemist who laid the foundation for thermodynamics
Joseph Proust - French chemist who coined the law of definite proportions
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac - French chemist who coined the law of combining volumes
Joseph Henry - American physicist who helped create the telegraph
Joseph Lister - British surgeon and scientist who spearheaded antiseptic medicine
Joseph Rotblat - Polish physicist who worked on the Manhattan project
Joseph H. Taylor, Jr. - Nobel prize winning American physicist who discovered the first binary pulsar

Enjoy the journey!

And Happy St. Joseph's Day!

Without regulation, we might have Metropolis

A large portion of the building market these days centers around three types of structures: hospitals/health care, universities, and high-rise residential.  Among the potential market sectors, these have the most capital on hand, the most demand, and the greatest buying power.

And they still mostly do the bare minimum when it comes to human health.

As long as we continue to develop new buildings that require fossil energy inputs, someone’s life will suffer to provide comfort to another.  If three of the most well-capitalized market sectors cannot choose to build in such a way as to alleviate this condition, then the market will not ever achieve a socially just outcome on its own.  The best we can hope for, with no other intervention, is a world where one class of people has comfortable, life-supporting infrastructure, and another class deals with the impacts of that lifestyle.

We have the knowledge and ability to change this.  We know how to design buildings so that they use only the energy naturally occurring on the property.  We have technologies that eliminate waste and instead recycle nutrients into another process.  We developed transportation technologies and strategies that nearly eliminate the negative impacts of the energy use.

But the market alone will not bring these into wide acceptance.

For at least a decade, we have had vehicle technologies that improve miles per gallon by twenty to thirty percent at almost no additional cost.  It took a projected change to the CAFE standards to force vehicle manufacturers to incorporate those technologies into their current offerings.  We will see the 2025 target for average fuel efficiency by the year 2020 because we already knew how to make it happen, we just needed a push.

The same is true for buildings.  If today, we established in law that any new building built in 2025 had to use no fossil fuel energy sources for its operation, we would easily achieve that by 2020.  This would happen for two reasons.  First, many designers and builders already know how to make this happen, and the investors who want to gain first entry into the market will find them and make it happen.  Second, everyone else will know that any building they build in the next decade will eventually have to compete with a building that has no energy cost.  Even though energy costs fill a relatively small portion of an organization’s budget (5-12%), that difference creates enough competitive edge to change the market.

I do not want my children living in a world like the movie Metropolis (or for those who are a little younger, The Hunger Games).  I want everyone to have an equal chance at high quality of life, and I want no one to have to suffer because of the comfort of another.

We know better, and should expect better.