Tag Archives: Energy Soapbox

What I’ve Been Reading Lately

You can likely expect some sort of coherent write-up on some of the following articles of recent interest to me:

I see a link between all three items that I hope to expand upon soon, but wanted to put these out there as topics for consideration.

Followup: Diversity in the Energy Market

In sort of a screwball way, an article in today’s Seattle Times follows up on one of the questions I asked when writing "Diversity in the Energy Market":

[. . .]wouldn’t it be interesting if tomorrow morning, the likes of Shell or BP stood up and said they wanted to eliminate all coal-fired power plants from the face of the earth while preserving the jobs that those plants provide?

The article, which talks about national contribution to the climate change problem and asserts that the biggest culprit in rising carbon emissions is coal-fired power plants, gives an interesting point of view about eliminating coal as a power source:

States that shun coal — Vermont, Idaho, California, Rhode Island — and turn to nuclear, hydroelectric and natural gas, produce the least carbon dioxide but often at higher costs for consumers.

It’s unfair to pin all the blame on the coal-using states, said Washington, D.C., lawyer Jeffrey Holmstead, who as an attorney at Bracewell Giuliani represents coal-intensive utilities and refineries. Holmstead is the former Bush administration air-pollution regulator who ruled that carbon dioxide was not a pollutant, a decision that was overturned recently by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Coal-fired generation is the most economical, least expensive way to produce power almost anywhere in the world," he said. He argued that outlawing such plants would have little overall impact globally; however, the U.S. has long been the leading global source of carbon emissions.

It’s perhaps this last point that is the most important, though my original comment was cast on the international stage. The issue here isn’t really pointing fingers; Washington might be doing better than, say, Idaho, but it’s not about gloating. It’s about realizing that we, as a global community, need to think about the solutions to these problems. If that means that we get to eliminate the top two- or three-worst polluting energy generation sources, great.

Sustainablity: Sheepwalked?

Seth Godin’s blog has an article on what he calls "Sheepwalking", which Godin defines as "the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them a braindead job and enough fear to keep them in line." He then proceeds to give several examples of what sheepwalking looks like and discusses how to change the situation.

This got me thinking a bit about the turnaround that we’re beginning to see in the popular media – being "green" and "sustainable" is becoming the latest rage, with more and more news articles published every week on the subject, some giving examples of citizens who are lowering their carbon footprint with very simple changes to their lives. But to what extent does this reflect change?

Let’s redefine "sheepwalking" a bit. If sheepwalking were instead "the outcome of being obedient to the status quo, giving them many reinforcements that the status quo is correct and enough fear to believe that the status quo should never change", what does this say about sustainability, its proponents, and its detractors? How does this change the image of someone who believes that global warming is a myth perpetrated by liberals, or the environmentalist who has gotten rid of their car in an effort to reduce their impact?

The interesting part about this is that, with "being green" becoming a new expectation ingrained in our collective consciousness, we are, in fact, stuck between two status quos: that of maintaining what we know to be tradition and that of beginning to change our impact on the planet. Are we being sheepwalked either way? Fear is used to propel both viewpoints, and the reliance of both viewpoints on groups that are obedient to those ideals is nothing to cough at. What’s going on as we continue to see this shift? Are we simply sheep being herded in another direction, or is this a true revolution?

Ten Pieces of Literature on Trash (Nonfiction)

Below is my list of some good titles to pick up if you want to come to a better understanding of how waste is treated as a part of our identity. These titles aren’t ranked in any particular order, though if you start with anything, start with Ryan and Durning’s Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things and follow up with Royte’s Garbage Land.

  1. Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash by Elizabeth Royte (2005)
    ISBN13: 9780316154611; ISBN10: 031615461x
  2. Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash by Susan Strasser (2000)
    ISBN13: 9780805065121; ISBN10: 0805065121
  3. Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things by John C. Ryan and Alan Thein Durning (1997)
    ISBN10: 1886093040
  4. Rubbish!: The Archaeology of Garbage by William L. Rathje (2001)
    ISBN13: 9780816521432; ISBN10: 0816521433
  5. The Toilet Papers: Recycling Waste and Conserving Water by Sim Van Der Ryn (2000)
    ISBN13: 9781890132583; ISBN10: 1890132586
  6. This Place on Earth: Home & the Practice of Permanence by Alan Thein Durning (1997)
    ISBN13: 9781570611278; ISBN10: 1570611270
  7. The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken (1993)
    ISBN13: 9780887307041; ISBN10: 0887307043
  8. Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution by Paul Hawken and Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins (2000)
    ISBN13: 9780316353007; ISBN10: 0316353000
  9. Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart (2002)
    ISBN13: 9780865475878; ISBN10: 0865475873
  10. eco-structure Magazine by Spiderweb Publishing, published eight times yearly

I realize the slight irony here of recommending print materials that will, depending on what condition the book is in when you read it and the type of paper it’s printed on, will further the nation’s environmental crisis. This is why I link to Powell’s Books in Portland, OR almost exclusively – this is a great used bookstore that has almost every title you’d ever want. If you want to do even better, borrow these titles from your local library!

Spoonfuls of an Elephant

Very slowly (since somewhere around early December), I’ve been absorbing Elizabeth Royte’s book Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash. This is a wonderful book that makes me think a lot about my freshman year in college, when I did, in fact, follow the trail of my own trash. But that’s another post.

There’s a part of the book where Royte is talking to the manager of a New York scrap yard, and when describing the amount of scrap metal the author was seeing versus the amount of metal processed by the yard in a single year, the manager, Steve Shinn, said that it was "spoonfuls of an elephant". What a wonderful, wonderful turn of phrase that applies to this nation and its approach to energy conservation and environmentalism perfectly, with one minor tweak: we tackle the issue in spoonfuls of a white elephant.

Continue reading →

Where we’ve been…

2006 was a banner year in increasing awareness about sustainability, the importance and significant impact of energy policy, and increasing governmental support for sustainable approaches to living. Actually, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times beat me to calling 2006 the year of green:

“. . . I think the most important thing to happen this past year was that living and thinking ‘green’ – that is, mobilizing for the environmental/energy challenge we now face – hit Main Street.

“No more. We reached a tipping point this year – where living, acting, designing, investing and manufacturing green came to be understood by a critical mass of citizens, entrepreneurs and officials as the most patriotic, capitalistic, geopolitical, healthy, and competitive thing they could do. Hence my own motto: ‘Green is the new red, white, and blue.'”

– “And the Color of the Year Is…”, The New York Times, Friday, December 22, 2006, Page A31

2006 was the year when biodiesel saw drastic increases in popularity; when Wal-Mart began to sell compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs); when the Environmental Protection Agency, for the first time in years, rethought the way it assessed automobile fuel efficiency; when awareness no longer confined itself to a select group.

Up to this point, issues of how we spent our energy resources were on the back burner and not widely understood. No longer can this remain true after the spotlight has focused so squarely on what sustainability means and what still needs to be done.

Sustainability and Travel

Road going off into the distanceRecently, I had the opportunity to take a vacation in the form of a road trip from Olympia, WA to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks in Wyoming. While traveling, I had several chances to think about sustainability and how action on trips can help to reduce the impact of your travels.

When traveling, of course, you’re basically required to expend more in the form of energy than you would otherwise, whether that’s gasoline in your car (or the plane you fly on), the energy expended to check into a hotel, use their resources, and check out, or the energy to simply pack your bag and leave in the first place. Inevitably, you increase your footprint in the world, at least temporarily. So what can you do to help negate that increased footprint?

It seems unreasonable to simply say “don’t ever travel anywhere for any reason, since it results in more waste and energy expended”. Instead, here are some suggestions:

  • If you intend to stay longer than a single night in any one hotel, keep the “do not disturb” sign on your door. This stops housekeeping from cleaning your room daily – you can always reuse towels and sleep on the same sheets. You’re saving some small amount of water and electricity by not needing clean linens daily.
  • Recycle when recycling is available. If it’s not available and it’s practical to do so, carry recyclables with you until you find someplace that does recycle.
  • Pick lodgings that are dedicated to reducing their own footprint through internal sustainability programs. Quite a few of these establishments now exist – you just have to look for them.
  • Consider purchasing a carbon offset for your trip. Expedia has now partnered with TerraPass to offer these offsets when Expedia users purchase plane tickets. There are, of course, many other offset services and sustainability charities worthy of a donation to help compensate for your increased footprint.

Neutralizing Human Impact

I very recently became part of a program called TerraPass, which provides a way to counterbalance the amount of carbon dioxide emissions generated by cars and planes by funding various renewable energy and forestry projects. I purchased a TerraPass Hybrid membership, which offsets the 6,000 pounds of carbon dioxide my Prius is expected to emit over the next year.

Wind FarmTerraPass has long been an item of interest for the media (as well as other offset programs such as Drive Neutral, Climate Care, or the very interesting Better World Club). Expedia recently announced that it would begin offering TerraPass flight offset programs to its visitors booking flights, which is an admirable move, but certainly not the only way of purchasing such an offset (a user of Orbitz or Travelocity, for instance, could simply purchase an offset independently).

These programs feel backwards, because they don’t create a visible result – it’s certainly not the case that you no longer see carbon dioxide rising from that exhaust pipe! So what’s the point? Some argue that it’s a “feel good about yourself” move, which, to some extent, it is. I prefer a more holistic view: this is a way to create positive change and to begin to neutralize your own impact, whether that is through controversy or through the funding of programs that promote cleaner energy technologies and a greener environment. Human generation of massive amounts of carbon dioxide isn’t our only problem, but it is a problem. We must do what we can to help minimize the impacts of our existence in what is, at best, a fragile world.

The Unintended Consequences of Montreal

Photo of a refrigerator.Apparently, the process intended to curb global warming by eliminating chloroflourocarbons (otherwise known as CFCs) wasn’t quite as easy as it first looked. Replacing CFCs have caused some unanticipated consequences, namely making the global warming problem worse. CFCs, commonly found in older refrigerators and aerosol canisters, are used as propellants and fire suppressants, among many other uses, and have been essentially illegal since the Montreal Protocol was put into force in 1989.

Some of the replacement chemicals whose use has grown because of the Montreal treaty – hydrochloroflourocarbons, or HCFCs, and their byproducts, hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs – decompose faster than CFCs because they contain hydrogen.

But, like CFCs, they are considered potent greenhouse gases that harm the climate – up to 10,000 times worse than carbon dioxide emissions.

The Kyoto treaty’s goal is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, motor vehicles and other sources that burn fossil fuels by about 1 billion tons by 2015.

Use of HCFCs and HFCs is projected to add the equivalent of 2 billion to 3 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere by the same year, U.N. climate experts said in a recent report. The CFCs they replace also would have added that much.

“But now the question is, who’s going to ensure that the replacements are not going to cause global warming?” said Alexander von Bismarck, campaigns director for the Environmental Investigation Agency, a nonprofit watchdog group in London and Washington, D.C. “It’s shocking that so far nobody’s taking responsibility.”

“A massive opportunity to help stave off climate change is currently being cast aside,” he said.

The U.N. report says the atmosphere could be spared the equivalent of 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions if countries used ammonia, hydrocarbons, carbon dioxide or other ozone-friendly chemicals, rather than HCFCs and HFCs, in foams and refrigerants. Such alternatives are more common in Europe.

— “Ozone fixes prove worse for warming”, The Associated Press, August 21, 2006

Solutions, however well intentioned, must always be crafted in such a way as to ensure that implementing that solution always has a net positive impact. Certainly, the elimination of CFC is a good thing – with unintended side effects. The Montreal Protocol was somewhat short-sighted by only targeting CFCs in its ban, but was an essential starting point. It’s time to go further and ensure that ozone-depleting substances are phased out entirely, no matter what their use or origin.