Views from K2

Several weeks back, I mentioned that I was taking a class at Stanford entitled, “A Practical Guide to Building a Sustainable Energy Plan for California.” Well…the class is now finished, and I thought I’d share a few tidbits from my experience.

The class was taught by Sally Benson, Executive Director of Stanford’s Global Climate and Energy Program. The GCEP has recently been folded into the new Precourt Institute for Energy, a multi-million dollar research institue created this January to focus on Energy issues. The course ran for ten weeks, with the overall intention of equipping students with the knowledge and tools to devise plans that would both a) meet California’s energy needs, and b) reduce green house gas emissions (GHG) significantly (90%) by 2050. Our curriculum was as follows:

week 1:  History, lingo and science behind global warming
week 2:  Energy 101
week 3:  Energy Use & sources
week 4:  Overview of California energy usage & sources
week 5:  Different ways to approach energy plans
week 6:  Wind
week 7:  Transportation overview and means of reducing corresponding GHG
week 8: Carbon capture & sequestration
week 9:  Solar & Geothermal
week 10:  Final projects (groups to develop and present plans)

When I signed up for the course, I fully expected to spend a lot of time talking about alternative energy and how we could power the world with solar panels and wind turbines. In reality, the class spent much more time talking about the fundamentals of energy itself and its correlation to GHG.  What I learned is that the problem is more complex, dire and perversely more fixable than I imagined. The key is to understand that there is no one silver bullet that will solve all of our problems. It’s not just wind, or solar, or hybrid cars, it’s a concerted and integrated approach that includes Conservation (using less energy), Efficiency (getting more from the energy we do use), Alternative Energy as well as Decarbonization (proactively removing carbon from the air).

As a matter of fact, one of the most striking elements that came out of the class is just how important Efficiency is in the general equation. I was astounded at the absolute waste that occurs across all spectrums - from generating electricity, to the gas burning in our car, to the electricity that our computers are sucking down when we’re asleep. The importance of improved power grids, smart meters and better batteries became much clearer, and my Germanic nature was absolutely cringing at the untidiness of all that waste. Innovation along the lines of efficiency will be key to ensuring that we can accomplish sustainable energy systems.

The class was broken up into groups of about six students, and each group was required to present a California energy plan on the last day of class. The plans were broken up into several standard sections, including Electricity (generation), Residential, Commercial, Industrial and Transportation, again, with the goal to both meet California’s estimated energy demand while simultaneously reducing GHG by 90%. All of the plans essentially consisted of a mix of the four key elements above, and some of the plans had a few more extreme  ideas:

Population Control:  The desire to tamp down GHG is made more challenging by the fact that California is obviously experiencing a steady population growth. One group suggested implementing policies that were aimed at keeping our population more steady. Specifically, they cited research that stated women who had their first child between the ages of 18-24 were more likely to have large families. The group proposed that the state provide educational incentives to women who hold off having kids until they’re 25 or older. Personally I think this would be nigh impossible to pass (punishing single moms! encouraging girls to have abortions!), but I thought it was daring of them to think about it.

All-Electric Cars: Two groups included plans to essentially convert 100% of California cars to electricity over the next 40 years. Transportation accounts for a disproportionately large percentage of GHG in California (40%) - we do love our cars, we live in these large urban sprawls, and are blessed by mild winters (many cold/hot states emit a large percent of GHG in heating/cooling). One idea that our group had was to enforce a per residence car limit, or even better, to enforce a household fleet-averaged MPG limit (ie, if you have one car that is a gasoline hog, your second car must be incredibly efficient such that your household-averaged MPG is below a certain level.)

Hydrogen Power: One challenge associated with renewables is transmission and downtime. How do you get the collected solar energy from the Mojave to San Jose? What happens when the wind stops blowing and the turbines are stalled - what can we use to fire up our computers and boil our water? One group proposed using renewable energy to create Hydrogen, and then transport that hydrogen using existing natural gas pipelines (California’s principle energy source currently is natural gas).

All CFLs: We’ve all been encouraged and exhorted to switch, but one group stated that they would actually outlaw incandescent lighting by 2011 and make CFLs mandatory for everyone.

Bottled Water Tax: These same revolutionary folks also put forth a 100% tax on bottled water - that sure would cut down on Perrier usage I’m sure…

Citizenship Requirements: The gent heading up the residential section in our group asked that energy and environmental knowledge be required for folks to gain US citizenship.

My particular research topic was California Industry, and my analytical friends will either cheer or groan to hear that number one on my list was measurement, measurement, measurement! Better metrics, standardization, benchmarks and inter- and cross-industry comparisons. I guess all those years of online analytics really influenced me after all. I took a look at where industrial GHG were coming from and overlaid that with sector contribution to the state’s GDP, and a few things popped out:

• The oil & gas industry account for roughly 40% of all of California’s GHG (extracting and refining oil and gas are incredibly energy-intensive)
• The cement industry, while employing just 2,000 folks and contributing a fraction of the states GDP emits 6% of the emissions (again, cement manufacturing requires a huge amount of heat)
• Livestock (essentially cow poop and burbs) contribute 11% of GHG and less than half of one percent of total GDP

Now obviously we can’t get rid of Chevron, the dairy industry, or even the cement manufacturers, for that matter (we’d just have to import the stuff to build our bridges and building and roads), but understanding what some of the cost/benefits are seems to be a nice starting point for more efficiently targeting key industries.

All in all it was great to see the myriad approaches that the teams brought to the table, and notable that not one team wimped out and said that it just couldn’t be done, despite the incredibly challenging nature of the task. This quarter I’ll be learning about more environmentally-friendly ways to extract, refine and transmit oil and natural gas - should be a great cocktail party opener - ha!

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California, education, Energy, Stanford

If this title sets your heart all aflutter for Sting in his glory days,  then you’re entirely too old for your own good. If, however, it brought to mind the funky, relatively new advertising campaign from Crispin Porter geared at educating the masses about clean(er) coal, then you ARE the young, hip cool thang I knew you to be.

Flash banner ads along with video banners have been popping up on all of the environmental blogs and sites. The banners bring to mind that gum commercial in which the Australian woman dressed as a 60’s go-go dancer moves about freshening people up that find themselves in dirty (meaning grimy) situations. Click through to the flash site, and you’ll see a lovely little yellow canary flitting across a solid black background. The canary runs into “reality” in the form of a harsh statistic, and it dramatically crashes to the ground where its expires - complete with little x’s over the eyes. I found the replay function completely addictive. The group behind the campaign calls itself the “Reality Coalition” and consists of many leading environmental advocacy groups, including Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection, League of Conservation Voters, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club.

I haven’t had a chance to draft a 101 post on clean(er) coal, yet, but in a nutshell, it refers to a process by which coal mines can be made and/or retrofitted to spew less noxious gases into the air. The controversy is, of course, that there really is no such thing as “clean” coal, just “clean-ER” coal. And whilst the process may help with some global warming issues, there are still a myriad of horrible environmental impacts associated with coal mining outside of increased global warming.

Proponents of clean-er coal argue that the US needs to factor coal into our national energy portfolio as we have loads of the raw material (again, noticeably in the most beautiful, wildlife-laden areas), and it’s a cheap way to supply folks with the watts they need. I suspect that unless the alternative energy solutions ramp up and cost down quickly, clean-er coal may still be on our horizon for the near term.

The agency has released three spots so far: “Reality,” “Smudge,” and “Clean Coal Clean.”  The latest spot was directed by the Coen brothers, no less. I love it,  so I’ve put it here for you to enjoy!

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advertising, coal

Mark your calendars now, for on March 28th, the World Wildlife Fund is leading their third annual “hour of darkness.” No, not a satanic cult rite, but in fact a short, global shout out that folks everywhere care about this big orb we live on. For one hour on Saturday night (8:30-9:30pm local), you’re asked to turn off all your lights. I personally plan on spending that time productively soaking in a bath in candlelight and sipping a glass of wine. Maybe I’ll even wind up my emergency radio for some tunes. So turn ‘em off people! You can do it.

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conservation, earth hour, electricity, Energy, lights, wwf

Capturing energy from the sun? Been there. Harnessing the power of wind. So yesterday. For those of you out there on the bleeding edge - the foks who think blogs are passe, only attend events that are flash announced on twitter, and were driving their priuses long before the rest of us knew how to pronounce the word photovoltaic (foh-toh-vol-tey-ik), this post is for you. Here are some of the more “out there” means of harnessing energy that should keep you newbie junkies fixed up.

Dance Dance Revolution. I first read about this nifty contraption when we were brainstorming event ideas to augment last year’s Outside Lands festival. I was dying to assemble a people-powered pen filled with machines that allowed folks to power up their mobile devices with truly human energy. The idea is that you lay down a carpet of springs under the dance floor that contract when people stomp and deliver energy upon release. The electricity created by the dancers can then go to power up disco lights, DJ stations, bar lights, etc etc. Sustainable clubbing. whoo hoo! (the same concept - capturing the energy of footsteps - has also been implemented in Tokyo’s main subway station).

Pull and Play. Forget squishy balls, there’s a new game in town for releasing that anxiety and stress at work - it’s called the Potenco pull-cord generator. You simply pull it much the way you would start a lawn mower, and in just two minutes of pulling, you can charge your iPod for six hours of play time. I suppose you’d have to switch from left-handed to right-handed so as not to become popeye-like in one arm, but I love the simplicity and ease of turning my afternoon cookie into a computer charge. AND, of course, the greatest use for these simple puppies is in the developing world, where infrastructure and resources are scarce. Seems like the smart folks at Popular Mechanics agree as they named the Potenco generator one of the 10 most brilliant gadgets of 2008.

Hamster Power! No, not a rallying cry for abandoned house pets, but a new breakthrough in an important piece of the energy puzzle: nanotechnology. Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology threw a nano-wired coat onto their lab hamster and let him do what he does best - run the wheel. The little guy’s frenetic sprinting generated a whopping 0.5 nanoamps, which isn’t enough to power your TIVO or toast a piece of bread, but is enough to power medical nanodevices. These little gizmos will be able to provide crucial monitoring from inside your body and provide invaluable biomedical feedback to doctors such as high blood pressure and early signs of cancer. (on a side note, the researchers originally tried rats, but wouldn’t you know it, the lazy bastards wouldn’t move.)

Functional Furniture. What if you could make electricity just by sitting around? You might be able to with the help of a new crop of furniture designed to be both hip/cool looking (as we know you bleeding edgers like to be) and green (energy-wise, not color-wise). First up is the patio table / solar generator. This modern-looking black table has a smattering of photovoltaic cells on its surface which can be used to power…stuff…you know…stuff you would use on a patio. Like a margarita blender. For the indoor power-geek in all of us, there’s the eco-rocking chair. In addition to powering your reading lamp simply by gently rocking to and fro, you can boast to your geek friends that your rocker contains both a dynamo AND a flywheel disc. yowza. Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s more comfortable than it looks.

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design, efficiency, Energy, nanotechnology, potenco

Is anyone else feeling the February blahs? I thought that this might be a good time to infuse our energy conversations with a little levity. After all, there’s no reason that saving the planet can’t be enjoyable, too! So to that end, here are a few discoveries that will not only educate and inform, but should add a little light to tide you over til March.

Carbonrally. Forget those silly rivalries having to do with football and baseball. The new game in town is carbon rallying. Universities, companies and even small fry like myself are throwing down and taking challenges to reduce their energy use and ensuing CO2 emissions. After a very quick sign up (cool rallyname and image required), you surf through current challenges and accept those that you think you can complete. Each challenge has a description of a problem, practical ways to solve it, resources you can use, and the effect your change will have on CO2 emissions. You can take on three challenges at a time. My first three challenges are: 1) Composting for three months, 2) Topping off my tires, and 3) Kicking the catalogue habit. I love the last one as they pointed me to a great site (Catalog Choice) where you can stop and/or manage your catalogues! For some reason, I tend to get 3-4 a day, so I’m really excited about having an easy way to both reduce CO2 AND my trips to the recycling bin.

Wedges. We learned about this game yesterday in my Alternative Energy class at Stanford. The game is based on a 2004 whitepaper released by two Princeton professors which outlined how to address the climate crisis using existing technologies. The overall conclusion was that to get the job done, you’d need more than one single silver bullet (ie, solar, wind, or electric cars). It is a large and complex problem that requires a portfolio of efficiency and generation solutions. The game helps players realize the complexity and issues at stake.

Energyville. This is a more interactive and much simpler version of the wedges game. It was developed by the Economist for Chevron, and while probably slanted, it does do a good job of indicating what the wedges game is also trying to point out - this ain’t a one trick pony. The game is a sort of “SIMS” for energy, whereby you are required to pull together an energy system for a fictitious city. there are real-life financial, environmental and political implications for all of the choices, and you can see how your decisions are effected as the years roll on. Oh, and of course you can compare yourself to to other players. I like the ability to compare your town to other players by segment (ie, women vs. men, Americans vs. Europeans, etc.). Search for Kimville. That’s me.

FUNergy. I have found that in general the best, basic and most fun explanations for pretty much about anything are to be found in kids pages! There are loads of great sites out there geared towards the younger (at heart) set, and they usually have better design, cooler colors and fun things like Ninjas, soduku, silly riddles,and instructions on how to make a solar oven out of a used pizza box by a sunglass-wearing, energy aware pooch named Roofus. Why did we grow up again?

So there you have it…go waste some time AND save the planet. It’s a twofer!

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carbon counting, efficiency, electricity, Energy, Environment, games, global warming

I’ve noticed that a lot of the articles about energy efficiency seem to focus on homeowners. Caulk this. Insulate that. Buy EnergyStar. But what of those poor schmucks amongst us who are still renters? We live in old buildings, don’t have a clue where our hot water heater is, and would kill for a washer and dryer, EnergyStar or not! Is there anything that we can do? Yes we can!

My criteria for narrowing down the following steps are not just that they save energy, but that they’re relatively painless. God bless those folks who exhort everyone to wear unprocessed hemp clothing and create a biorefinery in their shed, but the reality is that unless it’s relatively easy, most people won’t do it.

1. Swith your high-use lights to CFLs. Hopefully by now most of you have switched out to compact fluorescent lights, but many still have objections. “They’re too expensive,” “I don’t like the light,” “My old lightbulbs aren’t burned out, yet.” All valid. If you’re like me, there are really only two or three lights in your house that you use A LOT. For example, my bedside table lamp is on maybe 30 minutes a day, while my living room lamp is on four to five hours a night. So start out by just switching those heavy use lights - the kitchen, the living room and the entry way.

2. Use Power Strips. Leaving appliances or electronics plugged in, even when they’re turned off, drains energy. I’ve recently started unplugging appliances that I use sporadically or just once a day (electric toothbrush, coffee machine, toaster). It’s easy to simply plug them in before using. What if you have a whole host of things to unplug, though - that can be a real pain (ie, a computer, a monitor, a printer, and speakers). Get a powerstrip and plug everything into that. Turning off a powerstrip is the same as unplugging. I recently connected all of my “tv items” to a powerstrip, all of my “computer” items to a powerstrip, and my microwave/kitchen radio to a powerstrip. I make sure that these are all turned off when not in use. For those of you with fancy, programmed tv’s, turning off power could be a problem, so my suggestion would be to use a powerstrip for those electronics that are NOT effected (maybe you can leave your TIVO on, but unplug your tv, or leave your tv plugged in, but strip up your DVD player). It doesn’t have to be an all or nothing stiuation. Just try to get as many things unpluggable as possible.

3. Unplug and Play Once a Week. Think how damned productive everyone must have been before the days of the tv and the internet. I know personally that my electricity bill shot up drastically the month after I was laid off. It’s so easy to get sucked into a night of television or a few hours on the web. But rather than using energy from the grid, go use up your own personal energy. Have a “no electronics” day once a week. No computer. No tv. No stereo. Take a walk. Spend the night reading a book. Hang out with friends. Stargaze. What-have-you.

4. Take Shorter Showers. Even though you might not be paying for it, taking 20 minute long showers is a gigantic energy suck. Do you really need to shower each and every day? Are you that stinky? And if you are, do you really need to wash your hair every day? Odds are you can just rinse it and be good to go (better for you anyway according to most hairstylists). Do you need to shave your legs, underarms and netherparts every day or can you skip a day or two? Can you turn the water off while you’re shaving? Use less soap so you don’t have to rinse as much. Don’t let the shower run for five minutes to “warm up” while you’re standing outside.

5. Compost. This tip is for San Francisco folks, as composting is probably not practical or easy for other apartment dwellers, yet. But  San Francisco has a really fabulous residential composting program. You simply save your food scraps, napkins, coffee grounds, etc. in a separate bucket, and empty them into the green bin. If you’re apartment doesn’t have a green bin, ask your landlord to get one - it’s just a simple call to sunset scavenger. You can use empty milk cartons to collect your waste, but I personally like the fancy little metal pails with stink catchers. You can also line the pail with compostable bags, but really what’s the point? A simple rinse in the sink will get rid of any muck, so why waste the $$ or the natural resources on bags.

6. Get Your Own Mug. You would think that this one would be a cinch for most people, but it’s not. There’s something so convenient about wandering into the coffee store on the way to work and just tossing the cup after you’re finished. But if you get coffee every weekday, that’s 250 cups, sleeves and lids that you’re using each year. Ouch. So treat yourself to a really cool mug/thermos that makes you WANT to use it instead of paper. Here are a few to choose from:  KISS, Elvis, Faux Cup, Love not War, Retro Owls, Glacier Park, Baby Goth, Me Gusta.

7. Put on Some Clothes! Yes, we know you like scampering around the apartment in your skivvies, but it’s WINTER for pete’s sake! I’m amazed that so much of the literature advises folks to turn DOWN their thermostat to 68 degrees. What, are they living in a greenhouse? There’s no reason for your house to be warmer than the mid 60s (unless you’re very old or have a prescribed circulatory issue, at which point I suppose I’d give you a break). Throw on a sweater and curl up with a nice cup of hot tea. And if you’re still cold, start moving. Convert some of that “stored energy” on your thighs into some heat by way of vaccuming, walking or reorganizing your sock drawer.

And, in that spirit, I’m going to power down, put on some heavier fleece and take Lucy for a walk!

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Add new tag, CFL, efficiency, electricity, Energy, power

You’ve probably seen chatter going back and forth in the news about Obama’s new effort to jump start the economy. His stimulus package, formally called the “American Recovery and Reinvestment” Plan,  aims to infuse over $500 billion into the economy as well as keep more cash in our pockets by cutting taxes. I most certainly will NOT try to tell you whether the darned thing is going to work or not, but I WILL tell you that I spent several hours reading through it this morning and will now share some tidbits and my sentiments.

A chunk of the plan consists of tax cuts: $275B to be exact. But you’re probably wondering how they’re spending that $500B or so, right?  There are a half dozen major categories getting funded, and here they are in order of their share of the pie, along with the major recipients and my flavored commentary:

1. Education (26%)
2. Unemployment Assistance (19%)
3. State Relief  (17%)
4. Transportation (16%)
5. Clean Energy (10%)
6. Healthcare (4%)
7. Science/Technology (3%)

Note that these don’t tally up to 100%. In true keeping with the government, there seems to be $30B “missing” or unallocated - hope it turns up in MY account!

Education. By far the biggest chunk in this section goes to shoring up desperately depleted state budgets. Here in California, there seems to be blurb every night about how schools are being forced to lay off teachers and cut programs. This $$ is intended to help shore up those programs and keep schools afloat. In particular, money is being earmarked to ensure that special education doesn’t get cut, low-income schools keep getting funded, and after-school programs like Head Start can keep chugging along and/or even expand.

Unemployment. There are several line-items devoted specifically to help folks who are down-and-out due to the economic downturn. These include extending unemployment benefits,  providing more job training (especially for green jobs), easing the burden of insurance premiums for the unemployed (by subsidizing COBRA and/or providing Medicaid), and increasing food stamp distribution.

State Relief. The biggest chunk in this category will go towards Medicaid. The feds will be shouldering more of Medicaid costs for the next couple of years easing up strains on state budgets. $1B is also going towards funding the 2010 census (apparently there IS one), and making sure that minorities are not undercounted. (note that states are also getting hefty handouts within the “Education” category as well).

Transportation. Please tell me that California will finally be able to fix up all of those crappy roads without giving me any more tickets! This is the “FDR” portion of the plan, which funds the building and repairing of highways and bridges. It ALSO is home to the infamous “$100MM budget for planting sod” on the National Mall. It was included in a collection of projects aimed at spiffing up America’s “National Treasures,” but has since been removed. This category also contains a smaller, but much appreciated infusion of cash for National Parks ($1.8B), $300MM for national wildlife refuges, $650 for the park service, some change for the Dept of Defense (including $7B for facility construction and repair), a chunk ($6B) to expand public transit, and $4.5B for the Army Corps of Engineers to do water stuff (shore up levies, repair dams, etc.). And finally, love it or lump it, there’s almost $1B in there for “wildfire “reduction” in forests. Hmm….this sounds suspiciously like logging.

Clean Energy. While this category has been getting a lot of publicity, it really only accounts for a tenth of the total stimulus spend. As you probably know by reading my previous posts, there are two sides to the energy coin. Yes, we have to find new and better ways to make the stuff, but we ALSO need to drastically improve our efficiency in using it. Waste not. Want not. A big chunk of this category essentially goes towards improving efficiency and using less.  $11B will be spent on a “Smart Grid Investment Program” that will modernize our electric grid, and roughly $18B or so will go towards making federally operated items more efficient - from buildings, to military bases, to public housing to vehicles. A lot of research is being funded - I like the Advanced Battery Loan (maybe they’ll figure out a way for me to drive all the way up to Boise on just one charge!)

Healthcare System. There are actually a TON of allocations for healthcare throughout the stimulus plan, but most of the others go towards helping people pay for it. These line items work at making it cheaper. Thank God! We can put a man on the moon, handle all of our banking transactions online, and figure out how to get tv wirelessly from my computer to my tv (thank you Roku), and yet I still get handed a clipboard with 18,000 paper sheets when I head to the doctor. And it’s put in a paper folder. Which then needs to be shipped VIA MAIL to another location if I move. 21st Century, people - get in it! Finally we’ll be throwing some cash at moving towards computerized healthcare records - setting standards, making sure that everyone can operate with everyone else and gating it all in so no-one’s private data gets leaked out. Maybe Microsoft will stay in business after all…

Science/Technology. Well hot diggity. Let’s finally get some money flowing towards the smart guys in lab coats and have them figure this whole thing out! NASA’s getting money to help with climate change research, the Department of Energy is going to be funding nuclear research, the National Science Foundation will hopefully now be able to hire some more brains, and the medical types are going to be able to figure out what to do if we all get sent a nasty biological visitor from one of our not-so-happy neighbors. The biggest single allocation, however, wasn’t actually to research but to the installation of broadband and wireless in underserved areas. Again, hmmm…they note that for every dollar invested in broadband, the economy sees a ten-fold return on that investment, but I just don’t see how ensuring that rural folks get DSL will really help things. I suppose it DOES put those cable guys to work, though…. AND, don’t worry you guys, there is $650MM in here to issue more converter box coupons! So you’ll be able to surf channels as well as the net.

If you’re still itching to know more, you too can get and download the full plan at the Committee on Appropriations’ site.

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economy, stimulus

I was flipping through my bills the other day when I paused to look over my electric bill. With all of this talk about energy, I realized that I didn’t know much about my own personal energy use.

I know how much I pay each month to Pacific Gas & Electric, but how much energy do I really consume? Is that a lot or a little? How much am I paying for my energy and how does that compare with others? And where is the electricity coming from before it hits my plug? Is there a coal-fired plant behind my humming laptop, or perhaps a nice field of wind turbines? These are the sorts of questions that a curious, out-of-work individual can spend hours looking into, and I did!

The first thing to mention is that the electricity industry is a complicated mess.  I’m a big fan of metaphors, so here’s one. Imagine that we all routinely drank one, 100% serving of “vitamin C” before heading into work. There is, conveniently, a string of “C” stands right next to the bus stop, and we’re all assigned ONE stand from which we can buy our C. Now many things contain vitamin C - oranges, grapefruits, tangelos - even tomatoes, and every juice stand has it’s own special mix to make up their 100% C serving. Some use a lot of tomato and a splash of carrot. Some are just pure orange. This year, a frost came in early and significantly damaged the orange crop. Suddenly, those C-makers who relied heavily on oranges in their recipe have to charge double as the cost of their raw material has skyrocketed.

In addition, some of the same C sources come from different areas - there are locally-grown tomatoes as well as tomatoes that you can ship in from Mexico. Some have taxes, some don’t. Now impose on this shantytown of C-sheds a whole set of complicated rules and regulations. Say stands on the left side of the street can only buy produce from in-state. Or stands on the right side of the street have to give all their male customers in tweed coats a 20% discount on the the C no matter what it costs them to produce it. Suddenly, the cost of getting the same level of C is varying drastically from stand to stand. Welcome to the utility world.

According to my PG&E bill, I pay $0.11550/Kwh. It doesn’t sound like much, does it?  But how does it stack up to New York or Wisconsin? I sorted the 2007 average electricity rate by state and it turns out that 12 cents is pretty darned high. As a matter of fact, California is the 11th most expensive rate in the nation. My family, most of whom live in Idaho, are sitting pretty with the cheapest electricity rate in all of the US - they paid just five cents per Kwh!

And who pays the MOST for electricity, shelling out over twenty cents/Kwh?! The answer may provide some insight into why Obama is so keen on alternative energy: Hawaii. To understand the variances in these rates you have to look at the “recipe” for electricity in each state. I looked at the energy mix for the top 10 least and most expensive rates, and some interesting patterns emerged.

Those states whose electricity recipe consists heavily of raw materials escalating in price have seen a corresponding uptick in utility rates. Hawaii gets 77% of its electricity from petroleum - and we all know how steep that stuff has become. To put it in context, Texas, home of the oil rig, gets less than 50% of its electricity from petroleum.

Natural gas is another commodity that has seen drastic increases in price, and not surprisingly, states with the highest rates tend to have a large component of natural gas in the mix. California gets most (45%) of its electricity from natural gas (coal is the next largest source, contributing 17%). And while I don’t feel much pain due to my temperate San Francisco climate, I noticed that the states with the highest rates also tended to be those with the harshest winters. Most of New England pays a pretty penny, and I could only cringe thinking of those unfortunates who have baseboard heating.

What I found interesting about the “cheap” states was that the majority were typified not by a diverse portfolio of energy sources, but were usually dominated by just one. West Virginia, which not surprisingly gets 98% of it’s electricity from coal, pays just 5.68 cents. And Idaho, I was surprised to learn, gets the bulk of its electricity from dams along the Snake River - hydroelectric is by far the largest single energy source. Idaho’s neighboring states of Oregon and Washington, which are straddled by the Columbia river, also rely heavily on hydroelectric (73% & 74% respectively), and also are near the bottom of the list in term of rates.

I know that this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to understanding the various influences on energy prices. There are, as I mentioned, regulatory and market issues, as well as the relationship to what industry (tweed coats) is charged for their Kwhs. Then there are a slew of unrealized or potential costs in terms of the environment impacts of various sources of energy. But hopefully this sheds some light on various state motivations behind energy policy.

And now that I know better, I don’t want to hear ANY belly-aching from you guys up there in Idaho about your utility bill (unless there’s a big drought). Cry me a river (then dam it and generate some darned power…)

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electricity, Energy, hydroelectric, PG&E, watt

So far, I’ve written mostly about nifty new ways to create energy. But the supply side is just one half of the equation. The other side is the increasing demand for energy.

While great steps are being made to find new and cleaner sources of energy all around us, the exponential use of power necessitated by new technologies along with the steady rise of world populations means that innovations in supply just simply won’t be enough. The world has got to find a way to reduce individual power use.

Thankfully, this isn’t as hard as it may sound. There are behavioral changes that we all need to make, from taking 5 minute showers, to turning down the thermostat and putting on a sweater. But it also turns out that the traditional way of doing LOTS of things, from generating electricity to heating our houses are incredibly inefficient. So some some “modding,” as they say, can go a long way to helping us achieve those reductions.

The great thing about the energy world, is that it seems as though every truly elegant solution not only provides some sort of efficiency (to produce or save energy), but also provides some unexpected and nifty benefit. Like the algae eating CO2, or the heat-byproducts of the cow manure being used to heat water and clean out stinky barns. A living, or green roof is a perfect example.

First, a statistic:  1/6th of all electricity consumed in the U.S. goes into cooling buildings. one SIXTH! As a long-time resident of perennially cool San Francisco, and a product of a family that didn’t believe in air conditioning, this concept was really staggering to me. But you bet your bottom dollar that were I to live in Chicago or Atlanta or New York, I’d have that sucker fired up 24/7 in August.

But if I were in Chicago, maybe I’d live in one of the hundreds of buildings literally sprouting new green roofs and be saved the bother. For a roof that is covered in vegetation can drastically lower building temperature.

Green roofs certainly aren’t a new concept - there were (supposedly) the Hanging Gardens of Babylon built back in 600BC and more modest medieval, sod-covered houses dotted around the British Isles. But large-scale conversion of city rooftops into urban cooling stations seems to have taken off in the 80’s and 90’s  in Europe and just in the last decade or so here in the States.

Chicago was one of the first cities in the U.S. to support the spread of green rooftops. In the late 90s, then-mayor Richard Daley lost several citizens to a powerful heat wave, and subsequently, while touring Germany, sparked to the idea of plant-cooled buildings. A decade later, the top of City Hall is a lush thriving mass of plants and flowers, and building temperatures have dropped considerably. On my next visit to Chicago, I’m definitely going to work in an architectural tour featuring those green roofs!

Today I visited my favorite museum here in San Francisco, the California Academy of Sciences. The Academy, located in the middle of Golden Gate Park, was badly damaged in the Loma Prieta earthquake in the 80s and had to be demolished and rebuilt to meet new safety standards. After several years parked at a temporary facility downtown, the animals and exhibits were trucked back to a new, modern building, which opened in the Fall of 2008.

The new building (pictured at the top of this blog) is one of the greenest examples of civic architecture, and sports a two acre green roof covered with native plants. With the help of the living roof and a sophisticated, computer-controlled set of skylights and windows that open and close to vent air, the building essentially operates without any electric cooling whatsoever. In addition, the roof soaks up rainwater, 3.6MM gallons of it, to be exact, which is subsequently filtered through soil, collected, and used to operate plumbing, support landscaping, and replenish the water table with clean water.

The roof has seven undulating hills, which I thought were there simply to cover the planetarium dome and for architectural bling, but of course serve a purpose. Have you ever been on a hike and descended off a hill down into a shady valley? It’s colder down there. In much the same way, the hills of the Academy roof serve as wedges that trap and direct air. Outside, cooler air “slides” off the two main domes and is directed down to the atrium in the middle of the building. Waist-high level windows are then opened in the building to suck out warm air and get the circulation flowing. Now who thought of that?!

And, if it works for two-legged creatures, why can’t it work for those with four legs? It can, it can! I found these groovy, well-designed doghouses made by Sustainable Pet - so you can let your eco-friendly fido chill in style. You’ll just need to train them not to pee on the roof, I suppose.

(on a total side note, you can also tune into the Academy’s “PenguinCam” to see the flippered critters from afar…I really just like saying the word “penguincam” penguincam, penguincam, penguincam…)

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architecture, Cal Academy, efficiency, electricity, Energy, green roof