Living Green

[Miss_Piggy]

The Bottom Line of the Eco Balance Sheet

The Bottom Line of the Eco Balance Sheet

by David Pogue August 28, 2008 NYT

It's not easy being green.

The first time that realization hit me was when I first heard someone answer the age-old eco-awareness question, "Paper or plastic?"

I'd always assumed that, naturally, paper shopping bags were better, because they biodegrade and plastic bags don't. But the calculus of green is a lot more complicated than that; what people tend to ignore is all the upstream cost of those end products.

The full paper-or-plastic discussion goes something like this:

"Why, paper, because it biodegrades."

"Yes, but we kill 14 million trees a year to make the paper. That's contributing to global warming."

"Yes, but the plastic bags consume 12 million barrels of oil and choke the oceans and sea life."

"Yes, but creating paper bags creates 70 percent more air pollution."

"Yeah, but plastic bags create four times the waste."

"Yes, but it takes seven times as many trucks to ship the same number of paper bags to the stores; they're much bulkier."

And so on. (The real answer to that question, of course, is "neither—bring your own reusable bags." But until U.S. stores start charging 15 cents per bag, as groceries in Europe do, Americans aren't likely to go to that trouble any time soon.)

As I do my best to be a concerned eco-citizen, I'm constantly reminded of these upstream complications. I recently wrote on my blog how much my wife and I love our 2004 Toyota Prius, and how we tried to buy a second one to replace our old Corolla, but were told that there's a 10-month waiting list.

Reader reaction was all over the map, but I was particularly surprised by the anger of the anti-Prius crowd.

For example: "The only reason to buy a Prius is so you can drive around like a smug eco-holier-than-thou."

Well, no, actually. You might also buy one because it's a Consumer Reports favorite in terms of ride, design and reliability. Or because it spews out 90 percent less pollution than a regular car. Or because it gets 45 miles per gallon or better, which reduces our dependence on foreign oil while we try to figure out a more permanent fix.

Calling names like "smug" is a playground-bully tactic that's not helping anyone.

"But it costs more than a similarly sized regular car."

Maybe, maybe not. Our Prius gained us a $1,500 tax credit, and there's no sales tax on hybrids in Connecticut. Plus we buy a LOT less gas than we would for a regular car.

But let's say all of that still doesn't equal the price premium—who cares? I'm not driving the Prius to save money. I'm driving it because it saves a ton of fuel and pollutes a lot less.

The one that really troubled me, though, was this: "The Prius requires so much more energy to build and ship than a regular car, it's actually an environmental disaster."

I actually saw this one invoked on CBS News last Sunday. The correspondent stated "an engineer figured out" that a Prius requires much more energy to build than a regular car.

Therefore, you're being more environmentally responsible if you buy an old used regular car.

"An engineer?" Well, thanks for identifying that reliable source.

I did a little research of my own, and I've found "several engineers" who can easily debunk the first engineer's logic. Read this one, for example (http://tinyurl.com/2oqkv7), and this one (http://tinyurl.com/5dt7f9). The bottom line: the overall Prius environmental impact is, at worst, neutral, and at best, still positive.

Besides, none of these analyses take into account the market pressure that my buying a Prius will create. The car companies have to manufacture *something.* The more the public wants fuel-efficient, low-emissions vehicles, the more the car companies will deliver. Every consumer who buys an older, dirtier, gas-guzzling car is contributing to the status quo. You're not only keeping that old, dirty gas guzzler on the road, but you're also sending a message to the car companies that they should *keep* building dirty gas-guzzlers.

It's become clear to me that the math of greenness has become one of those endless Internet morasses, like red state-blue state, Mac-Windows, or just about anything involving digital photography. Both sides will make endless creative arguments to make their points, and we may never find the bottom line of the eco balance sheet.

Actually, on this Prius point, I think I may have come up with an approach we can all live with: buy a *used* Prius.

And then don't drive it much.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/t...ue-email.html?_r=1&8cir&emc=cira1&oref=slogin

 

[alevin]

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20080723/utilities-say-grid-can-handle-rechargeable-cars.htm

I enjoyed reading this am. Utilities are being proactive, working on adding capacity-be it from coal,wind, solar, ethanol or whatever.

Rechargeable cars, industry officials say, consume about four times the electricity as plasma TVs. But the industry already has dealt with increased electric demand from the millions of plasma TVs sold in recent years. Officials say that experience will help them deal with the vehicle fleet changeover.
So as long as the changeover from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles is somewhat gradual, they should be able to handle it in the same way, Mark Duvall, program manager for electric transportation, power delivery and distribution for the Electric Power Research Institute, said Tuesday.
"We've already added to the grid the equivalent of several years' production of plug-in hybrids," Duvall said at a conference on electric vehicles in San Jose. "The utilities, they stuck with it. They said, 'All right, that's what's happening. This is where the loads are going, and we're going to do this.'"
Since most electric cars will likely be charged during off-peak electric use times, utilities should have no problem generating enough electricity. But since people with the means to buy electric cars likely will live in the same areas, utilities worry about stress on their distribution systems, Ornelas said.

That means consumers will face a lot of choices about when and where they charge up their cars and how much they want to pay for the electricity.
The choice for consumers will come because utilities likely will raise rates to charge cars during peak use times, generally from around noon to 8 p.m., and lower them for charging during low-use hours, industry officials say.

 

[Silverbird]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/07/u...int&adxnnlx=1212850837-j6XQBxIzEQ5cNCjbNWFtAQ



The Colorado River Water Compact determined each state's share of water from the CR, based on approx. 100-year record of river flow, but more recent scientific climate research using tree-ring records going back a few hundred years, tells us the planners way underestimated potential for 30-year long severe droughts to occur and way overestimated the River's ability to reliably provide the expected amounts of water to each state over periods of decades. In other words, they've way overbuilt in California already based on overly optimistic water planning. Fallout will come, sooner or later, maybe starting now. People who can't hang onto their homes and end up leaving, may end up being grateful in years ahead.

Adding to the pressure on both food and water supply with corn biofuel production works for me as a very shortterm partial solution to nearterm pressure on longterm finite oil supply, maybe. What's short-term? Regional markets may figure that out before global markets do.

Water wars in California date back even to the 70's when I was growing up there, the San Jocquin (ok can't spell it) Valley, one of the main growing areas of California, has wonderful weather and not much rainfall. Add to that residential demand and you've got a champion big mess. Maybe they should start investing in de-salinlinization (ok, I can't speel that either) plants like Saudi Arabia; though I doubt that's going to work for big Ag.

 

[Silverbird]

why none here? We've got LOTS of geothermal areas!

Hmmm...wonder if that joint venture with Weyerhaeuser has anything to do with biofuels from cellulose? Paper byproduct? Now that would be cost-effective!

Well, actually the Philippines and Indonesia have more geothermal near the surface than we do - lots of earthquakes, volcanos and the suchlike. Hawaii might be do-able but in a limited fashion due to the instability of the volcanos, but since Geothermal does not travel well that would be a local answer only - when they figure out where to put the equipment so Kali doesn't decide to burn it up. Iceland is the testbed for everyone, the whole country has a very thin crust over the mantle. I'm not saying it's not a good alternative for parts of the U.S., but there are many parts of the U.S. it is not a good answer because the mantle is so far underneath the crust.

JV with Weyerhaeuser - very possible, you need a source of test material to try out different processes.

 

[alevin]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/07/u...int&adxnnlx=1212850837-j6XQBxIzEQ5cNCjbNWFtAQ

PERRIS, Calif. — As California faces one of its worst droughts in two decades, building projects are being curtailed for the first time under state law by the inability of developers to find long-term water supplies.

Water authorities and other government agencies scattered throughout the state, ...have begun denying, delaying or challenging authorization for dozens of housing tracts and other developments under a state law that requires a 20-year water supply as a condition for building.

California officials suggested that the actions were only the beginning, and they worry about the impact on a state that has grown into an economic powerhouse over the last several decades. ...The state law was enacted in 2001, but until statewide water shortages, it had not been invoked to hold up projects.

While previous droughts and supply problems have led to severe water cutbacks and rationing, water officials said the outright refusal to sign off on projects over water scarcity had until now been virtually unheard of on a statewide scale.

“Businesses are telling us that they can’t get things done because of water,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, said in a telephone interview.

On Wednesday, Mr. Schwarzenegger declared an official statewide drought, the first such designation since 1991. As the governor was making his drought announcement, the Eastern Municipal Water District in Riverside County — gave a provisional nod to nine projects that it had held up for months because of water concerns. The approval came with the caveat that the water district could revisit its decision, and only after adjustments had been made to the plans to reduce water demand.

Shawn Jenkins, a developer who had two projects caught up in the delays, ...was not prepared to have the water district hold up the projects he was planning. He changed the projects’ landscaping, to make it less water dependent...“I think this is a warning for everyone,” Mr. Jenkins said.

Also in Riverside County, a superior court judge recently stopped a 1,500-home development project, citing, among others things, a failure to provide substantial evidence of adequate water supply.

In San Luis Obispo County, north of Los Angeles, the City of Pismo Beach was recently denied the right to annex unincorporated land to build a large multipurpose project because, “the city didn’t have enough water to adequately serve the development,” said Paul Hood, the executive officer of the commission that approves the annexations and incorporations of cities.

In agriculturally rich Kern County, north of Los Angeles, at least three developers scrapped plans recently to apply for permits, realizing water was going to be an issue. An official from the county’s planning department said the developers were the first ever in the county to be stymied by water concerns.

“The water in our state is not sufficient to add more demand,” said Lester Snow, the director of the California Department of Water Resources. “And that now means that some large development can’t go forward. If we don’t make changes with water, we are going to have a major economic problem in this state.” ...several factors have combined to make the current water crisis more acute than those of recent years.

An eight-year drought in the Colorado River basin has greatly impinged on water supply to Southern California. Of the roughly 1.25 million acre-feet of water that the region normally imports from that river toward the 4.5 million acre-feet it uses each year, 500,000 has been lost to drought, said Jeff Kightlinger, the general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

“We have bad hydrology, compromised infrastructure and our management tools are broken,” said Timothy Quinn, the executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. “All that paints a fairly grim picture for Californians trying to manage water in the 21st century.”

As the denied building permits indicate, the lack of sufficient water sources could become a serious threat to economic development in California, where the population in 2020 is projected to reach roughly 45 million people, economists say, from its current 38 million. In the end, as water becomes increasingly scarce, its price will have to rise, bringing with it a host of economic consequences, the economists said.

“Water has been seriously under-priced in California,” said Edward E. Leamer, a professor at the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The water authority for Southern California recently issued a rate increase of 14.3 percent, when including surcharges, which was the highest rate increase in the last 15 years. In Northern California, rates in Marin County increased recently by nearly 10 percent, in part to pay an 11 percent increase in the cost of water bought from neighboring Sonoma County.

...Newhall Ranch’s planners decided to forgo water supplied through the state and turn instead to supplies from an extensive water reclamation plant as well as water bought privately. Other developers, like Mr. Jenkins, have changed their landscaping plans to reduce water needs and planned for low-flow plumbing to placate water boards.

Mr. Schwarzenegger sees addressing the state’s water problem as one of his key goals, and he is hoping against the odds to get a proposed $11.9 billion bond for water management investments through the Legislature and before voters in November.

The critics point out that the state’s agriculture industry, which uses far more water than urban areas, is being asked to contribute little to conservation under the governor’s plans. As more building projects are derailed by water requirements, the pressure on farmers to share more of their water is expected to grow.

The Colorado River Water Compact determined each state's share of water from the CR, based on approx. 100-year record of river flow, but more recent scientific climate research using tree-ring records going back a few hundred years, tells us the planners way underestimated potential for 30-year long severe droughts to occur and way overestimated the River's ability to reliably provide the expected amounts of water to each state over periods of decades. In other words, they've way overbuilt in California already based on overly optimistic water planning. Fallout will come, sooner or later, maybe starting now. People who can't hang onto their homes and end up leaving, may end up being grateful in years ahead.

Adding to the pressure on both food and water supply with corn biofuel production works for me as a very shortterm partial solution to nearterm pressure on longterm finite oil supply, maybe. What's short-term? Regional markets may figure that out before global markets do.

 

[luv2read]

Chevron to invest $2.5 bln in alternative energy into 2009
By Wallace Witkowski
Last update: 2:13 p.m. EDT May 7, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Chevron Corp. said Wednesday it expects to invest about $2.5 billion in alternative and renewable energy technologies through 2009. The energy company noted its recently formed joint venture with Weyerhaeuser Co. , as well as alliances with Texas A&M University and the Colorado Center for Biorefining and Biofuels, and its 110-megawatt geothermal power plants in Indonesia and the Philippines.

why none here? We've got LOTS of geothermal areas!

Hmmm...wonder if that joint venture with Weyerhaeuser has anything to do with biofuels from cellulose? Paper byproduct? Now that would be cost-effective!

 

[Miss_Piggy]

Natural-gas vehicles hot in Utah, where the fuel is cheap

Natural-gas vehicles hot in Utah, where the fuel is cheap

By Paul Foy, AP Business Writer Fri Apr 25, 3:06 AM ET

Troy Anderson was at the gas pump and couldn't have been happier, filling up at a rate of $5 per tank.

Anderson was paying 63.8 cents per gallon equivalent for compressed natural gas, making Utah a hot market for vehicles that run on the fuel.

It's the country's cheapest rate for compressed gas, according to the Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition, and far less than the $3.56 national average price for a gallon of gasoline.

"I'm totally celebrating," crowed Anderson, a 44-year-old social worker, who picked up a used Honda Civic GX two months ago. "This is the greatest thing. I can't believe more people aren't talking about it. This is practically free."

Personal ownership of natural gas-fueled vehicles in Utah soared from practically nothing a few years ago to an estimated 5,000 vehicles today, overwhelming a growing refueling network, where compressors sometimes can't maintain enough pressure to fill tanks completely for every customer.

"Nobody expected this kind of growth. We got caught by the demand," said Gordon Larsen, a supervisor at Utah utility Questar Gas.

Utah has 91 stations, including 20 open to the public, mostly in the Salt Lake City area. The others are reserved for commercial drivers, such as school districts, bus fleets and big businesses such as a Coca-Cola distributor.

It's possible to drive the interstates between Rock Springs, Wyo., and St. George, Utah — a distance of 477 miles — and find 22 places to pull off and fill up.

California has more stations but prices are much higher there, the equivalent of $2.50 a gallon for gasoline.

"Utah has the cheapest prices by a big margin," said Richard Kolodziej, president of the Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition, whose members include utilities, Honda Motor Co., environmental groups and transit agencies.

Among major utilities outside of Alaska, Questar is the country's cheapest provider of natural gas for home use. It can offer compressed natural gas for cars even cheaper because of a federal tax credit.

The incentives don't stop there. Buyers of new and some used and converted vehicles can claim their own federal and state tax credits totaling up to $7,000 — nearly the extra cost of a CNG-fueled vehicle.

Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, a Republican, paid $12,000 of his own money to modify a state-owned Chevrolet Suburban last June.

"Converting to CNG gives us an opportunity to promote energy security and support a clean-burning alternative," Huntsman said in an e-mail Thursday. "Plus, who can beat running a Suburban on 63 cents a gallon?"

Mike Gaffa, a 39-year-old Continental Airlines reservation clerk, bought a used Ford F-150 pickup for $10,500. The vehicle came with a bonus: a previous owner added three extra tanks that fill the bed of his pickup.

"I don't even keep track of gasoline prices anymore," Gaffa boasted. "You'd be hard-pressed to find another vehicle that can go 600 miles on a fill-up."

And when he runs out of natural gas, he can switch over to a regular gasoline tank for a total range of more than 850 miles.

Utah has caught the attention of Honda, which can't make CNG-equipped Civic GXs fast enough at an Ohio plant. For now, it makes the compact available for sale to individuals only in California and New York, but executives say Utah could be next on their list.

Aside from fleet sales, no other automaker offers a CNG-powered car in the U.S.

Most Utah buyers must turn to the used-car market. They are tracking down vehicles on the Internet, some made earlier by the Detroit automakers. Some dealers here are hauling used CNG vehicles to Utah by the truckload.

"The demand in Utah is huge," Kolodziej said. "It's sucking all the used vehicles from around the country."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080425/ap_on_bi_ge/utah_natural_gas_vehicles

 

[Miss_Piggy]

Reducing the Amount of Juice Electronic Gadgets Consume

By DAVID POGUE April 24, 2008

"Vampire power" has been bugging me ever since I first heard of it.

It's the juice consumed by electronic gadgets even when they're turned off (also called phantom loads, standby power or leaking electricity). They just sit there, plugged in, sucking electricity, at a cost to you and to the environment. According to the Energy Department, vampire gadgets account for about 25 percent of total residential electricity consumption in the U.S.

Now, these gadgets weren't meant to be evil; they were designed to remain semi-on for good reasons. Lots of them, like TV sets and stereos, have to remain half-awake in case you pick up the remote control and press the On button. Printers, speakers, scanners and other computer gadgets keep one eye open just in case some signal is sent to them from the computer. Hundreds of gadgets remain in standby mode so that their clocks or other status gauges remain up to date.

Nonetheless, vampire power has gone off the rails. Cumulatively, these gadgets cost us, our country and our environment way too much for what they give us.

The eco-magazines cheerfully suggest that we go around our houses unplugging everything every night. That, obviously, is not a suggestion that the masses will be adopting anytime soon.

You can plug certain phantom gadgets into a power strip, of course, and just turn that on or off every night. But that, too, is not a habit most people will stick to for more than about a week.

But come on. If they can put a man on the moon, surely they can come up with an *automatic* solution to phantom power.

APC has taken a healthy step in the right direction with its Power-Saving SurgeArrest surge protector power strip. You plug your computer into the master outlet, and you plug your external gadgets (speakers, printer, external hard drive, scanner, monitor) into the three outlets labeled "Controlled by Master."

You can probably see where this is going: when your computer turns off, the strip cuts power to those secondary outlets as well.

But does that mean that you have to shut your computer down fully every time you walk away from the desk? That would be a little silly.

Fortunately, no. The APC strip detects when your Mac or PC goes to *sleep* (standby mode), too. It actually measures the amount of current being drawn by the master outlet. When it drops below 15 watts, the strip realizes that your computer has gone to sleep, and it cuts power to those slave outlets. It works perfectly on my Mac and my PC.

There are also three non-controlled outlets for things that you'll probably want turned on all the time, like your cable modem or router.

It's extremely magical, and satisfying, to watch this in action. At night, my desk area used to twinkle with an assortment of L.E.D. status lights, a painful reminder that all that stuff was sucking down power and polluting the air for absolutely no reason. Not any more. The lights blink off when the computer sleeps.

The kicker: the SurgeArrest goes for about $28 online. Considering you'll save about $25 per year (the company's estimate), it seems like a no-brainer for anyone who cares about money or the environment.

(Note to Mac fans: The PowerKey Pro USB goes even farther. It has six outlets that can be controlled individually through *software* -- that is, you can press a key on your Mac to turn one on or off, or according to a schedule -- or even by telephone. It's $200 at sophisticated.com.)

The trouble is, of course, that these solutions are just for your computer setup. What the world needs is more smart engineering that cuts power to things like your TV setup, your chargers (iPod, camera, cellphone) and your kitchen appliances when *they* no longer need the juice.

For now, though, I can't recommend the Power-Saving SurgeArrest strongly enough. It's beautifully designed, has surge-protection jacks for your phone and fax machine, comes with a $25,000 lifetime guarantee that surges won't fry your gear and pays for itself in a year. Best of all, it does something about global warming without your actually having to *do* anything. That kind of deal doesn't come along very often.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/24/t...ue-email.html?_r=1&8cir&emc=cira1&oref=slogin