The truly elite have spoken: There is no such thing as "self-made"

This past weekend, the National Baseball Hall of Fame inducted six new members in perhaps the greatest overall class since the first one. What struck me from watching the ceremony and hearing the inductees was not just the lip service to humility that we have come to expect from celebrity award speeches, or the expected thanking of the spouse for taking care of the kids and home front. It was a continued theme that rang through the entire afternoon...

None of them claim they did this alone.

Among all team sports, baseball has the unique quality of existing as a series of individual events. Pitchers and batters deal one on one...then a batted ball must be fielded by an individual who either makes the play or does not. There is positioning of individual players to maximize the chance a team can get a batter out, and certain defensive plays require clean execution by multiple teammates, but on the whole, baseball comes down to these moments of individual activity. That is why baseball statistics and records hold such a place in our national psyche. As Kevin Costner's character in For Love of the Game once quipped, "We count everything in baseball." This is precisely because everything can be counted: Pitches, outs, hits, errors...they all get assigned to a person and totaled up to become the legacy each player leaves behind.

Within this frame of reference, those players who reach the pinnacle of their career, it would be natural to talk about how all of one's own hard work paid off, and they can be proud of their accomplishment. As far as elite achievement goes, they would certainly be justified. Of the over 2 million youths that participate in Little League baseball each year in the US alone (not counting international), only around 800 make the major leagues in any given year. Now consider that of the 18,000 or so players that have officially participated in a major league game, only a little over 200 of whom reach this pinnacle of achievement. That means of the 100 million plus that have played the game over the past century, these players joined the 0.0002%...truly the elite.

And yet, in the 10 to 15 minutes each of them took to talk about their achievement, the entire time talked about others. The teammates, trainers, coaches, mentors who influenced them and helped make them who they are. They spoke of doctors who helped them stay healthy or return from injury. They spoke of the people who handled their finances so they could focus on reaching their potential. They lovingly praised coaches who spent that extra hour with them each week, who saw the promise that maybe even the player did not see, who taught them that skill or lesson that carried them through. In each case, there was no doubt that after all the help, the player had to achieve greatness through their actions on the field. However, without those years and years and hundreds of people supporting them, they all recognized that they would have achieved nothing.

This lesson can carry over into many aspects of our lives. We talk often about success as "individual achievement" for which we are entitled to whatever "we" earn. The national dynamic around issues of business, energy, health all centers around the idea of personal responsibility and personal achievement. If we learn one thing from these truly elite individuals...individuals blessed with the genetics who maximized everything that they were given and who worked tirelessly to reach the pinnacle...it is that no one does anything alone. We are beholden to our genes, our upbringing, our nutrition as infants, the neighborhood we grow up in...a myriad of issues over which we have no control, and even sometimes over which our parents have no control.

Establishing social morays around an idea of individual action that has no basis in reality absolves us of basic human compassion. We absolutely must encourage each person to achieve the most they can, but we have to recognize that we have a social responsibility to provide the culture where everyone can achieve.

Friday Five: July 25, 2014

We hear politicians rail against regulation and how much it can harm business. I think we forget that we are a "nation of laws, not men" and that regulations play an important role in expressing our communal desires. We organize businesses to get things done with the least risk possible, and having an equally robust definition of what we will accept as a country and society does nothing to impair that...in fact, without it, business will not always do what is in the best interest of the people.
Proposed oil train safety rules include lower speeds, improved braking
"In any case, the outcome is likely to force the retirement of at least 35,000 of the nation’s estimated 98,000 tank cars that haul flammable liquids, according to Brigham McCown, former chief of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
In addition to the tank-car standards, the regulations would impose new speed restrictions on trains carrying crude. One option would reduce oil train speeds to 40 mph nationwide, while two others would impose limits only in certain urban areas. The speed limits could broadly affect all freight movements because the oil trains would effectively hold back other traffic, rail experts have said."

No one would accuse Germany - with all of its regulation and popular expression of the role of business and government - of being an inefficient economy that delivers a low quality of life. In fact, with the same global economic constraints, it has pushed forward on both improved quality of life and improved economic footing.
Study ranks Germany as the world's most energy efficient economy
"On a more serious note, Ackermann added that Germany is proud of its efforts to improve energy efficiency and lower its carbon footprint – all while growing its economy. "We all agree, I think – the cheapest energy in the energy you don’t have to produce in the first place. Our long term goal is to fully decouple economic growth from energy use," he said."

We see the worst of this clash of business and community will play out in the small towns most hit by the franking boom. Through every manner of pandering and strong-arming, companies are trying to work their way around the will of the people to not have fracking fields in their backyard. If government were not available as a tool to help give these people voice, how would they defend themselves?
Living next to natural gas wells is no fun
"Colorado has relatively stringent requirements for air quality reporting, but they rely on companies to do the reporting themselves. There is also the issue of access to the wells, which of course the gas companies do not grant to independent researchers. Nonetheless, a 2012 study by the University of Colorado-Denver School of Public Health found VOCs in Garfield County five times above the EPA’s Hazard Index level."

The only time we really understand the benefit of robust, enforced, and reasonable regulation is when a disaster strikes. Do we need another Texas chemical factory to explode, or another North Dakota train derailment, or a Three Mile Island failure to remind us that oversight that has both the capability and the strength to match up with business actually makes our lives...and business for that matter...better.
US nuclear power agency still playing with fire
"Beginning in the early 1990s, studies revealed that some types of material used for electric cable insulation, called fire wraps, did not meet the 1980 standard's requirement to withstand a fire lasting as long as three hours. To compensate, many plant owners began to use measures -- particularly what the industry calls 'manual actions' -- that the NRC had not approved or authorized. For example, if a fire damaged primary and backup system cables, the plant would dispatch workers to manually turn on pumps, close valves, or take whatever steps necessary to control the situation. NRC regulations permit manual actions, but only when they have been formally reviewed and approved on a case-by-case basis."

Now is the time to have a debate about the role energy will play in our lives, and specifically the institutions we have enshrined in law to deliver energy to our lives. They have outlived their usefulness in the current model, and if we do not act soon, we will be left behind in the world economy.
Dismantling the utility model is the fastest path to a cleaner electricity infrastructure
"Utilities have come under increasing pressure from constituents, customers, and politicians in recent decades. Grueling battles are fought over how fast to reduce the industry’s air pollution, how much to spend to reduce water use, what generation plants should be built, and how progressive utility rates should be. Many of these issues have migrated from the states to Washington for resolution, and national politicians find themselves in increasingly uncomfortable and untenable positions."

Happy Friday!

Scott Morgan/AP

Flashes: July 23, 2014

US per person annual textile fiber consumption 71.8 pounds per year (2012, down from peak of 91.0 in 2005) and 91.3 pounds per year of textiles were discarded -- 14.3 pounds recycled and 77 pounds discarded to landfill.
 Sources USDA & EPA

US per person annual food consumption 1,996 pounds per year (2011) not counting the nearly 500 pounds per person discarded.
 Sources USDA & NRDC

US per person annual energy consumption 6,784 kg of oil equivalent per capita (2013, down from peak of 8,438 kgoe in 1978) compared with an average of 4,150 kgoe per capita for the average of the OECD, 3,020 for the UK, and 2,087 for Portugal....for the record, Canada is at 7,270 kgoe per capita.
 Source World Bank

US per person annual water consumption 625,152 gallons (2011) compared with the world average of 304,657 gallons, the average for Germany at 313,676 gallons, and the average for the UK at 276,721 gallons.
 Source Waterfootprint.org

Currently, the US could completely support itself on recycled textiles, support an additional 40% of population without growing an ounce of more food, and support an additional 100% (minimum) more population without generating an additional BTU of energy or pumping an additional gallon of water...

If we wanted to.

Enjoy the journey!

Here comes the sun....and it's more than alright

We just signed up to participate in a program called Solar Chicago that looks to expand the installed, distributed solar capacity by bringing affordable installations to residential customers. Solar reached grid parity in southern US climates years ago, but is just starting to approach that here in northern Illinois. The program looks to help increase the demand for solar by incentivizing early adopters with financial terms that should help make the case for a future of distributed solar. On the surface, the numbers look good.

Currently, on the real-time pricing program with ComEd, we pay around $0.06 per kilo-watt hour (kWh) for electricity. That averages out to about 5% less than the ComEd flat rate, and just under the current City of Chicago municipal aggregation rate. The cold winter, surprisingly enough, was the major reason for the spike, as we have been paying about $0.055 per kWh this summer. If a solar project is to work, it would make sense for it to cost less than $0.06 per kWh as a starting point.

The Solar Chicago quote we received priced out a 3 kW system for about $13,500. If we participate, we get a $4,000 tax credit off our 2014 federal income tax, reducing the net cost of the installation to $9,500. An Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity rebate would offset another $3,500 in cost, lowering the final installed cost to $6,000. The program managers know this is an important target because a 3 kW system can produce around 4,380 kWh of total electricity over the year. Since the system will last a minimum of 25 years, that means that it will produce a total of 109,500 kWh over the lifespan. For the installed cost of $6,000, that equates to $0.0548 per kWh...just under the current market rate for electricity.

This financial analysis assumes that the price for electricity will remain constant relative to inflation. Since this has not happened in any decade over the past sixty years, and certainly not since the deregulation of the Illinois electricity market, the solar electricity will cost less than market price moving forward, meaning the installation makes better economic sense than remaining a full utility customer.

There are several concerns that must be addressed when making this decision as a homeowner. Unless one plans to live in the house for the full 25 years, it must make sense to pass on the value or the cost to a future homeowner. Solar homes have shown a propensity to higher market value than non-solar homes, but this is temperamental. It would be better if we had a market mechanism, such as property-assessed clean energy (PACE) which allows the homeowner to pay for the system using funds provided by the taxing body, then pay for the installation over the property tax bill for 25 years. Alternatively, the utility could get into the game and provide the system using on-bill financing, which would also transfer to the next tenant. Any of these would lower the risk to the new owner.

As for us, we plan to approach the bank to finance the project over a reasonable term, and hopefully using the system itself and not the home as collateral. We expect that to be a difficult conversation, but the financial community needs to find creative ways to finance these types of projects. The City of Chicago name on the program should help this conversation, and there will be financial entities willing to help. We just hope that it comes from our local bank so that almost everything we do provides some benefit to the community.

Stay tuned for more details as we move forward.

Friday Five: July 18, 2014

This week has seen a great number of stories about increased numbers of earthquakes, water shortages, and fracking chemical disclosure. With my birthday coming up, I am using my author's prerogative to focus on the positive and forward-thinking...it also helps that almost every one of these supports statements I have been making for several years now.

We start with the electric car revolution, and how it will not only change transportation, but also the ways we produce and use power at home. Combined with smart-grid communications technology, it will also change the way grid operators manage distributed resources. We have heard so much about the cost of battery storage for solar, and assumed it had to be a stand-alone battery system in the basement. What if the battery is sitting in your driveway surrounded by soft, bucket seats and an eight-CD sound system?
Electric cars will change the way you power your home
"The most striking data was from EV owners who also had solar panels. From 7 a.m. to midnight, they used about one-fourth as much power from the grid as the typical household, because they were getting power from their rooftops and often selling power back to the grid. In other words, they took very little from the grid when demand was high — at times even helping to increase supply — and took much more from the grid when demand was low. They helped smooth out demand."

Of course, in the future I see, there isn't a car in every driveway...but maybe we can adapt the plan a little bit to store cars around the city so they can balance out the grid and provide the same benefit as if they were parked right outside ones house.
Helsinki's ambitious plan to make car ownership pointless in 10 years
"Subscribers would specify an origin and a destination, and perhaps a few preferences. The app would then function as both journey planner and universal payment platform, knitting everything from driverless cars and nimble little buses to shared bikes and ferries into a single, supple mesh of mobility. Imagine the popular transit planner Citymapper fused to a cycle hire service and a taxi app such as Hailo or Uber, with only one payment required, and the whole thing run as a public utility, and you begin to understand the scale of ambition here."

Creating a space like this, powered by low-to-no cost renewable energy, with ubiquitous, low-cost public transportation, and full of the culture and activity that urban areas provide...it might just bring back a whole host of cities that we had left for dead.
What's the key to turning around Rust Belt cities?
"Some cities effectively prepared for this change, Piiparinen said. Pittsburgh’s educational institutions, for example, produced developers with strong tech skills who could create start-ups in Pittsburgh, especially in the areas of robotics. Buffalo just completed a clinical sciences building, part of $4.4 billion of medicine-related development announced in 2012. Cleveland’s new strengths are rooted in medical device companies, largely because of the Cleveland Clinic, which started doing heart research and married manufacturing and health sciences."

We can even look past carbon to other destructive forms of energy extraction, and if we trust our ingenuity, we can make sure that when we use energy to improve our quality of life, we do not threaten anyone's life or quality of life in the process.
As more nuclear plants shut down can distributed energy fill the gap?
"In the last couple of years, five nuclear power plants in the U.S. have been put on the list for closure. These plants are getting challenged from two sides: competitive natural gas and renewables are eroding the economics of merchant projects, while technical challenges associated with age are making the plants more expensive to operate. In this week's show, we'll look at whether renewables and efficiency are capable of filling the gap left by retired nuclear plants, including the SONGS plant in southern California."

As I predicted, utilities are at the crossroads: either get behind distributed renewables and energy efficiency, or go down fighting - but you will go down. We are already seeing that play out. We cannot life in a country based upon liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then tell someone they have to support a monopolistic business enterprise if it does not make sense to them. Those enterprises do not have to exist in that fashion...and the successful ones are already changing their business model willingly.
Green Mountain is a perfect example of how utilities can embrace distributed renewables
"Enter, Green Mountain Power, the leading electricity provider in the state of Vermont. Rather than simply working against the (likely inevitable) spread of distributed generation, the utility has been transforming itself a company with a business model that puts renewable energy and distributed generation at its core."
In Iowa, solar is fighting back against utilities, and winning
"IPL, the local utility, noticed the solar panels going up, and promptly complained to the Dubuque City Council. The local utility board agreed with IPL in March 2012, but Eagle Point appealed, and in April of last year, the Polk County District Court overturned the utility board’s decision, partly because, as the ruling put it, “The customer will still be connected to the grid, will still be an IPL customer, and must continue to purchase energy and capacity from IPL. Eagle Point is neither attempting to replace or sever the link between IPL and the city. it is simply allowing the city to decrease its demand for electricity from the grid.” In other words, the solar panels weren’t any more illegal than an energy-efficient appliance would be."

Happy Friday!

How does Chicago stack up to London and Paris transit-wise? Good and not so good

One of the things I noticed in Paris and London, and one of the things you cannot avoid noticing, is how ubiquitous public transportation is. In London, especially, anyone who spends time in the city center notices the low number of passenger vehicles. The famous London taxis are everywhere, as are the red double decker buses, but very few cars. That largely stems from the fees placed on travel of cars into the city center, but also has to do with the low amount of car ownership which results directly from the significant number of transit stops. Interestingly enough, Chicago compares favorably to London in terms of transit, but does not even come close to the value of Paris.

A quick comparison of some averages* for Chicago, Paris, and London exemplifies this. In Paris, one is never more than about a 1/2 mile from a Metro (subway) station and less than 1/2 a block from a bus stop. In London, that moves up to 3/4 of a mile from an Underground station and less than a block from a bus stop, which matches Chicago. Chicago also compares favorably with London if we look at the number of people each station serves (about 19,000 for Chicago to about 23,000 for London...Paris is at about 6,500). Londoners, though, take about 132 rides per person per year compared with Chicago's 85 rides per person.


The density of the cities does affect ridership and availability. At about 40 square miles, Paris is an immensely walkable city. London, at just over 600, poses a greater challenge, but still retains some walkability. Chicago's 233 square miles of space does a little better, although some specific communities do have much better population densities and more importantly, densities of services. If Chicago were to serve a population - proportional to its area - that London does, we would house about 3,200,000 people (which we have in the past). To match Paris, we would have 12,700,000 people. With that many people in that close a space, I think we might find more efficient ways to get people around than personal vehicles.

Chicago is taking steps to improve access to transit. An extension of the Red Line (the branch that runs from the northern border to a couple of miles short of the southern border and through the city center) all the way to the southern border of the city has finally shown signs of becoming reality. After taking over some abandoned freight lines to add a Pink Line most recently, the city now looks to bus rapid transit (BRT) to fill some of the other holes. The original planning for the transit system in Chicago shows the major failing; comparing it with Paris and London, one notices the spoke and hub layout that gradually misses large areas of the city. The Paris and London maps show a more evenly spread service profile. It will be almost impossible to fix this with more light rail and "L" lines, but BRT can provide similar wait times and service to light rail and can get up and running faster.


The greatest concern is that as people desire living near transit more and more in Chicago, property values will increase, and those that can least afford to live in those areas will be pushed to communities with limited access to transit. This will decrease their quality of life, either by forcing them to purchase a car, or by extending the time it takes them to get to work. Whatever moves we make to improve our transit, we need to do it quickly so that we avoid creating a further separation between those who can, and those who cannot, afford to live in our city.





* I use an admittedly imperfect way of measuring this: I took the land area of each city and divided it by the number of subway and bus stops to get an average area per stop. Then, putting a stop at the center, and a person at the edge of the area, I computed the longest distance that person would have to walk. This does not account for placing the density of the infrastructure at places where more people live, but given the scale of each city, it does provide a good starting point for comparison.

Flashes: July 16, 2014

Top 4 Most Energy Efficient Baseball Stadiums

1.  Marlins Park

"Its energy-efficient building envelope – and its mechanical, electrical, lighting, heating, and cooling systems – cost the ballpark 22% less on energy compared to similar structures."










2.  Target Field

"Upgrades to equipment, lighting, and HVAC in 2011 reduced electricity use by more than 12%, despite a new video board and added radiant heating units."








3. Nationals Park

"Energy-efficient lighting uses 20% less energy than typical field lighting."











4. AT&T Field

"Upgrading to a high-definition scoreboard that is 80% more efficient than its predecessor."








Enjoy the journey!

Source: Alliance to Save Energy/NRDC Sports Greening Project

Going nuclear on nuclear

I have a bit of a secret for you. If you find a room full of your tree-hugger friends getting a little too chummy with indignation over the recent reports of fracking-related media, or reveling in the environmental benefits of their new electric cars, you can break up that harmony by walking over and uttering one simple sentence...

"So you all have to love nuclear energy because of the reduced climate impact, eh?"

No issue sends environmental advocates to their corners more than the nuclear issue. On one hand, you have those screaming for climate impact reductions who think we have to use and maybe even expand nuclear to produce nearly carbon-free electricity. On the other, you have those who fear the safety of increased reliance on nuclear energy, and the continued risk of mining a limited resource. Like most issues related to energy, both camps are right environmentally and technologically speaking. The interesting thing is, economically speaking, the pro-nuclear camp is the one that is wrong.

The current technology for generating electricity from nuclear energy operates between 25% and 33% efficiency, not including the energy to mine and transport the fissile material to the generating plant. At the same time, among all the conventional fuel options, nuclear requires the largest number of people per unit of output. Despite these high labor costs, nuclear remains a moderately competitive because of low fuel costs. With a limited number of countries that have nuclear technology operating only 500 plants worldwide, demand for fuel remains constant and prices do not fluctuate greatly.

The most significant cost elements in nuclear power plants come from the capital-related expenditures associated with building, renovating, and decommissioning plants. Power plants have a 40-year life cycle after which they must receive an extension on their license to operate (which they will again have to do every 20 years going forward). At this time, they must meet all regulatory requirements. This requires a significant investment. As plant operators approach this milestone, they have a decision to make: invest in the plant upgrade or shut down the plant. This decision is entirely an economic one, and several operators have made the decision not to invest.

Several factors contribute to the economic downfall of nuclear. First, as mentioned previously, it has a high capital investment requirement - the most of any electricity generating source except solar, and that has changed drastically over the past several years. Second, natural gas mining through fracking has altered the course of projected electricity costs. Utilities and generators made huge investments in natural gas plants starting at the end of the last century, and that market now drives the cost of electricity. (This has also caused the shuttering of coal plants as they cannot keep up with the investments at the current historic low prices for electricity.) Third, due to significant drops in the rate of increasing electrical demand, we have historically high capacity factors in our electricity generating fleet. Capacity factor measures how much peak delivery capacity we have relative to the peak demand from the grid. Operators of the grid like to maintain at least 15% capacity factor, and we sit now at 22%. We can lose generating capacity and still have a cushion for unforeseen conditions.

Many advocates for nuclear fear that dropping our nuclear capacity will threaten future stability in the electricity market and could cause us to move sharply back to coal in the future. This concern has merit if you consider coal and nuclear to be the only options. Recent developments in solar technology and increases in production capacity have dropped the price of solar PV to a point where it nears grid parity with all forms of generation. If this trend continues (and with room to grow and improve, there is no reason to think it will not), it is just as likely that solar replaces nuclear. Even more economically feasible, new wind development already beats all other forms of electricity generation for cost effectiveness. We have only begun to tap both of these sources.

Even more importantly, we are a nation of waste and excess. We currently use twice as much energy per person as the rest of the developed world to deliver at best the same quality of life. Opportunities abound to reduce the amount of energy we consume, and more importantly for this discussion, the peak demand for that energy. Investing in real, permanent demand reduction costs less than investing in refurbishing nuclear plants - and certainly far less than investing in a new one. The other benefit is that we can realize these demand reductions in one or two years as opposed to the ten years it would take to install a new nuclear plant, and at about the same time horizon it would take to repair one. We can easily replace nuclear (and coal for that matter) with demand and consumption reductions and not change our quality of life one bit.

The nuclear plants we currently operate need to live out their useful life, and then retire. We should prioritize the decommissioning of those that sit in fault areas so that we avoid the consequences that Japan felt after the Fukushima disaster, and plan regionally to adjust capacity. We also must develop technologies that render the waste products from these plants inert. The case against nuclear does not have to include the fear of the nuclear waste, but we must consider the mitigation of that waste a priority going forward. We cannot leave a 10,000 year legacy of potential life-threatening material, and must include the cost of that mitigation in the analysis. For the coming decades, even if we eliminated nuclear power today, our country would pay billions of dollars to protect us from the consequences.

The modern environmental movement is not a one-trick pony focused on carbon. We can reduce carbon and address a more sustainable, renewable energy future without nuclear. It not only makes ecological sense to do so, but also economic sense.

On our only day of rest from team sports, some thoughts

The Monday of the Major League All-Star Break offers us one day to breathe from an otherwise 24/7/364 cycle of scores, highlights, and analysis. Primarily due to baseball's marathon, and the overlap with hockey's equally grueling season, this stands as the only day on the calendar without a professional team sport competition.  It used to share that distinction with the day after the All-Star game, but Major League Soccer snatched that up (presumably to have ESPN Sportscenter all to itself for one day). So we have one day to reflect and ponder how these activities - and the social and economic impacts - fit into our lives.  I offer the following, ecology and health-based thoughts.

1.  Professional sports survives on unhealthy food and audience manipulation.
Would a professional sports team remain profitable if the only sources of revenue allowed the team consisted of the ticket sales and pay-per-view television? Would this result in a spiral by which the salary structure of each league would fall to a point where many talented athletes at the lowest rungs of the pay scale would find more lucrative work in other fields? What a great irony it is for the demonstration of great human achievement only makes financial sense when people eat large amounts of food that lead to degraded human health.

Our other alternative, and the one that perhaps leads to a greater ratcheting up of the industry value, comes in the form of manipulative advertising. What relationship is there between the driving of a car and the shooting of a basketball? Only that a willing audience of sports enthusiasts will watch a commercial for that car while waiting for their game to come back on. The sports fan's basic human desire to belong to something greater than themselves gets turned into a source of profit for those who own sports franchises and a way to sell product to manufacturers.

Without either of these revenue sources unrelated to, and in some ways contradictory to, the reason for sport, what would the modern team sport industry look like?

2. The sports-industrial complex rivals that of the military-industrial complex
As a parent of teenagers, and a willing participant in the S-I complex as a coach and parent, I constantly find amazement in the lack of economic sense placed on decisions related to children participating in sports. Parents spend significant amounts of money on equipment, league fees, camps, training, and uniforms with no hope of seeing any return on that investment. Of the hundreds of thousands of young people participating in sports each year (and whose parents spend large amounts of money to do so), tens of thousands of them will continue to play beyond the age of 14, only thousands of them will continue past the age of 18, and each year maybe one thousand of them will participate in a professional team sport making a salary that justifies the years of effort. Certainly,  many work within the sports industry encouraging and supporting the next generation of athletes, but do we want 1/40th of our national worth to be dedicated to the sports industry as it sits now.  Can we obtain the health and (tenuous) discipline benefits from a better expenditure of resources? Especially given the pain caused by a small but damaging percentage of the participants in major college and professional sports, is the value worth it?

3. The more we know, the more we risk
In the days of loosely-wound baseballs, wooden bats, leather helmets, and water/banana rehydration/nutrition we saw injuries of all kinds, but not on the scale we see now. At the forefront, we have a burgeoning field of research into the effects of concussions from major sports (most notably American football), and especially the repetitive, non-concussive impacts that occur every day in sporting activities. Add to that the knee and ankle pains of American football, international football (soccer), and basketball, and we see a potential crisis as a generation of people that grew up playing these sports for the better part of two decades reaching the age where their impacts create the greatest strain on the health system. When kids would go out and play sports on their own in pickup games for fun, they would get the health benefit without the repetitive contact and intensity found in team sports participation and training. Like the impact of concussions on professional players of American football, we will not know for some time whether our obsession with sports at a young age has positive or negative long-term effects.

4. Do we really have the energy for sports?
We really do not have a definitive analysis of the total energy impact of sporting activities, but the combination of electrical energy use in outdoor arenas, combined with the total energy use of indoor arenas, plus all of the vehicular energy required to transport spectators from home to stadium and back provides a significant foundation for a finalized analysis. Add to this all the energy required to transport budding athletic scholarship recipients to and from their various sporting activities, and we have a gold mine of emissions reduction opportunities. When I was a kid, we biked or walked to every practice, and piled into the coach's wagon whenever we had a "road game". We did not have a procession of minivans and SUV getting us from place to place. On the stadium front, Fenway, Wrigley, Yankee, and Comisky have great access to public transportation, but the norm is a stadium surrounded by field and fields of empty parking lots that do nothing for 75-95% of the year. We can do better.

I enjoy watching people excel both intellectually and physically, so I absolutely love sports. My children and I have enjoyed the experience (despite the occasional lesson in decorum), and I hope we all continue to include team competition as a part of the cultural foundation of our society. Within this positive connection, I recognize that we can go too far. Making sports such a huge part of our economic system, and placing such an importance on it relative to other areas (science, mathematics, agriculture), we threaten the long-term development of our society.

Perhaps if we had more than one day off from professional sports, we might get a better chance to reflect and decide.

UPDATE: 7/14/2014...2:00 PM Totally forgot to include energy use and transportation.

Friday Five: July 11, 2014

It is said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  After dealing with smoking, leaded fuels and paints, asbestos, and other things harmful to human health, we do not learn how to better predict and manage these things.  Economic value does not tell the whole story...ever.
Pesticide blamed for bee deaths now linked to bird declines
"The researchers found a strong correlation between pesticide concentrations measured in surface freshwater and lower or negative local population growth rates of 14 species of birds since the introduction of the pesticide imidacloprid in the Netherlands in the 1990s, according to a study published online Wednesday in the journal Nature."

The consequences of our dangerous and addictive relationship with energy and chemicals often fall on those at the margins.  If this plant and all the pollution generating industry in this town were located in the posh suburbs of our major cities, we would move more quickly to eliminate them.
Mysterious blast at Chevron plant shakes pollution-weary Texas town
"When the smoke clears from this incident, Kelley and the Port Arthur community will still have other pollution problems on their hands. Besides the pollution cluster that already exists there, and the planned terminus for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, Kelley said the city just took a contract to take in chemical weapons waste from Syria. A few years ago, Kelley was instrumental in stopping tons of waste from Mexico from coming into the city to burned off in a city incinerator."

On a more positive note, the economics of solar continue to improve...
Hendersonville plaza to add solar parking canopies
"The systems at City Square are part of the TVA’s Green Power Providers program, which means TVA will buy 100 percent of the solar electricity generated for 20 years and pay a premium for the first 10 years.
Smith hopes the prominent solar canopies at City Square will spur more solar installations in the community."

...and improve.
Some go solar for savings, not the planet
"A December 2013 study from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found a premium of roughly $25,000 on homes in California with rooftop solar panels. Ben Hoen, a staff research associate at the lab who co-authored the study, said that figure was market dependent and likely different in other parts of the country. Still, he said 'it is reasonable to assume' that houses in other markets with solar power could fetch a premium."

Anyone looking for the best financial ROI of any major investment should find a company that will replace rigs for major transportation companies.  The ROI over ten years exceeds that of any savings account, money market account, or even the equity market.  It is not the economics or logistics of energy improvements that prevent us from making them happen, it is just the entrenched inertia of a few doomed industries.
Big fuel savings available in new trucks
"The technologies to improve fuel efficiency are cost-effective. For example, a new truck that includes an advanced engine and transmission, new axle design, and improved aerodynamics to the tractor and trailer could save average tractor-trailer owners and drivers about $30,000 per year in fuel. In 2025, these new efficiency technologies would increase truck purchase costs by about $32,000, which is recovered by fuel savings in just 13 months."

Happy Friday!

A practical case for reconsidering GMO based on taste

Let me be the first to call myself out: I am not a food science expert.  I am a mechanical engineer with a good background in energy systems, construction, and building design.  I have a fairly decent knowledge of communications systems, economics, and quantum physics.  I am above average in my knowledge of theater, 80s pop/rock, and almost every competitive sporting activity.  But I am not a food science expert, so take the rest of this post with the proverbial grain of salt…

The food in England and France tastes better than the food in the US.

This is not an American self-loathing thing…I really love our country.  Despite several flaws, it's a great place to live, and we have an unwavering hope that things will get even better.  This is not saying that food in America is awful, just that the food in England and France tastes better.

Last month, my wife, my oldest child, and I spent some time in Paris and London.  We are not entirely normal tourists, as we like to trek off the beaten path and get into the neighborhoods of cities we visit.  Our meals do not consist of hitting the most highly rated restaurants in major cities, so my taste comparisons cover the standard fare.  We bought groceries at a standard corner store in London for our breakfasts and snacks, grabbed meals at neighborhood pubs and restaurants for most of our meals, and even sampled a cart vendor or two along the way.  At each turn, even in the highly Americanized sports pub, the food had a richer quality of taste to it.  I am not making claims that it was better for us, just that on the quality of taste, there was a noticeable difference compared with American food.

This is where my observation turns to supposition.  In talking with people over there, and having read about food systems in the UK and mainland Europe, there are two striking differences.  First, much of the food systems are inherently local.  There are certainly South American bananas, but most of the staple crops come from farms within the country…which comparatively would mean within the geographic area of our states.  This short farm-to-table timeframe could easily account for much of the heightened flavor in the food.  Second, European countries practice the precautionary principle.  That means that anything consumed by people must be proven safe prior to consumption.  They have heavy restrictions on food additives, GMO, and processing.  There is still much debate about the safety of food additives, and especially GMO, but little of that discussion has included quality.  A completely unscientific analysis suggests to me that it would help to include it in the discussion.  Lastly, the portion sizes are drastically different.  In the states, we are fine with average tasting food if the portion gives us the quality to match our payment.  Perhaps in Europe, the smaller portion size forces vendors to ensure that the quality of the food matches the customers expectations of value.

Sometimes, our debates in this country become more about the debating than the topic.  We have talked for the better part of the last decade about the food industry from the point of view of safety, energy intensity, and environmental damage.  This brief sampling suggests to me that we should provide equal footing to the quality of the food, and not just look at food as a business, but something that sustains life in myriad ways.

Flashes: July 9, 2014

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy on Investing in Our Environmental Future

As individual solar becomes profitable, what happens to our utility infrastructure?

Using Education to Topple Inequality

How Gentrification Affects Cities

Enjoy the journey!

When the canary dies, you don't walk deeper into the mine

Startling news came out this week on the island nation of Kiribati, in the south Pacific, purchasing land in Fiji to start growing food.  On the tiny island nation, rising sea levels have made former agricultural land unfit for growing the food that the citizens of the country need.  As sea levels continue to rise, the country will run out, and would otherwise have to turn to buying food from other nations - which will prove tough given their economic standing.  This investment in land gives them an opportunity to stave off starvation, at least for now.

The president of Kiribati has a longer-term strategy for the land purchase: A future home for the people of Kiribati when the islands fall completely under the sea.  As an article in the Guardian points out, the president does not know if the land purchased will provide enough space for the population of just over 100,000 people, but they will do what they must to survive.  For island nations like Kiribati and the Maldives (per capita income $6,000 and $9,000 respectively; US at over $50,000) the prospect of paying to move the equivalent of an entire American suburb poses challenges that these nations do not have the resources yet to overcome.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change notes in detail the challenges these countries will face due to sea level rise, and identifies rising CO2 in the atmosphere as part of the cause.  Although large-scale phenomena like this have many causes, it appears likely that carbon emissions in developing countries have contributed to the rate at which this change occurs, if not the entire event.  If this is the case, then who should pay for the relocation?  Should these nations bear all of the burden?  Should developed nations bear the responsibility?  

The questions become even more interesting when we consider the possibility that we may soon feel this sort of impact closer to home.  Miami has already experienced severe weather events that have submerged large portions of the city. As sea levels continue to rise, by the end of the century, Miami may sit completely under water.  The Outer Banks of North Carolina may experience a similar fate, to the point where propertyowners have lobbied the legislature to prevent their property values from declining.  Who wants to buy a property that will likely sit underwater in a couple of decades?

We need to change our practices related to energy use and carbon emissions immediately.  That will do little to solve the problems of Kiribati, as sea levels would continue to rise even if we stopped all carbon emissions today.  As President Tong has noted, however, these island can serve as a "canary in the coal mine", warning us of what our future can hold if we do not act.  As we act, we must also take responsibility for our actions and provide the resources that the people of Kiribati, Maldives, and all the other nations who must relocate or significantly adapt their infrastructure to survive.  If we deny this help, and bury our heads in the sand, then eventually, we seal our own fate as Miami, New Orleans, and even New York or D.C. become the next areas that must relocate to survive. 

Moving 100,000 people presents challenges that we can overcome as a world....moving 10 million or more would present economic challenges from which we may never recover if we have to bear the cost alone.  Better to heed the warning of the canary than to end up standing knee deep on Broadway thinking we were sure that climate change was not real.

Everything new is old again

One need only look at the reappearance of tower cranes in downtown Chicago to get the sense that the real estate market has made at least a moderate comeback since the lowest point of the recession. For years, common logic has told us that the 5,000+ square foot suburban mansion displayed the ultimate in luxury and status, but now we see a different story. We have returned to a circumstance where close proximity to other community members and necessary services provides the highest value.

The typical suburban development layout grew from a philosophy that those seeking luxury did not want to live in something that resembled the city. Instead of adhering to a street grid, developments prevailed with a limited number of entry points, plenty of cul-de-sacs, and winding streets with plenty of distance between houses. In some cases, these developments did not include sidewalks because the design assumed the residents would rarely use them. Those living in these “luxury” neighborhoods would have access to two or more vehicles, so planners assumed the residents would substitute cheap gasoline for proximity when obtaining their necessities. This allowed suburbs (and eventually, even major cities) to build large strip malls with huge anchor retailers like WalMart, Target, or Home Depot to which the locals – and hopefully others outside the suburb – travel to get what they need. In many cases, a trip to a retail development requires driving as much as a mile when a resident lives only a block or two away from the building…except they have no way to get there because of the obstacles that separate these retail corridors from the residential areas.

As transportation costs rise, salaries decrease, and people value their personal time more, a new definition of luxury has come to the forefront. Beginning in the mid-1990s, and except for the downturn in the late 2000s, luxury living has returned to the urban environment. The classic urban neighborhood puts people in close proximity to each other and basic services. The corner grocery store sits within half a mile of every resident, as does a dry cleaner, a hardware store, and several restaurants. The new luxury high-rise developments bring most of these services to the residents in the form of first-floor retail that residents access with only a brief elevator ride. For those seeking a little more variety, they need only walk a block or two to find several other, similar developments containing their own similar retail development. These developments also contain community meeting space, fitness centers, and storage space that mimic services the residents would find in a more conventional urban neighborhood. Those who live in these developments do not need one car, much less two or more, allowing them to afford the level of luxury they desire.

Someday, we will need to revitalize the suburbs and return them to a more traditional, urban or “main street” communities where residents live near services. When we do, we will wonder why we ever built them in the first place.

Friday Five: July 4, 2014

For decades, we have been told that burning fuels was safe (proven wrong), that transporting fuels is safe (proven wrong), that mining was safe (proven wrong), and most recently, that fracking was totally safe...every year we get more and more evidence that it is not.
Study shows how drilling wastewater causes quakes
"Combined, those wells daily pour more than 5 million gallons of water a mile or two underground into rock formations, the study found. That buildup of fluid creates more pressure that 'has to go somewhere,' said study lead author Cornell University seismologist Katie Keranen.
Researchers originally figured the water diffused through underground rocks slowly. But instead, it is moving faster and farther and triggers quake fault lines that already were likely ready to move, she said."

We do know that mining, transporting, processing, and burning carbon causes significant cost to our health and our economy.  It is about time that we force industry to accurately project those costs when developing or renewing projects.
One judge’s smackdown of a Colorado coal mine could help fight carbon projects everywhere
"This kind of bold decision will ultimately get appealed, appealed again, and maybe overruled. It establishes a precedent, but whether it’s the kind of precedent other judges will believe in remains to be seen. For now, the big winner in this – other than the conservation groups that first filed the suit and the people who like to hike, graze, and shoot things in the Sunset Wilderness Area — is the legal concept of a social cost of carbon protocol itself. It’s already getting a lot more attention than something with that long and boring of a name can reasonably expect to get — and that’s a good sign."

Kudos to the Unitarians for taking steps to divest from fossil fuels, but retaining enough interest to be active shareholders.  Even better, their divestment will be better for their financial interests.
At Unitarian Universalist assembly, a vote to divest from fossil fuels
"About 2.9 percent of the UUA’s $175-million endowment is invested in Carbon Tracker 200 companies, according to information Walden forwarded from the UUA treasurer.
The fossil fuels divestment vote stems from a resolution brought by the group, Unitarian Universalists for Fossil Fuel Divestment and Sustainable Reinvestment, Walden said. The UUA 'has a long history of shareholder activism on a variety of issues, including environmental justice.'"

It is positively crazy that we treat seeds as a patentable product from which a small group of people can gain great wealth while the farmers who put all the work into the actual food production languish in poverty.  Even more striking is that these companies that patent often times do much less work than that for which they get credit.
Linux for Lettuce
"Most classical plant breeders will tell you that their work is inherently collaborative—the more people involved, the better. Baggett had used versions of another broccoli called Waltham, released by the University of Massachusetts in the 1950s, as part of the foundation for his original exserted-head lines. Hoping to advance its evolution by letting others work on it, he and Myers shared their germplasm (an industry term for seed) with breeders throughout the United States. One recipient was the broccoli division of Royal Sluis, a Dutch company that had a research farm in Salinas, California. Through the channels of corporate consolidation, that germplasm ended up with the world’s largest vegetable-seed company, Seminis, which in 2005 was bought by the world’s largest seed company, Monsanto. In 2011, Seminis was granted US Patent 8,030,549—“Broccoli adapted for ease of harvest”—whose basic identifying characteristic was an exserted head. More than a third of the original plant material behind the invention was germplasm that Baggett had shared in 1983."

In order to make great strides against the "wicked problems" that we face, we need every available brain on hand to innovate, communicate, and activate solutions.  For the entire scientific revolution and Enlightenment, we have pushed half of our population away from such endeavors, and it has been to our detriment.  It is time we changed that.
This great ad reveals all the ways we hold girls back
"This all comports with the research that shows that girls and women shy away from riskier endeavors—including majors where getting B's and C's are more likely to happen—than boys and men do. It's not just, or even mainly, about looks. It's about these other pressures on women that leave them little room to screw up. Especially since science, as a field, is about experimenting with things and learning to pick yourself up again and start over if your hypothesis fails. So kudos to Verizon and Makers for getting it right, and hopefully this will encourage further efforts to tackle the real reasons girls find their natural curiosity so frequently stifled while growing up."

Happy Friday (and Fourth)!