Friday Five: August 22, 2014

There are times when corporations do attempt to do the "right thing" even if that means adding costs. Note, that the only thing that drives this is consumer demand. When facing a threat of extinction, a company will do what it has to in order to survive. That process, however, takes decades, and not every issue has that long.
Nestle imposes animal welfare standards for suppliers
"'We know that our consumers care about the welfare of farm animals and we, as a company, are committed to ensuring the highest possible levels of farm animal welfare across our global supply chain,' said Benjamin Ware, manager of responsible sourcing for Nestle.
The commitment by the world's largest food and beverage company could potentially ripple across the industry and force smaller firms to adhere to the same practices, animal advocates said."

More often, companies will do whatever is most expedient to achieve or increase profitability (note: that is not a disparaging remark, for in our society and economy, that is precisely all we currently as of business, and all they are good at doing), regardless of the environmental impact. Only when the purchasing power of those affected reaches a critical mass will the companies act...or when something large enough to affect its business acts (hint: that's government).
Frackers are sending sludge to the Mitten State
"Now, the radioactive sludge that was being turned away by Pennsylvania was on its way to Michigan, home to 84 percent of the country’s aboveground freshwater supply. LuAnne Kozma began to do some digging. She had begun studying up on and organizing against Michigan’s nascent fracking boom two years ago, after hearing ominous stories from family in New Jersey. This was a new wrinkle."

Too often, governments require a catastrophe in order to see the need for action. Even then, as this case exemplifies, many favor taxpayer-funded solutions for the mistakes of the shareholders and managers. Letting companies off the hook for their mismanagement - and frankly, their negligent endangerment of people - is something we would never allow in treating an individual person who jeopardized the life of another. We should not tolerate it of companies.
NC lawmakers pass coal ash legislation; adjourn after very long short session
"Rep. Paul Luebke argued that state leaders needed to say, loud and clear, that Duke and its shareholders – not its customers – should at least pay to clean the highest-risk sites by removing the ash to a lined landfill, by using it in certain construction projects or by installing a liner beneath the ash.
“If they’re high risk now, it means for a long time they were risky to the public. For a long time the public was hurt by contamination in groundwater,” the Durham Democrat said on the chamber floor.
In response, Rep. Mike Hager, Republican majority whip, pointed out that the N.C. Utilities Commission would handle any request for a rate increase, with opportunity for the public to have its say."

One of the more broken features of the current utility model (especially in states where utilities still own electricity generating or energy producing assets) is that these monopolies have been allowed to assume that any cost associated with a current asset can be passed onto their rate payers (citizens who have no choice but to pay them or do without power). Kudos to OPU for demanding that the utility consider all alternative investments to the status quo...both to protect rate payers and public health.
Oregon Public Utilities Commission increases scrutiny on Pacific Power's coal plants
"In 2012, the Oregon PUC disallowed $17 million dollars that PacifiCorp was seeking from its customers for expensive retrofits on its aging coal plants without first fully vetting the alternatives. During the deliberations on their 2013 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) they were warned by the commission that they were headed for a 'trainwreck of a rate case' if they continued to invest heavily in out-of-state coal plants without first presenting their plans to the PUC for proper analysis. In July of this year, the PUC refused to acknowledge Pacific Power’s expenditures at two units at the Jim Bridger coal plant in Wyoming and one unit at the Hunter plant in Utah, a strong signal that the company will have a difficult time recouping those expenses, protecting Oregon customers from higher rates."

The great thing about analyzing the German governments three-year plan for energy transition, and debating some of its many shortcomings is...THEY HAVE A PLAN!!!!
There's a reason that countries like Germany and China will fly past the US economically if we do not act soon...they recognize the impact that energy has on their economy, and Germany specifically is doing something about it. I would LOVE to be debating the shortcomings of US energy policy....but we do not have one, so I cannot.
German government’s three-year Energiewende plan
"Germany could easily do more, as could the EU. Brussels repeatedly calls for greater cross-border power trading, but where is the call for EU transport policy? I can’t take a night train, say, from Frankfurt to Rome or Madrid. Trains continue to be stuck in national systems, and no one is complaining. Instead, Switzerland is the driver behind overnight trains with its City Night Line, but it has been reducing the number of connections in recent years, not increasing them.
So yes, the chart above does have a wide scope. But it is not exhaustive. There is still a lot of room for improvement."

Happy Friday!

The (dangerous) fracking Ponzii scheme

Product manufacturers know all to well one of the primary rules of the marketplace: incumbents cede market share only when something costs less or has a greater "cool factor". That is why the new competitor to my favorite brand of juice drink cost $0.30 less, or why when Apple asked me to spend $400 on something that comes free with my cell contract, it has to do all this "extra stuff". Over the long haul, these new entrants to the marketplace have to raise prices or cut back on product in order to remain competitive, but their investors will tolerate losing money for a couple of years if the long-term viability of the product will lead to profits and return on investment down the road.

Such is the state we now find ourselves in the market for natural gas in the United States. For the better part of the past decade, we have enjoyed historically low prices for natural gas fueled by a huge expansion of supply from hydraulic fracturing (fracking), notably in Northeast, the Southern Plains, and the West. Under normal circumstances, companies would limit how much they distribute of these resources to ensure long-term production and viability. However, when this technology started to produce, the market had three competitors that could scuttle any long-term adoption:

Cheap electricity from coal and nuclear.

Renewable energy technologies.

Energy efficiency. 

In order to compete, and win, natural gas had to drop prices in order to create a challenging market for coal/nuclear, stave off investment in renewables, if possible, and keep demand as high as possible. And that they did: From 2006 to 2012, the price of natural gas dropped by 75%, with a number of ramifications.

US electricity generation by source (EIA)

The timing of this drop could not have been better in the electricity marketplace where natural gas trailed coal and struggled to top nuclear. Coal plants that had avoided the necessary investments needed to comply with decades' old regulations were reaching the point where they had to upgrade. A large portion of the nuclear fleet was entering the timeframe where they needed to re-permit, and therefore make investments into the facilities. In order to justify these investments, the industry needed certainty about the level of energy prices they would receive. A glut of natural gas in the marketplace changed the economics, and coupled with a new ability for the EPA to regulate carbon emissions and a tragedy in Japan at Fukishima, coal and nuclear plants have started closing. Meanwhile, natural gas plants continue to come online. As a result, the share of electricity generated in the US from coal has dropped from 50% to about 35% over the past 15 years, while natural gas has doubled its position from 15% to 30%. Nuclear, after holding steady for the better part of the last two decades has started to decline.

Meanwhile, the US energy consumption per capita - which sits at twice that of nearly all of the developed world - that saw a significant downtick when the Great Recession hit in 2008, has now started to rebound. Instead of taking advantage of ridiculously low rates of borrowing to establish a solid foundation of low energy use on which we could rebuild our economy, we as a nation chose to cut back on investment and instead, put our stock in a hope that for the next two decades, prices for energy would remain low. Science and economics tell us that we are in for a rude awakening.

The fracking industry has sold the US that we have a large amount of extractable resource sitting under the US, that we can sustain this production for decades to come, and that natural gas does not harm the environment anywhere near as much as coal. All of these claims are starting to unravel. A recent EIA report drastically dropped the projected resources available in the Monterey shale deposit by 96%. Although directly related to the oil from fracking and not natural gas, this calls into question the estimates of economically attainable resources in other shale deposits. Along those lines, for the better part of the last five years, the industry itself has questioned the long-term economic viability of fracking. Fracking wells drop off production significantly in just two years, necessitating that industry build more and more wells to justify pipeline development and meet production goals. Meanwhile, the mantle of environmental benign-ness that the fracking industry touted against a small number of detractors ten years ago has crumbled as more and more research suggests that the environmental benefits lag while more and more issues result from the whole process of extracting fossil fuels from rock formations.

In order for the industry to continue its current rate of market penetration, it must continue the myth of environmental benefit, invest in more and more wells to get that boon of production from the first year, and build more infrastructure around natural gas so that high enough demand exists when prices will inevitably go up. That is the scheme on which investors have been sold in order to make it work: Keep investing in new wells now, even though they will not produce, because we can keep America hooked on gas. 

The problem is, it's a lose-lose for the country.

If prices do not go up, then investors will lose money and back out in droves, drastically cutting supply and increasing the cost to the average American. If natural gas gains market dominance, then prices will do up to compete with larger profits to be gained from exports, and increase the cost to the average American.

The window is closing. Our last great hope is to reduce our dependence on all forms of energy, but especially fossil fuels, and increase the penetration of renewable energy into our electricity market. If we do that, we drop demand drastically, and introduce energy sources with much lower operating costs into the marketplace. These create downward pressure on prices, and provide us a measure of resiliency against future prices shocks.

If we do not make the necessary changes...well, we all know what happens to the people left standing when the pyramid scheme collapses.

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

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.

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)!

Friday Five: June 6, 2014

On the quality of life front, there was only one main story this week, and everyone has a different take on it.Some think that it merely codifies the direction the economy is already heading.
Hopes for impact of carbon rules in US are modest
"'I don’t think it’s a revolution because our carbon emissions are already going down because of cheap natural gas,' said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research, a consultancy. 'It’s not Obama’s war on coal. It’s reality’s war on coal. Natural gas turns out to be better than coal in the marketplace.'"

Some – especially those in the fossil fuel industry – think it will increase the cost of electricity and could eliminate more jobs than it saves.
5 things to know about emissions caps
"As more wind turbines and solar panels are installed, jobs in fabrication, construction and sales will shift there. Ditto for new natural-gas-fired power plants, which could lead to more drilling jobs in gas-rich states from Texas to Colorado to Pennsylvania."

Others, even those who have railed against environmental protections in the past, understand that when taken in total, the benefits far outweigh the costs.
Obama acts to curb carbon
"The apocalyptic predictions have been made before, without coming true. In 1990, when Congress approved new measures to reduce acid rain, critics said they would cause electricity rates to climb without doing any environmental good. (I was one of them.) Some anticipated a 'clean air recession'.
In fact, electricity rates have declined in inflation-adjusted terms since the restrictions were adopted, and the favorable results — including lives saved — have been far greater than expected. The economy boomed in the 1990s. A 2003 report by the Bush administration's Office of Management and Budget found that the benefits of these and related air pollution rules were at least 11 times more than the costs."

And some see how the effects of carbon pollution go beyond economics, human health, or even the availability of energy…down to the issues of basic human and civil rights.
Climate change is a civil rights issue
"These vulnerable children end up missing more school because the air they breathe makes them sick. Their parents miss work they can’t afford to lose.
Utility companies have kept these plants running decades longer than they were designed to last because air pollution laws had loopholes that made it cheaper to keep old plants going than to replace them with newer, cleaner power plants. Profits were more important than people."

Meanwhile, others want you to know how far you could reduce the impact your lifestyle has on the quality of life of others.
Tiny-home-in-a-box will turn 200 sq. ft. into a sophisticated dining room AND trashy nightclub
"The CityHome was designed to be an all-in-one furniture module for tiny spaces: It can transform a room from a bedroom to an office to a kitchen, for example, with a literal wave of the hand. This is the future!"

Happy Friday!

JIM URQUHART / REUTERS

Friday Five: May 23, 2014

We not only have to worry about declining yields on some crops in a changing climate, but now we must consider the possibility that food will have lower nutritional value.
Climate change producing less nutritious food, report says
"Climate change initially will produce both winners and losers when it comes to food production, the report said, but research has indicated that growing regions everywhere will eventually suffer from global warming. The report calls on the U.S. government to integrate climate change adaptation into its global food security strategy."

This creates even greater pressures on local quality of life in areas that experience the combined impacts of drought and increased water use due to fracking.
California's thirst shapes debate over fracking
"The drought, combined with a recent set of powerful earthquakes, has provided the momentum for about a dozen local governments across California, the third-largest oil producing state, to vote to restrict or prohibit fracking in their jurisdictions, as concerns over environmental effects and water usage have grown."

Meanwhile, as we continue to debate the "ifs" of climate change impacts instead of moving onto the more important debate about what to do and where, those paying attention see the significant challenge to our food system and overall quality of life posed by the impact increased carbon in the atmosphere has on our oceans.
Oyster farmers and ocean acidification
"This 'ocean acidification' is one planetary response to humans’ burning of fossil fuels, which releases carbon dioxide that is absorbed by the oceans. According to the National Climate Assessment, oceans currently absorb about a quarter of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere, leading to ocean acidification that will alter marine ecosystems in dramatic yet uncertain ways."

Even ideas such as "local food" have their pitfalls as they sometimes lead to inefficient practices or the promotion of resource intensive crops.
'Third Plate' reimagines farm-to-table eating to nourish the land
"In his new book, The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food, Barber proposes rotating the most desirable and valuable foods, like tomatoes, with more humble offerings like buckwheat or barley or mustard greens — which are often overlooked when it comes to dining. Farm-to-table should include different foods and different portions that support the land, Barber says."

If we can make local food reflect all human health benefits, then the question remains as to how to build a system to feed billions of people in this way.
14 pointers toward a better food system: Connecting the (local, sustainable) dots
"My purpose here has not been to make an argument about the value of local food. (That’s been done.) Instead, I started with the assumption that fostering regional food systems was worthwhile, and tried to take the next step by asking, how do we scale this up?"

Happy Friday!

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.

Developers, contractors, and designers should lose their license if buildings do not perform to energy code

We are running out of fuel.

There is no politics behind that statement, it is a matter of fact.  On a per person basis, which is really the only accurate measure, we are depleting resources at a rate faster than we discover new ones.  At our current rate - and even with the addition of newly found natural gas resources through fracking - we will run out of fossil fuels sometime this century.

Although a large portion of this draw-down will result from increased usage in developing countries, we in the developed world still hold the lion's share of responsibility and opportunity.  As the majority of the world's population uses energy to improve their quality of life, how high they have to go depends entirely on us.  We can keep the bar where we have currently set it, or we can drastically lower it to a point where the available resources can support a high quality of life for everyone.

In order to make some level of improvement on this performance, over the last decade, we have made great progress in addressing energy use in our building codes.  Part of this success comes from industry, where product manufacturers and systems designers have found economic opportunity in driving down the energy use of buildings.  Part of this success comes from environmental advocates who have made the social and economic case for continuing to challenge the marketplace.  Over the past decade, the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) has increased in stature and has drastically dropped the amount of energy a new building can consume.  IECC follows closely on the heels of the tri-annual update to the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air conditioning Engineers' (ASHRAE) standard for commercial building energy efficiency, ASHRAE 90.1.  ASHRAE gets input from all areas of the marketplace, and as such, the standard represents the "state of the shelf", and not a leading edge.  This has helped move IECC from a separate standard in the industry to a part of the International Building Code: the standard of care for the industry.  Anyone who designs a building and does not meet the most modern version of IBC risks litigation if problems arise.

The rapid adoption of IECC into state and municipal building codes has moved the needle on improving energy use in buildings.  In just the past decade, we have essentially cut in half the amount of energy that a building can consume and meet code.  The figure below highlights this for a multi-family residential building.  In 2004, that building could use 43 kBtu/square foot/year; that same building starting design today would have to use about 22 kBtu/square foot/year.  There is evidence to suggest that within another decade, all new buildings will have to manage their entire energy use through resources available only on their site.

This raises an interesting question: how do we know during design whether a building will use the right amount of energy when fully constructed and operated?  The answer relies on a practice called energy modeling.  Using the building data (materials in construction, geometry, etc.) and the planned operation (occupancy type, number of people, hours open, etc.), engineers and designers can use any number of computer modeling programs to project how much energy the building will use.  The modeling software has improved significantly over the past twenty years, to the point where we have some reasonable certainty that if the input parameters are right, we have a good idea of how much energy the building requires.

The problem with these modeling tools comes from accountability.  Right now, enforcement of these codes relies on either government employees with little to no training on the product, or consultants hired by the authorities to review.  In the former case, enforcement is almost impossible, and while better in the latter, the limited resources in most municipalities restricts even an expert's ability to do an adequate review.  This creates a nebulous enforcement environment that shrewd business people use to their advantage.  If a designer can tweak a model to create the perception of compliance, but not have to worry about whether the building actually meets that level, then developers that can skimp on elements necessary to meet code will do so and wait to see if they get any enforcement.  I wish I could say this was a small risk, or infrequent occurrence, but it is not.

The answer to these issues comes in the simplest form: hold those who own, develop, build, and design the building accountable.  For a first offense, all parties must make all the necessary adjustments to bring the building up to the most recent code, not just the code at the point when they started design.  For a second offense, each entity associated with the project: owner, developer, designer, contractor, loses their business license.  The risk that comes with each of these penalties would not only drive the market to develop even better modeling tools, but it would add responsibility to a marketplace that currently does not have any.  Many major cities now have energy benchmarking ordinances that require large users to report their energy use.  Combine this with a target energy use to comply with code, and it takes almost no resources to enforce in this manner.  Instead of trying to beef up code review infrastructure, place the responsibility on the professionals, and enforce the penalties.  Good designers and ethical developers will welcome both the clarity and flexibility, and the system should weed out those only looking to take advantage.

Within a decade, the marketplace will deliver new buildings that use no imported energy, and probably will deliver many renovation projects with the same level of performance.  There is no question that this is the way the market is heading.  Given the concerns about how much energy we use, it will have to move there in order for us to survive.  We can help this along, and perhaps even make it happen quicker, if we restore personal responsibility to the process and expect more of those who develop and design our buildings.