Wind Power for Everyone!?

by Dave Rochlin - www.ClimatePath.org

I recently posted on the Cape Wind project, which will be built in Nantucket Sound. If it's like most other wind projects, you'll still be able to buy the energy it generates, whether you live as far away as California, Florida, or even Germany.

Extra long distance transmission lines? No, not quite. With the help of renewable energy credits (RECs), even if your utility can't sell you wind generated electrical power, you can buy it anyway. In fact most utilities that claim to offer a"green energy" option are actually selling you the same old electricity bundled with RECS. Not everyone seems to be aware of this.

Renewable energy sources are typically more expensive, and not everyone wants to pay the premium, so the demand for renewable energy isn't always in the areas where it's produced. The simplest way to think of RECS is that you have the opportunity to buy the green energy that local buyers are not. As the EPA puts it: "RECs provide buyers flexibility in procuring green power across a diverse geographical area. This flexibility allows organizations and individuals to support renewable energy development and protect the environment when green power products are not locally available. "

Being a savvy wind buyer:
Utilities don't always make it easy to see where your support for the renewable piece goes or how much it really costs. The Con Ed utility in New York, for example will charges you an extra 2.5 cents per kWh for wind, because the power is generated 'locally'. It's actually sourced from wind farms in New Jersey and Pennsylvania owned by a utility group, energy marketer, and a recently liquidated Australian private equity firm. Sourcing nationally from third parties is typically cheaper (half the price or less), because the RECs supports wind projects where they are most cost effective (e.g. lots of wind, lots of land), and are replacing the dirtiest energy sources. My organization ClimatePath chose to offer RECs from a specific project in North Dakota (the Langdon Wind Farm), since North Dakota has the greatest wind generating potential of any state, but historically gets most of its electricity from coal. This makes it the ideal place to use wind power for the greatest impact. In our case, as for a few other REC providers, you also acquire the REC benefit via a non-profit, so it's a tax deductible transaction.

How much green?
Each power grid and utility has a different mix. 80% of your energy is already green in the state of Washington, but less than 20% in New York. If you are committed to green energy, you only need to buy RECs for the portion that your utility does not deliver. If you use 10 mWh per year, that means buying 8 mWh of RECs in New York, but only 2 mWh in Washington. State by state renewable information is available here.

Being a savvy consumer:
For individuals, buying green energy/RECS is simply stepping up and saying that "I value renewables enough to pay a premium." But for companies, it can lead to some mischaracterizations. One wind provider gave this advice about how businesses should talk about RECS to avoid 'greenwashing':

Do say:
We support wind power.
We are supporting the growth of renewable energy.
We offset 100% of our electricity with wind power.

Avoid saying:
We are wind-powered.
Our electricity is sourced only from renewable energy/wind power.
We use 100% wind power.

Good advice, but unfortunately this message often gets lost. Silk Soy Milk, for example, has been a leader in supporting wind energy via RECs. But their marketing department hasn't quite gotten the message about how to talk about it. A recent marketing piece I saw said "Silk is made using 100% wind energy". Unfortunately, this implies that Silk generates the wind on site. As a consumer, you should insist on more transparency and investigate claims from firms that use green in their marketing.

Is this all necessary?
Just as we need to encourage and fund rainforest preservation in Brazil and Costa Rica, we need to encourage wind and solar energy use where its practical to install it. We can either continue to wait for government solutions (which will cost you anyway) or use conservation, RECs, and offsetting to accomplish that goal. As the saying goes, if you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

Photo copyright: Adapted by ClimatePath from http://www.flickr.com/photos/shaireproductions/ / CC BY 2.0 All rights reserved.

There Once Was a Wind Farm From Nantucket: Rethinking Energy Production

By Dave Rochlin - www.climatepath.org
Originally posted on care2.com

The state of Vermont is poised to shut down the Yankee nuclear power plant, after months of underground tritium leaks, and misleading statements from Entergy's local management team.

A BP drilling rig explosion will lead to as much as 4 million gallons of crude oil leaking out into the Gulf of Mexico, threatening wide-scale coastal damage.

29 miners were killed this month in an explosion in a Massey Energy coal mine in West Virginia.

You would think that these messes would have the public - and especially environmentalists - running towards wind power as a solution...without even factoring in the climate change benefits of renewable energy. Yet in Cape Cod, some environmental groups and residents are fighting hard to overturn approval of the nation’s first offshore wind farm. The Cape Wind project will build 130 turbines covering 25 square miles of Nantucket Sound. As the New York Times reports, the offshore wind farm would lie about 5 miles from the nearest shore on the mainland, and about 13 miles from Nantucket Island. The tip of the highest blade of each turbine would reach 440 feet above the water.

Is anyone seriously more concerned about 400 foot towers 5 miles off shore than they are with oil spills and radioactive leaks ino the water tables? The answer seems to be yes.

As one resident put it, "I’m 100 percent for alternative energy, but just not in Nantucket Sound.” The movie The Age of Stupid also documented similar attitudes in the UK. The term for this is NIMBY (Not In My BackYard), a sort of reverse tragedy of the commons. The tragedy of the commons describes "a situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently, and solely and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this to happen." In this case, the individuals will prevent a common resource from being created, but the outcome is the same.

If we're serious about renewables, this sort of thinking has to change. Dams, turbines, and solar panels visibly alter local vistas and ecosystems, so there is a perceived and visible negative impact to renewables. In contrast, most of us don't see mountain top mining, fossil fuel related CO2e emissions, or where spent nuclear reactor fuel goes to slowly die over thousands of years. It's also much more convenient for energy to be produced somewhere else and transported - inefficiently and at great expense - to where we use it. Everyone wants wind power, but not always the windmills.

My friend Rosie, who grew up in Nantucket, has a more enlightened view: "Cape Wind will certainly diminishes the vista, but that's the price we have to pay to get clean energy. It's better than an oil spill, a nuclear accident, air pollution, and war." She's actually more concerned with a second issue raised by opponents to Cape Wind: that a private firm - Energy Management Inc. (EMI) is developing the project, and plans to make money at it. But both Vermont Yankee and the leaky oil rig in the Gulf are also private enterprises. If cleantech is going to succeed, private firms will need to have the opportunity to make profits. A lot of speculative capital is needed to scale up new innovative approaches and the delivery of clean energy.

It's clearly time to change how we think of electricity production. When it comes to farming (roughly 1% of the US economy) we want to buy local, know where our food comes from, and support a vibrant private sector. Since energy expenditures are 6-8% of our economy, maybe we should be thinking along the same lines.

Photo copyright: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bossco/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Is the nuclear option really the answer to climate change?

By Dave Rochlin - originally posted on care2.com

In President Obama's recent state of the union speech, he called for "building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country." While he specifically called out what he referred to as clean energy, the speech made no mention of renewables, and gave only token acknowledgment to the idea of conservation. Is the nuclear option really our best option?

The issue of expanding nuclear power is a divisive one, even within the environmental movement. Greenpeace responded to the President's speech by saying:

"Nuclear power is neither safe nor clean. There is no such thing as a "safe" dose of radiation and just because nuclear pollution is invisible doesn't mean it's "clean." For years, nuclear plants have been leaking radioactive waste from underground pipes and radioactive waste pools into the ground water at sites across the nation."

To prove their point, they highlighted a recent New York Times article covering the rapidly rising levels of radioactive tritium in the groundwater surrounding Vermont’s sole nuclear power plant. This has raised doubts in the minds of many former supporters of the plant.

On the other side of the issue, one of the co-founder of Greenpeace - Patrick Moore - is now co-chairman (along with former Bush-era EPA administrator Christie Todd Whitman) of the Nuclear Energy Institute's Clean and Safe Energy Coalition.

As Moore told Wired Magazine:

"We failed to distinguish between the beneficial uses of the technology and the evil uses of the technology...Greenpeace is against fossil fuel, nuclear and hydroelectric power. Those three technologies produce over 99 percent of world energy. What kind of a path to a sustainable future is that? We're bringing people at the municipal and state levels together to help convince the American public that nuclear energy is a key technology for the future."

He also told another interviewer:

"Even though nuclear does create waste, that waste is very successfully contained – it is not leaking out, it is not harming anybody. On the other hand, emissions from fossil fuel combustion for energy and transportation are harming people."

A few other environmental champions have also take this positon.

But while Mr. Moore declares success, is he wrong to ignore Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, the 100,000 gallon radioactive coolant leak at TVAs Sequyah plant, or the smaller incidents in Japan, France and the former Soviet Union? Or are the rest of us burying our head in the sand about the realistic options for reducing fossil fuel consumption?

My own views are best captured by a recent episode of The Simpson's, which describes nuclear power as:

"The cleanest energy there is, except once in a while, but then lookout."

That pretty much says it all.

There's been amazing progress in solar, wind, geothermal and other renewable technologies, and conservation and forest preservation have tremendous potential. But apparently the lure of energy that is clean and "too cheap to meter" continues to divert attention from these ideas. Or perhaps the President is offering his opponents a uranium-enriched olive branch in order to get a climate bill passed. But with the track record and unanswered questions about storage of nuclear waste, I don't think that "mostly safe and clean" is good enough. Let's at least try to find and fund some better ideas.

How You Too Can Be a Climate Superhero.

By Dave Rochlin - originally posted on care2.com

The trouble with taking action on climate change is that the issue is so big. Unlike giving money to your church, supporting your local schools, or volunteering to build houses or work in a local shelter, it's hard to believe that your individual action is making a difference. If you're reading this blog, you're already conservation minded, encouraging action, trying to use your car less, and at least thinking of offsetting or buying green energy, etc. What more can you do?

Well I saw a story in my local newspaper that reminded me of the impact we can have as individuals, simply by refusing to accept the stupid things we see around us every day:

A regular commuter on BART (the SF Bay Area's light rail system) noticed that the lights were on all day every day in the parking lot at her local station. It struck her as a huge waste of electricity, even though it was a "drop in the bucket" to BART. She called and and was told that they must be testing the lighting system. Since she works across the street from the station, she doubted that this was the case...the lights had been every day for months.

Rather than accepting a brush off, she enlisted a local newspaper columnist, that recontacted the transit agency on her behalf. A BART crew visited the parking lot and determined that the master light switch had been inadvertently set to manual instead of automatic. The crew simply reset the switches to automatically shut off during the day and fixed the problem.

Parking lots use a lot of lights, and this simple citizen action had 10 or 20 times the impact vs. just reducing her energy consumption at home. By spending a few hours and showing a little determination, she had the strength of ten men...in other words, she was transformed from mere mortal to superhero!

When you speak up, sometimes others listen. It's great to share these successes, to keep us all inspired that we can make a difference.

Photo: Adapted from http://www.flickr.com/photos/xurble/ / CC BY 2.0